I really disliked this book. 2/5 stars.
I always thought I would love reading Ursula K. Le Guin. I’d heard good things about her writing from people I know personally and who I follow online. As a fan of high fantasy and science fiction I figured I was the perfect reader!
But then I read A Wizard of Earthsea.
Things I couldn’t stand
Right off the bat, the writing wasn’t for me. The affected tone used to show us this is a world of deep, ancient magic where everything has gravity was distracting and got in the way of me enjoying the story. It felt dated in the way that watching old animated movies feels dated – the style gives it away. I love Lloyd Alexander books that were also written in the ’60s but couldn’t get around the ick that the Le Guin’s writing gave me. (To be fair, this could well be a personal thing – I also feel similarly about The Lord of the Rings.) The inversion of our standard conversational grammatical structure to convey a more serious old-fashioned type of speech kind of killed me – it felt like reading a story told by Yoda. I could never get lost in the plot because I was constantly irritated by how it was being told. For example, there was one sentence I cannot find but read something like “There also he looked” – even if that wasn’t the exact sentence, there are a ton just like that sprinkled throughout the book.
I sound like a major hater, I know…! But I found the story slow, the action only ever got mildly engaging, and the characters weren’t that interesting. And look, I don’t have to like a character to be interested in them. There are plenty of characters I love to hate. Ged didn’t do much for me but make me feel slightly sorry for him. I was never rooting for him or against him. I only read through because I wanted to find out how the drama with the shadow ended. In fact, none of the characters were that interesting. I thought Jasper might become an interesting character later on, but he simply served as tinder for the inciting incident. The otak was probably the one character I cared most about, and I feel like we could have explored their bond so much more.
As far as motives, I first thought they were kind of silly. But then I had to admit, teenagers do be acting like this so maybe it was realistic after all. Ged was young, impatient, and unimpressed with Ogion so he leaves in pursuit of a flashier education. At magic school Ged felt like Jasper was always shitting on him so of course his bruised pride led him to attempt magic beyond his ability. So, points for getting teenage boyhood right.
And the ending was sudden and unsatisfying.
Things I appreciated
Novelty! I think the main mystery and conflict between Ged and his shadow was an interesting one, although (I’m sorry to say it) extremely predictable. It’s appeared in more stories (Credence’s Obscurial in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them comes to mind) but it’s a good, meaty concept…. but I just wish Le Guin explored it more thoroughly 😭 This book has such strong potential to be an incredible story. I wish there was more interaction between Ged and his shadow to illustrate how they were intertwined and each the seed of each other, instead of it just arising from him overreaching his magical ability. More meaningful encounters instead of the simple hunter-hunted dynamic.
I did appreciate that Le Guin makes her characters dark-skinned, though in this world it’s just a superficial attribute that doesn’t give much commentary on real world race relations (she just reverses what we see in mainstream Western media: the “good guys” in the majority are deeper-toned and the “bad guys” in the minority are light-skinned… or am I missing something more here?)
The magic systems were promising. The notion of magic depending on knowing things by their true name is beautiful. I wish there was more exploration of that, and I liked that there were deeper and different magic systems that changed further away from Roke, like the dragon’s magic, the stone’s magic, and the weakening of spells as Ged and Vetch traveled further away from land.
I liked the scope of the first book in that we saw so many different phases of Ged’s youth, from early childhood to his late teens. It’s a fantastic journey.
Lastly, for all the shit talking I did earlier, there were some beautiful passages in the text. At times her pacing and structure is very effective, making the story unfold in just the manner she intends. I just personally didn’t like how she was controlling my reading experience, most of the book.
My favorite parts of the book were Ged’s encounters with his shadow, his time with Petchvarry, his return to Ogion after leaving Pendor, and actually the author’s note at the end. Knowing the author’s intentions behind writing the book helped me appreciate the story more, but that shouldn’t be necessary for me to enjoy the book on its own.
Interesting as the story was, I forced myself through the whole novel just to see what happens at the end. I can’t say I enjoyed it.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion… I wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody. There are far better fantasy novels to read and this might have just been outstanding for what was available at the time. However, a lot of my criticism comes from the writing style so if you can appreciate a story for its bones only, you might like it.
Will I read more from Ursula K. Le Guin? Yeah. I’m actually going to get into the second book of this series, The Tombs of Atuan, before I completely write this series off. And I still want to get into The Left Hand of Darkness which is the one book everyone raves about.
Was I completely unfair to this book? What were your thoughts on it? What should I be reading instead? Let me know.
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