In a hole in the ground there lived the Nameless Ones

[bloodygranuaile]

Last November I finally got around to reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s legendary A Wizard of Earthsea, and this November I borrowed several of the sequels with the intent of reading them at the writer’s retreat. I ended up spending the whole retreat reading Gormenghast instead, but the dark and cold and rain greeting me upon my return to real life this week meant it’s been prime time for curling up on the red velvet couch with some tea after the sun goes down at 4:30 pm. So Tuesday and Wednesday were dedicated to the quietly creepy The Tombs of Atuan, the first of several sequels.

The Tombs of Atuan is the story of a girl who was once known as Tenar, but who, upon being identified as the newest reincarnation of the First Priestess of the Nameless Ones, becomes known only as Arha, the Eaten One. Her life is one of both immense power and extreme subservience to the dark and malevolent old powers of the Earth, and Arha rules over a very small religious demesne consisting largely of vast, dark underground caves full of buried sacred treasures, plus an above-ground compound full of dour women and eunuchs who live a harsh monastic life that seems to consist mostly of home-spinning black cloth and eating lentils. While within this religious compound everyone (or, well, almost everyone) is clearly convinced that the Nameless Ones are far greater and more terrible than the Godkings that rule the Empire they’re nominally a part of, the outside world largely lets them alone–no one has even tried to steal any of their sacred treasures in ages.

Until Ged, hero of the first book in the series, shows up to try to steal half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, the most valuable and sacred of all the aforementioned sacred treasures. And rather than killing him instantly, which would have been the safe thing to do, Arha keeps him alive–nominally because she wants to toy with him and make an example out of him, but really because she is curious–curious about their first real theft attempt in ages, of course, but also curious about the rest of the world, curious about wizardry, and curious about the Ring of Erreth-Akbe and its (supposedly) missing other half. This is much more of a psychological novel than an action novel, with Arha and Ged’s strength tested mainly in two ways–first, for her to decide to leave the caves and become Tenar again, and then for them to actually get out of the caves alive. The Ring, it turns out, is actually very important.

One of Le Guin’s favorite themes is that freedom is scary and difficult, and that is on full display here, especially given that she spells it out pretty explicitly because this is technically a children’s book. Tenar leaves a repressive and isolated religious cult in which she gets to be very important, and goes out to be free in a wide world she doesn’t understand, where she is basically nobody and none of her skills are of any use. The caves whose secret passageways she has memorized have collapsed. She does not herself have any magical powers. She doesn’t even know how to read.

This book was pretty short, clocking in at about 220 pages including the new afterword from 2012 (which is extremely worth reading, if only for the phrase “endemic trilogitis”), which combined with being very slowly and deliberately paced means it’s really not a very long story either. It is nonetheless a powerful one.

Comments

[skygiants]

I read all three of the Earthsea books when I was a kid, but this is the only one I remember in detail, which leads me to conclude that I must have read it multiple times -- it really, really hit.

[bloodygranuaile]

I didn't read it as a kid but it seems like the sort of thing that would definitely hook a certain type of weird young girl's imagination - somehow the vibe reminds me of Monica Furlong's Wise Child which I read approximately five bajillion times?