The one about death and despondency
Nov. 21st, 2022 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileContinuing my adventures in Earthsea, I read The Farthest Shore, the third book in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, which is a trilogy but also six books (I’m sure it makes some sort of sense if you have more information). In this one, which again takes place several years after the previous book, Ged is getting fairly old, and times are bad. Despite the return of the ring of Erreth-Akbe in the last book, there is still no king in the central city of Havnor, yielding political instability. More worryingly, magic seems to be failing–reports are coming in from the farthest reaches of civilization, encroaching inward, of sorcerers and mages who have forgotten all their spells, or the spells simply aren’t working. Despondency and madness set in as communities’ control over their environment slips.
Ged, now Archmage of Roke, leaves the mage school on Roke and heads out toward the far reaches accompanied by a young Prince called Arren, who is actually not a mage or wizard of any kind, but just a reasonably sensible young lad who wants to prove himself. They go on a bunch of adventures that are really not much fun and at all, and assorted hardships befall them, before they are able to track down the guy who is cheerfully blowing up the equilibrium of the world in order to chase a rather unpleasant version of immortality. In true supervillain fashion, the guy talks all the other mages into giving up their power by promising them a share in the immortality but really they just go mad and then are dead. (It is slightly more complicated than that and involves some severe philosophical crises, of course.) Ged and Arran seek this guy all the way to the farthest known bit of land in the world, an island called Selidor, and then into the land of death in order to put an end to his machinations and restore things to their proper functioning. I do not know whether the name “Selidor” is a reference or tribute to Tolkien’s opinion of the words “cellar door” (presumably with a British accent) as one of the most phonaesthetically pleasing phrases in the English language, but either way, it sounds very pretty and mystical.
I’m not sure this one was quite as powerfully strange as The Tombs of Atuan but it was nevertheless an excellent take on the whole Hero’s Journey going-on-a-quest-to-become an adult type of story. It was fun to explore more of Earthsea and to have more heroic goings-on involving dragons. There were definitely some more obvious Real-World Parallels in this one than in the last few, which isn’t to say they weren’t there in the last ones, these just felt slightly more… I hesitate to say “heavy-handed” but, yeah, a bit more obvious. It was still good enough that I’m going to continue with the series.
Ged, now Archmage of Roke, leaves the mage school on Roke and heads out toward the far reaches accompanied by a young Prince called Arren, who is actually not a mage or wizard of any kind, but just a reasonably sensible young lad who wants to prove himself. They go on a bunch of adventures that are really not much fun and at all, and assorted hardships befall them, before they are able to track down the guy who is cheerfully blowing up the equilibrium of the world in order to chase a rather unpleasant version of immortality. In true supervillain fashion, the guy talks all the other mages into giving up their power by promising them a share in the immortality but really they just go mad and then are dead. (It is slightly more complicated than that and involves some severe philosophical crises, of course.) Ged and Arran seek this guy all the way to the farthest known bit of land in the world, an island called Selidor, and then into the land of death in order to put an end to his machinations and restore things to their proper functioning. I do not know whether the name “Selidor” is a reference or tribute to Tolkien’s opinion of the words “cellar door” (presumably with a British accent) as one of the most phonaesthetically pleasing phrases in the English language, but either way, it sounds very pretty and mystical.
I’m not sure this one was quite as powerfully strange as The Tombs of Atuan but it was nevertheless an excellent take on the whole Hero’s Journey going-on-a-quest-to-become an adult type of story. It was fun to explore more of Earthsea and to have more heroic goings-on involving dragons. There were definitely some more obvious Real-World Parallels in this one than in the last few, which isn’t to say they weren’t there in the last ones, these just felt slightly more… I hesitate to say “heavy-handed” but, yeah, a bit more obvious. It was still good enough that I’m going to continue with the series.