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June 2012I want to give this five stars, but I'm afraid one of the next ones will be even better, and my attempts to rate it higher will cause Goodreads to implode. Or something.On second thought, no. Five stars. Let's do this thing.You've probably read or heard somewhere that you can put a frog (it's a frog, right?) in a pot of water and set it on a stove, and the frog will never notice what's happening until it's too late. So they say. Well, Ursula K. Le Guin writes like that: you open the boo...
Half way through reading The Tombs of Atuan, I was sitting downstairs playing my xBox late at night when I heard voices drifting down from upstairs. I sat and listened to the door muffled murmurs of Miloš & Brontë, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Usually I'd just call up to them and tell them it was time to shoosh and go to sleep, but I was curious to figure out what they were talking about. Even obscured I could tell it wasn't the usual joke fest or scary story, there was somethi...
The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle, #2), Ursula K. Le GuinThe Tombs of Atuan is a fantasy novel by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the Winter 1970 issue of Worlds of Fantasy, and published as a book by Atheneum Books in 1971. It is the second book in the Earthsea series after A Wizard of Earthsea (1969). The Tombs of Atuan follows the story of Tenar, a young girl born in the Kargish empire, who is taken while still a child to be the high priestess to the "Nameless O...
2/19/21 - I'm editing my review. It may seem odd to edit a review for a book I read over two years ago without a reread, but I've noticed whenever I talk fantasy with my friends, I use this book as an example of perfect world building. It's one of those rare novels that the more I think about it the more perfect it becomes. I have no strong desire to revisit the first or third book, but this one may actually go on my favorites shelf. _____If you read my review of the previous novel, A Wizard of
This is a very fine fantasy. I say fine because it evokes many great labyrinthian images, old, old traditions of sacrifice to the Dark Old Ones, and eventually, freedom from the same.There's a lot of beauty here, and while I didn't love it on quite the same scale as Ged's original journey in the first book, it's mainly because I liked the core theme better.Other readers will absolutely take out of this book different layers. I can say that confidently because there are some really beautiful and
"Alone, no one wins freedom."- The Tombs of Atuan* I adore Le Guin's voice and her soul. I hate fantasy. Or, rather, I have told that to SO many people I believe it is true. But, I make exceptions. Le Guin could have writen self-help and business books and I'd gladly read them. She was a feminist, but unafraid to write a book both with a female lead, and a female lead who is helped by a man/wizard. She is interested in power, in evil, in humanity, in big questions and nuanced answers. Her prose
If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Scope Review: Earthsea Trilogy. “Only in silence the word,Only in dark the light,Only in dying life:Bright the hawk’s flightOn the empty sky”Yin & Yang?I honestly don't remember a time when I wasn't obsessed with reading and collecting books. I'd define childhood as a never-ending vacation. A weekend without a week following and reading-time everlasting. I still remember the never-ending days of my childhood. My first date. My first ki...
As the previous book, there is a classic fantasy without classical fantasy tropes. Characters must defeat the darkness, but its their own inner demons and fears not some 'Dark Lord'. Nice writing style and world-building, intriguing plot and interesting characters, but just not my type of read.
This is the second book in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series and once again here I am regretting to read it this much late in my late twenties. I should have done it ten years earlier, however better late than never. I like how her stories mingle facts with fiction or let's say intellect with imagination. She chooses deep topics, but talks about in very simple and gentle ways. And I guess, unlike the first one, this book is more focused on female transformation. Now it is not much about Ged, b...
To me the most beautiful and striking aspect of this haunting and haunted novel is the hesitantly built and fragile trust between Ged and Tenar. Without this trust, without each other’s help, neither of them could get anywhere, could even survive. In her retrospective afterword, Le Guin writes that at the time she wrote the novel she could not imagine a woman being truly independent, and her resolution emphasises interdependence between men and women. She makes the gendered interpretation of thi...
I've read the first three Earthsea books a heap of times, starting when I was at my academic peak (i.e. in primary school). Through-out my childhood readings I preferred the two that sandwiched this one. Looking back it is easy for me to see why: it wasn't about Ged and it didn't have enough sailing about to far flung places (i.e. exploration) in it. In contrast, I have observed that a number of female Goodreaders who are also LeGuin fans, rate this higher than the other two. I can take a guess
