A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1)

Ursula and I have a complicated relationship. I never love her books as much as I wish I did, but they grow on me after I finished reading, and I think of them frequently. As I was immersed in A Wizard of Earthsea, I appreciated that it was an actual fantasy book, easy to read, no stress no headaches, just adventure after adventure. Yet, I didn't think it was amazing or ground-breaking. It was reading the author note at the end that I started to notice all the subtle ways in which the plot deviates from the classic, without breaking with the genre. Most famously, most characters, are not white, though the theme of race is never made explicit, it just happens to be that way, a detail that could escape readers in a rush. Perhaps more importantly, there are no wars or bad guys - the protagonist is on a quest to regain control of the creature he himself liberated, which can only be won by learning its name - that's a classy twist! The parallels with Harry Potter are clear but superficial: both boy wizards, both haunted by an evil creature, both scarred, both attending magician school...But Ursula's worlds are filled with less details (no quidditch, no lively description of the school, not fanthom platforms) and more poetry and philosophy: names have power, and spells have consequences beyond the wizard's control.

I think I would've liked this more when I was 14.

I don't know what I was expecting with this, but I guess it wasn't a pretty bog standard fantasy wizard novel with all the trimmings, and more than a few tired tropes.

I suppose you could point out that this novel was written at a time when modern fantasy novel basically meant Lord of the Rings, when a lot of these tropes were new, and with this book Le Guin literally invented the young wizard coming of age subgenre.

You might even excuse the patriarchal society of Earthsea — including the shockingly unchallenged assertion that "women's magic" is weaker than "men's magic" — as a reflection of the patriarchal 1960's US society Le Guin wrote it in. Certainly, in the afterword of the edition I read, Le Guin talks about how she felt writing about a young brown-skinned teen wizard who doesn't even rescue any damseled girls, she was already pushing tropes as far as she felt she could if she wanted to get published.

And that seems all fair and reasonable given the historical context. But unfortunately, I'm not sure historical context makes for a good read.

Like I said, I think I would've liked this better in middle school, when I was a much less critical reader and much more prone to getting swept up in adventure.

I did enjoy the ending. It was satisfying in a way that I wasn't expecting. It might've been that I was too distracted by the things that annoyed me to notice the foreshadowing (no pun intended) but I feel like Le Guin held her cards very close to her chest on this one. And it pays off instantly the moment you get there, so I'm glad that I didn't give up on it. I just wish some of the journey to get there had be a bit less tedious.