A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

Publisher – Gollancz

Published – 1968

Price – Various

Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth.

Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

Reading for me is often about fine tuning. Getting the brain to click with a book. The act of turning words into thoughts, characters and worlds as well as the themes that lie in them. Sometimes it is like staring at those old 1990s puzzle pictures of weird shapes and then a 3d image appears looking at you with depth. Its lovely when a book clicks into place with you. Reading the next of Le Guin’s novels A Wizard of Earthsea I was almost thinking ‘oh dear, this isn’t quite for me’ and then BOOM I go ‘OOOH’ and then ‘Wow’ and then I savored it. Yeah, this was after the initial three novellas read so far a huge step up in quality and it really is an inventive modern classic.

There once was a boy called Duny who lived ina far off island ina  world of many islands. His aunt was witch and saw he had some power of his own and she taught him all she knew. That drew the attention of a wizard who also saw Duny had potential and during his learning his true name Ged was given. Ged showed more promise and was sent to the Island of Roke were wizards are formally trained. But Ged’s desire to prove himself gets him into a dangerous spell undertaking and he releases a powerful dark shadowy force from outside the world. One that Ged is aware of, scared of and runs away from. Ged leaves his school to start his own path and powerful Lords, Dragons, mighty seas and more await but the shadow grows closer and Ged is scared no power found will be more than enough.

There is a lot of delicious complexity going on here that makes A Wizard of Earthsea really stand out; not just as an early YA tale but really how it challenges modern fantasy even in the early 1960s incarnation it was in. Initially though I was a bit ‘nice idea shame about the execution’ as I had been the three Hainish novellas to date but then I realised I was quite quite wrong. What initially out me off was the style. This is the long-forgotten tale of a great wizard being told I past tense. Immediately we know Ged will live, the tone also creates a form of distance that modern present-day tenses would not use it feels very old school. But the more I read that is a feature not a bug. Indeed, the more I read the more it reminded me of the other big epic fantasy getting fame at the time Tolkien’s Rings where an entire world and mythology are being pulled into existence and making you feel like it has always been there even though the world doesn’t exist. More impressive to me is how economical Le Guin’s approach is. We know it’s a vast archipelago of many islands, but we only ever get just enough to make the scenes come alive but with intricate words and images plus slices of myths to make it all feels a much older tale finally come alive. Both authors are taking myths and doing their own spins but for me Le Guin’s approach is the more subversive.

Much is made that Le Guin made Ged a non-white character and that is interesting and at the time unusual but for this entry its not really central to the tale and can be glossed over. There is a mention of white skinned raiders who Ged does see off with an early glimpse of power but most of the time Ged and his world feel more European fantasy than you’d think. With magical schools, villages and ships I was initially thinking so far very young farmboy goes super wizard for the first fifty pages and then what gets interesting is how Le Guin uses the language of folk tales to tell a different story.

Boy with magic causes trouble and gets to save the world. Not exactly a story we’ve not read before in many iterations, but this story is not about having a few adventures prior to greater power and glory. With initial tales of Ged’s powers being mighty and his tutors all saying he is ready for great things it all feels very pat. But that is deliberate Ged is told all this and indeed does start to think he is a chosen one. We see him arrive at his wizard school a little snooty, an axe to grind and he gets a rival that makes his overconfident and impressively his arrogance cases his undoing by releasing the shadow that nearly kills him and indeed brings tragedy to the school. Ged has flown too high too fast and comes crashing down in confidence. What for me makes the book work from this point on is that the journey is not to glory but to realizing to go forward in life you need to know who you are. Ged is a flawed human not a flawless hero

Ged goes off a much humbler person to a remote island and finds very quickly that he is still not all powerful. A simple interlude with a friend of his having a very sick child ends not with magical cures but more death. Ged very quickly becomes a more somber character knowing he is powerful but is now aware magic doesn’t solve everything; he starts to put others in front of how own needs. Le Guin takes set pieces that other books would leave to the end to create a series of adventures where dragons are fought, sinister castles and royals met; and none are easy. Each other him riches and powers at a price and Ged must learn to navigate this. His journey is the harder one ands I loved how magic has a price throughout. Wizards can make illusions of food but not be fed; they can turn into creatures but can lose their own sense of self and right at the heart is the shadow he must face. This is an ambiguous menacing figure of dark power that wherever it appears creates a feeling of numbness that is disconcerting, and we know it has the measure of Ged. But ultimately Le Guin also makes us realize its Ged’s own fear of the unknown; of losing, of not being good enough he must confront and when he realizes that the sense of joy and accomplishment really sings and brings the book to a very satisfactory ending. Not many books make their story personal. Yes, the world can be threatened by this shadow force, but this is far more about Ged realizing who he is and the way that theme comes together just is delivered perfectly. Indeed, the book’s title also works here Ged is ‘A’ wizard of Earthsea not ‘The’ there are many with powers and Ged is very much here learning he is not the hero above all heroes. Other books could learn from this sense of humility.

Delivered in a short but perfectly carved piece of storytelling, this book really stands out to me and is a huge step up in the books written to date. I’m not sure I’d had fully understood the key message in my own teens but as an adult it really spoke to my heart. I can’t wait to visit Earthsea again!