Tales from Earthsea [#books #reviews]

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Earthsea
← Tehanu
The Other Wind →

Rating: 9.5/10

There was a hearth there, and they would light the fire. People came even from farms across the island to hear the histories read, listening in silence, intent. “Our souls are hungry,” Ember said.

(Page 66)

I love this series. Each book is different from the previous, it brings new things to me, it moves me in different ways, and this one, made up of short stories (usually not a genre I'm very fond of), is no exception! As always in Le Guin's stories, the fantasy component is marginal to the tales of people, injustice, and often social issues.

Five short stories, very different in theme, characters, length, and intensity, some beautiful, others wonderful, all capable of evoking different emotions in their own way.

A truly beautiful book! The only thing I'm sorry about is that the next one will be the last in the series!!!

Quotes

Imagination like all living things lives now, and it lives with, from, on true change. Like all we do and have, it can be co-opted and degraded; but it survives commercial and didactic exploitation. The land outlasts the empires. The conquerors may leave desert where there was forest and meadow, but the rain will fall, the rivers will run to the sea. The unstable, mutable, untruthful realms of Once-upon-a-time are as much a part of human history and thought as the nations in our kaleidoscopic atlases, and some are more enduring.

(Form the Foreword)

This is the first page of the Book of the Dark, written some six hundred years ago in Berila, on Enlad:

“After Elfarran and Morred perished and the Isle of Soléa sank beneath the sea, the Council of the Wise governed for the child Serriadh until he took the throne. His reign was bright but brief.

[incipit of "The Finder"]

Wanting praise, not history, the warlords burnt the books in which the poor and powerless might learn what power is.

("The Finder", Page 2)

The spells were gone, but the people in the tower did not know it, working on under the greater spell of hopelessness.

("The Finder", Page 39)

There’s people all over these parts, and maybe beyond, who think, as you said, that nobody can be wise alone. So these people try to hold to each other. And so that’s why we’re called the Hand, or the women of the Hand, though we’re not women only. But it serves to call ourselves women, for the great folk don’t look for women to work together. Or to have thoughts about such things as rule or misrule. Or to have any powers.

Mead

("The Finder", Page 46)

“The lords of war despise scholars and schoolmasters,” said Medra.

“I think they fear them too,” said Veil.

("The Finder", Page 69)

In the west of Havnor, among hills forested with oak and chestnut, is the town of Glade.

Nella parte occidentale di Havnor, tra colline coperte di boschi di querce e castagni, c'è la cittadina di Radura.

[incipit of "Darkrose and Diamond"]

“The art begins and ends in naming,” he said, which indeed is true, although there may be a good deal between the beginning and the end.

("Darkrose and Diamond", Page 119)

It was raining again, and the wizard of Re Albi was sorely tempted to make a weather spell, just a little, small spell, to send the rain on round the mountain.

[incipit of "The Bones of the Earth"]

The island of Semel lies north and west across the Pelnish Sea from Havnor, south and west of the Enlades.

[incipit of "On the High Marsh"]

The changes in a man’s life may be beyond all the arts we know, and all our wisdom.

the Archmage

("On the High Marsh", Page 194)

Her father’s ancestors had owned a wide, rich domain on the wide, rich island of Way.

[incipit of "Dragonfly"]

What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.

The Patterner

("Dragonfly", Page 254)

This writing does not affect reality any more than any writing does; that is to say, indirectly, but considerably.

("A Description of Earthsea", Page 266)

Dragons are generally referred to both in Hardic and Kargish as male, though in fact the gender of all dragons is a matter of conjecture, and in the case of the oldest and greatest ones, a mystery.

("A Description of Earthsea", Page 266)