A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Prompts Filled: (2) A bildungsroman

Tags: Ged (a.k.a. Sparrowhawk, Duny), Fantasy, Adventure, Magic, Wizards, Magic School, Coming of Age, Bildungsroman, Quests, Dragons, Seafaring, Sailing, Boats, Rivalries, Animal Death

On the isle of Gont, a boy named Duny shows a great aptitude for magic. After he uses his magic to save his village, and the larger island of Gont, from raiders, he becomes an apprentice to Gont’s resident wizard, Ogion. Ogion gives Duny his true name, Ged, and Ged moves to Ogion’s home and studies magic. But Ogion lives a quiet life and emphasizes patience and restraint, and Ged is young, impatient, and arrogant. Ogion recommends him to the School on the isle of Roke, where he can study under other wizards and learn alongside students his own age.

Ged makes friends on Roke, but he also makes rivals and enemies. On the night of a seasonal festival, his rival Jasper challenges him to raise the dead. Ged, arrogant and proud, attempts to do so, and he opens a rift into the realm of the dead and out of it comes a shadow that attacks him and flees. His teachers warn him that the evil creature will pursue him for the rest of his life and try to possess him.

And so Ged must go on a journey to defeat the shadow he unleashed upon the world and restore balance.

Sparked Joy: 3/5 I am so glad I read this at last. As a foundational fantasy text, it was about damn time I read it. Though much of it seemed cliché to me, I recognize that that’s only because it originated many of those clichés, including magic school and boy wizards. (And apparently also the idea that names hold power? I think that actually originated in faerie folklore, though.)

Something I Learned: I feel like I should have learned a lot about sailing and seafaring, because Ged does so much of it, but I can’t recall a specific piece of knowledge that would help me if I were stranded on a desert island and needed to make a boat or raft to escape.

Something I’m Inspired to Do: I know Le Guin hated it, but I kind of want to watch the Studio Ghibli film…

A Wizard of Earthsea was published in 1968. Here is Ursula K. Le Guin’s website. Support your local bookstore if you can, or visit your local library!

Book 11: The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin seems to me to be largely about class. Every other summary I’ve read focuses on the utopian society on the planet Anarres and “tearing down the walls of hatred,” but most of the novel revolves around the main character’s attempt to reach the lower classes of the plant Urras, despite the walls built up around him by the upper classes.

Shevek is from the planet of Anarres, an anarchist planet whose people left the planet Urras over a hundred years ago to build a utopian society. (Whether it’s really a utopia is up for debate, and whether it’s actually an anarchist society is a point of tension throughout the novel.) Shevek finds his society stifling for studying physics and is slipping into having power structures and governments. He and his friends found a group that challenges their society to return to anarchy and individual choice, and to prove his freedom, Shevek leaves Anarres for Urras. On Urras, he is able to study physics more freely and finds many of the riches of the planet enticing. But soon he realizes that he only socializes with the upper class—the wealthy on a planet of plenty, including plenty of poverty. His attempts to reach the lower classes and the revolutionaries of Urras are blocked at every turn, until he finally escapes his captivity in the university. He helps organize a protest and sparks a class war on Urras.

Sparked Joy: 1/5 I liked the worldbuilding and the characters, to be sure, but I was disappointed by this novel. I suppose I just expected something different, but this was a hard one to get through.

Anticapitalist: 5/5 Very critical of capitalism. But not exactly feminist. In fact, there is an unaddressed sexual assault by the main character. On his home planet, Shevek would have been shunned, if not imprisoned or killed, for committing sexual assault, but he just shrugs it off. What the fuck, honestly.

Queerness: 1/5 Okay, there are queer people—there is a gay character—but I was so disappointed by the heteronormativity that the book as a whole gets a low score. Homosexuality is mentioned, and the main character identifies as heterosexual but briefly dates another man, so he could be bisexual, but god, the heteronormativity. Queerness is barely a footnote in the utopian society.

Similarity to Previous Book: 3/5 Whenever I summarized Woman on the Edge of Time to people, they assumed I was talking about The Dispossessed. They have a lot in common! They both involve the main characters visiting a society very different from their own, a utopia of sorts, and revolution. I will say that I preferred Woman on the Edge of Time, both as a narrative and its utopia. As for being similar to Hench, they are both science fiction, and both main characters are dissatisfied with their world.

Amount of Animals: 1/5 There are fish on Anarres. And I think there are zoos on Urras? But the reader never becomes acquainted with any animals.

The Dispossessed was published in 1974. Here is Ursula K. Le Guin’s website. The Dispossessed and her other books, such as The Left Hand of Darkness, are available for purchase. Support your local bookstore if you can, or visit your local library!