A Vacation in Earthsea

Whenever I head off for vacation, I give careful thought to what I want to read while away.  Some people plan activities, some people plan meals, some people plan outfits (that would be Lily, who spent endless hours planning complete outfits (not just clothing, mind, but also matching accessories) for while she was going camping--I went upstairs to pack my clothes, came back ten minutes later, and Lily was shocked that I was able to pack so fast--but, let's face it, it isn't too hard to throw a half-dozen T-shirts in a bag), and I would assume some people plan every aspect of their vacation.  I plan my reading list.  I had a carefully planned reading list for my trip last week, and when I was gathering up the books I planned to read, I noticed Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy on my shelf.  (The trilogy is A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore).  I read the first book in that trilogy years before, and it wasn't terribly compelling, so I didn't read the other two.  But, they were sitting there, and I noticed them, and I thought I might as well bring them along in case I finished up my reading list.  Then, after camp had been set up and I settled down to read, I picked up the first book in this series.  Why?  I really have no idea.  So, my carefully planned reading sat in my bag while I toured the land of Earthsea.

Sometimes people ask why I don't just borrow books from the library, and this is why.  I like the element of serendipity in reading.

As for Earthsea.  It's OK.  My initial impression was right; it isn't a very compelling series.  The back of the books naturally says this trilogy is on par with Tolkien or Lewis, but it isn't even close.  I can't imagine ever recommending the trilogy to anyone.That being said, it wasn't awful; it just wasn't all that good.

What was noteworthy about the series was the tone; LeGuin did a nice job conveying the feeling that you were reading an old retelling of an ancient tale.  The stores had that sort of epic feel of things passed down through the generations in tales told by the fire.  That isn't an easy style to pull off, and it lapsed a few times in the books, but on the whole it was well done.  This tone also led to the problem of the plot; the stories were terribly episodic--there was a main plot line in each volume which was important at the outset and at the end, but the middle of each book was just a bunch of tales, ostensibly forwarding the plot, but really just acting as filler.  For example, at one point a dragon comes to tell our Hero, Ged (who, by the way has a name which is obviously close to God and given the Jewish tradition of always omitting the vowel in naming God, i.e. G-d, Ged and God are functionally equivalent.  Ged does do the whole death and resurrection bit (in essence) so he does have the Christ-figure stereotype going on, but that being said, there isn't enough in Ged to warrant the name of God, so I don't know what to make of it), anyway, a dragon comes to tell Ged that he has important information and tells Ged to meet him in the land of the Dragons, so Ged (and his young companion) travel there in order to be told something which would take about 3 minutes to tell.  Why didn't the dragon just tell Ged this bit of information in the first place?  Well, then we wouldn't have had a chapter detailing what the land of the dragons looks like.  The books are full of that sort of thing.

There are two more novels in the Earthsea series, but the latter two books were written a few decades after the original trilogy.  These sorts of Return to my Youth books which authors write in their declining years are, in my experience, quite painful, so, unless I hear otherwise, I'll skip them.