Recent reading

[luzula]

Tehanu, Tales From Earthsea, and The Other Wind, by Ursula K Le Guin

Tehanu is a difficult book, as espresso_addict put it. It makes the inequality between men and women painfully visible but doesn't fix anything. It's striking that Tenar needs help/rescue from men repeatedly: from Lebannen when Handy is after her, from Ged when she's attacked at Oak Farm, from Kalessin at the end (well, okay, Kalessin isn't exactly a man, and Tehanu calls him, but still). Though Ged is often helpless as well, having lost his magery. I guess Tehanu herself is the one who points forward. I remember reading this book as a kid and being all "ewwww" when Ged and Tenar had sex. *g* That did not happen this time around--I liked their relationship.

Tales From Earthsea is much more...retconny, almost. I mean, there's lesbian witch marriages, locally democratic village/island organizing, and Roke being founded by mostly women. Or if you want to be more generous, you could say that the first trilogy doesn't say that these things don't exist, it's just that it didn't see them. But I thoroughly enjoyed it! I enjoyed The Other Wind as well. Lebannen/Seserakh didn't get the space it needed for me to really feel it would work, but then it's not the main thread of the story. I do like the resolution, though I'm curious as to how magic and names will work now. I'd love to read more about that.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Tehanu broke my heart repeatedly. But I loved it. I loved seeing that character all grown up.

I burst out laughing when she berates him for not killing that guy, and Ged says, "I did the best I could." It was just so funny in the moment.

[espresso_addict]

The one thing I loved in Tehanu was Ged & Tenar's relationship. I found Tehanu in Tehanu quite a difficult character -- an archetypal Suffering Sue -- though I liked her a lot more in The Other Wind. I adored Tales from Earthsea, particularly the sense that the earlier novels might have had various degrees of unreliable or just uninformed narrators.

The Jade Dragon was written with the idea of playing with post-TOW magic/names, but 50k in I've only really begun to get to grips with that. I'm amused (appalled) by the fact that, if I do succeed in finishing it, it's likely to be longer than any of the original trilogy.

[luzula]

Oh, it does have funny parts, as well. But on the whole it feels like quite a serious book. There's some great Tenar fic at the AO3, btw, but you've probably read it already.

[luzula]

I'm curious to see what I'd think of The Jade Dragon--it seems an odd mix to me to write a noir detective story in Earthsea (I've been reading your posts but not getting around to commenting).

[espresso_addict]

I'm curious to know what you think! I need to write faster so I can post the rest of it publicly; it's been tearing my heart out to have 50k words that I can't share.

[nonesane.livejournal.com]

Interesting comments! I'm actually going to be reading the "original" Earthsea books later this year, in Swedish (yes, I know, I'm late to the party). This will be good to keep in mind as I read :)

[luzula]

I just made a post about the original trilogy, as well. Though I understand if you want to avoid spoilers! They're well worth reading, anyway.