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62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Farther West Than West, Beyond The Land..., August 31, 2001
This review is from: The Other Wind (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 6) (Hardcover)
Le Guin's latest addition to the Earthsea Cycle is truly a triumph. In the third book in this series, The Farthest Shore, Ged the Archmage sets out on a quest that ends in the restoration of the balance between life and death, the living and the dead... or so it seems. In the Other Wind, Le Guin portrays an unrestful land, where the dead start reaching over the wall that seperates them from the living. We are able to meet the characters from the other Earthsea books again, who have all matured and changed. In fact, Ged and Tenar are leading restful, almost ordinary lives at home. Some readers may find it unsettling to find their hero's lives so changed, and the land of Earthsea quivering on its foundations, but the conclusion of the novel brings together everything good about the books. With this final novel, Earthsea seems to be bound together again, unshakingly, although not without a few seperations... The song of the woman of Kemay presides, hauntingly, over the plotline of the book. Farther west than west,
Beyond the land,
My people are dancing
On the other wind.
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wondrous Adventure, September 10, 2001
This review is from: The Other Wind (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 6) (Hardcover)
Have you ever read a book that was so well crafted that at the end of a chapter, instead of charging into the next one, you paused and reflected on what you have read? Have you ever read a book where you were at the edge of laughter and tears on the same page? You can. Le Guin has taken the loose ends of her four earlier Earthsea novels and her recent collection of Earthsea short stories, combined those loose ends and your favorite characters from them with some serious thinking on the life and death, and created the finest Earthsea story to date. Alder is a "mender," a repairer of broken pots, a mere sorcerer, one who should never see the low wall that only wizards know, the wall that separates the living from the dead. Yet the wall and the dead torment his sleep. The dead call to him, asking to be set free and, most shockingly of all, his dead wife has kissed him across the wall of stones, something unknown in the history of Earthsea. The Patterner, one of the eight great wizards of Roke, the wizard's isle, has sent Alder to Ged. And while Ged may have lost his power of wizardry and be done with doing, his heart goes out to the tormented young man. He counsels him, finds him a temporary solution to his nightmares, and sends him to Havnor, to the King Lebannen. For Ged thinks that Alder may herald a change for Earthsea, one even greater than those Ged wrought. Alder meets other characters in his quest. Some are old friends of the reader: Tenar, from "The Tombs of Atuan" and "Tehanu;" Tehanu herself, who is somehow the daughter of Kalessin, the eldest dragon; Lebannen, the young king from "The Farthest Shore." Some are acquaintances from "Tales from Earthsea," most notably Irian, now Orm Irian. Others are new but no less wonderful: the young princess of the Kargish lands and, of course, Alder himself. Le Guin takes these characters, let's them grow and age, shows us time's marks upon them, and brings them into Alder's life and Alder's quest. And as Alder's quest grows beyond himself, to involve the living and the dead, indeed all the souls of Earthsea, so does the book's sense of wonder. Until, like Ged, in the moment just before the climax of the story, we will smile a little because like him we like that pause, "that fearful pause, the moment before things change." This is a masterly work, not just because of the clever use of characters or the wonderful plotting, but also because of the depth of the thinking that lies beyond and inside the story. It's about even more than life or death; it's also about the things we assume and take for granted because they have always been so, without ever asking if they are truly right. Alder's love for his dead wife has the power to change the world. What's no less wonderful is Le Guin's power to move the reader, to challenge and provoke us. Read and savor this book. It's the best Earthsea story to date. It might even be the best Le Guin to date.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Gentle Work of the Soul, September 12, 2004
There is a quiet tenderness about this work--a stillness of spirit--that inspires both marvel and joy. After the plodding banality of Le Guin's previous novel "Tehanu", which all but ruined the world of Earthsea, this latest work is a resurrection.
One suspects that Le Guin wrote "Tehanu" as penance for making the first three books in the series so male-centric. The resulting novel straddled the worst of all worlds: combining insipid un-fantasy with a hectoring message that read like a sermon more than a work of speculative fiction. In "The Other Wind" she gets it right. This latest work contains themes similar to "Tehanu's", but they are shown rather than told, revealed rather than reproached. Le Guin also achieves a balance between the male and female perspectives that leaves one feeling enriched and not browbeaten. "The Other Wind" is an altogether nobler creature.
Le Guin's writing has always been in a class of its own, but here, it ages like fine wine. She writes with a poetic austerity that provokes affectionate admiration. Her characters live and move in three dimensions, and think and feel in a universe filled to overflowing with thinking and feeling.
This story is a philosophical reflection on life and death; not surprising since each book in the series was a similar reflection. But in this one, Le Guin resolves the open questions that she left unanswered in the previous works. I would have been perfectly happy with her leaving those questions unanswered--as incitements to thoughtful readers--but I am content that she has answered them, and in a way that is so complete and fulfilling, yet so totally consistent with the world of Earthsea. This work inspires metaphysical reflections, yet does not demand them. It can be read as a simple story of courage, compassion and resourcefulness, or as an existential allegory of Being and Nothingness. Indeed, it is both: the genius of the author resides in her ability to meld story and philosophy so flawlessly that the novel speaks to us on both the simple and the profound.
This is the kind of patient gentle writing that will appeal only to those in no hurry. Containing little of adventure or intrigue, it is the work of an author who is "done with doing" but, fortunately, not done with living or with writing.
There are quibbles. As a stand-alone novel, it is confusing and too dependent on the reader's familiarity with the preceding works, and the prose is sometimes so austere that it hazards obscurity. But such blemishes are niggling. The novel as a whole is a mature piece of art--a gentle work of the soul that embodies a lifetime of reflection on what it means to live, to create, to face death and to touch those whom we cherish.
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