Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointing entry that lacks direction, July 1, 2004
Award-winning writer Ursula K. Le Guin finished the Earthsea 'trilogy' in 1972 with the tremendous novel "The Farthest Shore," simply one of the best fantasies ever penned. (The other two books are "A Wizard of Earthsea" and "The Tombs of Atuan.") Eighteen years later, in 1990, Le Guin decided to extend the trilogy to another book, "Tehanu," and has since written two additional books, "Tales from Earthsea" and "The Other Wind." In "Tehanu," she sought to balance out the story of Earthsea by re-visiting Tenar, the girl from "The Tombs of Atuan" and viewing the world through her eyes as an adult coming to terms with the way her life has gone and her relationship to Ged, the hero of the previous three books.Sadly, "Tehanu" is a major disappointment and the poorest of the Earthsea books. The idea sounds interesting: exploring Earthsea from the point of view of a non-sorcerer woman. But Le Guin fails to create an even remotely interesting story around Tenar -- actually, there is hardly any story at all. Tenar stays on the farm, makes a few trips, and takes care of herself and Therru, the strange girl she adopted after Therru was abused and badly burnt. Ged returns abruptly, his magic gone, and the king's men are searching for him. It appears possible that a narrative line will develop from this, but none does. The book plods through unconnected scenes and talky dialogue until it abruptly ends. I'm at a loss to explain Le Guin's narrative failure here. Perhaps, in feeling that she was achieving a great character study, she felt the book would carry itself without a spine of a story, but it doesn't. The problem doesn't lay in what the author says or how she says it -- I'm fine with the female slant to the book -- but how she chooses to frame it. The reader must have a reason to continually turn the page, must want to know how the characters will struggle to overcome their problems and why they must be overcome. Without such a structure, the reader will have a difficult time investing him or herself in what happens, and that is exactly the case here. For an example of Le Guin doing this correctly, read her brilliant novel "The Left Hand of Darkness." She set out to explore an issue of sexuality, and achieved it through the device of adventure and political turmoil. "Tehanu" lacks any cohesive device like that; the book merely 'continues' until it is done. Le Guin's writing style and sense of her characters do keep "Tehanu" from being completely unreadable, but it is slow going. People who have read the first three books should definitely read this because of what it reveals about Tenar and Ged, but they shouldn't go into it expecting the epic grandeur and sweeping power of the first three novels. "Tehanu" remains frustratingly earthbound and static.
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124 of 151 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sacrificing the magic of Earthsea, November 29, 2000
This book is a betrayal of all that came before. It should never have been written.The first three were works of wonder, touching on universal themes: sublime, compelling, cogent and inspiring. They asked large questions and arrived at honest answers, but they did so gently and gracefully. The quiet unhurried voice is one that this author has honed to perfection. Her world of Earthsea ranks among the very classics, alongside Middle Earth, Narnia and Avalon. Here, everything that made Earthsea so inspiring and evocative is sacrificed to make a point. Le Guin has decided that the fourth book of the series shall be a polemic - an undisguised and prolonged treatise directed at female empowerment and decrying child abuse. Are these worthy moral pursuits? Of course they are. Do they belong in the world of Earthsea? Not even remotely. This book was one of the most excruciating and disappointing reads I have ever undertaken. It's not the writing or the skill - the author's proficiency remains unparalleled - but the desecration of what was magnificent. The skill with which this work is written actually adds to the anguish; we remember what this skill was harnessed to build and cannot help but contrast it to what it is now being used to destroy. Reading this book, one is struck by how fragile a fantasy world like Earthsea really is. Earthsea works because, like all myth, it is founded in a successful illusion. When an author creates such a world, she makes a pact with the reader: "Accept this illusion, and we will journey to a place more vital than any you have known." If the author ever forgets this promise, if she ever turns from the myth to the commonplace, the illusion collapses and the world disintegrates. In this novel, Earthsea suffers precisely such a fate. The mysterious is rendered mundane, fantasy is replaced with reality, imagination is sacrificed to treatise, and the philosophical is surrendered to the prosaic. In the process, Earthsea is reduced to plain old earth. Our imagination is arrested in mid flight and we land with a shattering thump. The third book of the series was a magnificent work. The hero must save Earthsea from the death of its magic. He succeeds, but at great personal cost. In this book, the magic of Earthsea truly dies, but the death comes at the hands of its author and for reasons that are unworthy. This is one of the few books that actively destroys what has gone before. This destruction is so complete that I wish I had never read it and that the memory of Earthsea had been preserved for me unstained.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Black sheep of the family, September 21, 2004
Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy was a classic of fantasy literature, until "Tehanu" was written (making it a quadrology). Now with the series rounded out to six books, "Tehanu" has proved itself to be the black sheep of the family -- it's well written, but preachy and lacking in Le Guin's magical touch.
Tenar was once a powerful priestess in a darkened kingdom, until the wizard Ged rescued her and brought her away with him. Now Tenar is a widow, after marrying into an ordinary village and living an ordinary life. She's lonely, but takes care of the burned Therru, a silent young girl who was abused by her parents. Suddenly a dragon arrives, with a wounded Ged on its back -- he's lost his powers in saving Earthsea.
Tenar helps nurse her old friend back to health, and Ged struggles to come to terms with the loss of his magic, which is something he's always had. Their relationship begins to grow deeper and tenderer. But a new threat rears its head, and it may not be Ged or Tenar -- but Therru -- who is called on to stop it.
The biggest problem with "Tehanu" is that it really has no story. Each of the previous books had a clearly defined storyline, but in this book, it's basically just Tenar pottering around, Ged moping, and Therru not doing much at all. At the end, the narrative develops some vitality and mystery. Up until then, there is no epic power, no awe-inspiring quality.
Certainly there's nothing wrong with a smaller, more intimate story. Nor is there a problem with the feministic slant of the book. However, without the spellbinding quality of the first three books, there really isn't much to hold your attention. Le Guin's writing is still beautiful and poetic, yet it somehow feels empty -- she let the message about women take over the narrative, rather than weaving it in.
While it's somehow disappointing to find that Tenar simply became a housewife, it's interesting to see her internal conflicts, her regrets, and her growing love for Ged. Ged is less engaging, since he has lost his powers and mainly thinks about that. And most of the supporting characters -- except the dragon -- are dull and two-dimensional. Please, enough with the 2-D misogynists. We get the point.
"Tehanu" is a necessary link between the two halves of the Earthsea series, but Le Guin's lack of story and soapbox mentality make it more a penance than a pleasure.
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