Wizard of EarthSea

 

Coming really late to the writing of  Ursula K. Le Guin, considering myself a geek, I was shocked to find an entire page of my youth left unwritten, or unread as it were.  That said, I’m much more of a science fiction geek than a fantasy geek.  Never cracking open the Lord of the Rings trilogy as for me, the writings of CS Lewis win  the debate between himself and Tokien, as to who is the real master of the craft.  Same can be said for new fantasy and anything resembling Harry Potter, not for me, thank you very much.  Yet, I wasn’t blind to King Aurthor, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round table. For me, writing less fantasy, something based on history, with a dragon, with a lot less sorcery was always more appealing.  Thus in  Helen Macdonald's great nonfiction work of  journey and discovery contained in “H is for Hawk”,  when she finds Merlin in a cabin that now belonged to T.H. White, all my scores with history and fantasy were settled once and for all.  I will not spoil that ending here.  But Merlin fans should go read that particular book.  

Yet here I go into Le Guin’s first writing for the adolescent mind, her first chapter on the events in EarthSea, where we are introduced in “A Wizard of EarthSea”, Ged, and a whole lot more creation as she has to paint the portrait of this new world, an archipelago of earth, adrift in both time, space, and a massive sea. EarthSea, afterall, is her Middle-earth...it is her Narnia.

But principally, she must introduce Ged and a new context for the understanding of wizardry in the world.  As  every village must have a representative of the offices of human endeavor,  a priest, a mayor, a wiseman, and an idiot,  so too must every village in EarthSea have a wizard. How did this wizard come to be?  How does one enter the world of wizardry as an occupation?  To Le Guin, wizardry must run in the family, and beyond being a sheep herder, Ged had learned early on that he had the gift of magic in him.  Along with an ability to herd goats.  He would have a choice to do something, or not, with that gift.  Lack of choice was not an option.  

Neither Tolkien nor Lewis dealt with the necessary details of creating schools of “witchcraft and wizardry” as seemingly more inclined to simply tell adventure stories where the magic was already present having been handed down from the very beginnings of ancient times. Rowling walzed straight through that open door and into the annals of literary history.  Yet here it is, 1969, and Le Guin was walking through that early door first.  It only  took another three decades for the lives of children in school to become more important than the far more adult matter of adventure...for wizards in highschool to be a thing.  How did we let our lives end up revolving so significantly around these little bastards, our kids, such that these school stories became more important than climbing Mt Everest, or traveling to the moon, for instance? Clearly we can trace the decline of western civilization to these early notions and shifting priorities that sprung from these and other crazy ideas fomented in the 60’s.

Significant other schools for misfit kids would follow but Rowling has since dominated the genre for the past two decades.  Le Guin was perhaps the first to ask why not a school for these special kids with various misfit  needs?  But since it was the 60’s, life’s experiences still didn’t manifest themselves in grades K thru 12 alone.  Experience and adventure was still a necessary part of the learning life skills both for the tradesman, and for the village sorcerer.  So Ged had to step into the world, go on a journey, make a few friends, and slay a few dragons, in order to learn life's lessons. Except I’ve overstepped my bounds with the word “slay”.  It seems Ged did not slay the primary dragon (he does dispatch a few of her smokey mouthed kids), rather, he sees fit to negotiate with the dragon, and based on the dragon’s promise, cast that particular threat out of the region he was sent to protect.  Even with my limited knowledge of fantasy lore  I’m quite certain dragon’s do not live by a code of honor whereby they would enter into such a binding promise with a wizard straight out of high school, particularly after that wizard had just killed a few of it’s progeny.  This book says the dragon kept it’s promise so I’ll have to live with it.

It is doubtful I will venture further into this series of fantasy.  It’s not my cup of tea.  I will say Le Guin’s writing is strong and seriously poetic.  With strong statements of prose, of perhaps the language of EarthSea, which are metered and measured.  Perhaps listening to this on audio would be a better presentational format, almost, as if she writes to be heard.  For instance, “Haven, harbor, peace, safety, all that was behind. They had turned away. They went now in a way in which all events were perilous, and no acts were meaningless”.  This is good stuff, but alas, not sufficient for me to read further.  I got it.  She’s good.  She was ahead of her time.  I’m glad I’ve  finally caught up...only fifty years later...