A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K LeGuin

Completed 10/30/2018, Reviewed 10/30/2018

4 stars

“A Wizard of Earthsea” is the first book in the Earthsea Cycle.  It is a beautiful book about a young magician coming to know himself.  It was written for a young adult audience before YA was a genre.  But it is more than simply a YA novel.  It’s themes of the hero’s journey, good versus evil, and embracing the shadow self speaks to all ages.  It is a fantasy novel without a war or some other “us versus them” trope. 

Duny is a young goat herder on a small island in the Earthsea archipelago.  Duny is his birth name.  As he grows up, he shows a propensity for magic under the tutelage of his aunt, a witch.  During this time, he comes to be known as Sparrowhawk.  But neither Duny nor Sparrowhawk is his true name.  He only finds that out once he becomes an apprentice to the local wizard.  Sparrowhawk however is impatient with the slowness of his studies, so the local wizard sends him to a school for wizards (thirty years before Harry Potter).  There, on a dare, he awakens the ghost of a long dead woman, which also unleashes an evil shadow into the world of the living.  His mission becomes to find and conquer the shadow before it conquers him. 

That is just a barebones overview of the plot.  It is much more textured and nuanced than that.  In typical LeGuin form, the plot is not very exciting save for a battle of wits with a dragon and an enchantress.  Like her much later “Annals of the Western Shore” novels (Gifts, Voices, and Powers), it is heavy on world building and mood.  There is a lot of detail about the nature of magic and the power of words and names.  Magic takes energy and can take its toll on the wielder.  It should not be wielded without understanding the implications of its execution.  For example, stopping a storm in one place can cause a flood somewhere else.  Regarding names, once you know the true name of something, it gives you power over that thing.  It’s all very sophisticated and well developed for such a short book.

The prose is interesting.  It is sparse, but beautiful.  It’s one of those books where you feel like nothing written could be thrown away.  It isn’t full of similes to pad up the novel.  LeGuin simply uses strong nouns and adjectives. 

Being such a short book, there isn’t much character development except for the protagonist.  And even that is minimal.  We don’t really get into the head of Sparrowhawk.  His story is told almost as if performed by a storyteller around a campfire, with a lot of exposition and little dialogue.  Still, it is easy to relate to him as he succumbs to the prodding of a young girl, accepts a dare to show off to his colleagues at wizard school, and wallows in despair as he makes his journey to find the evil shadow.  It’s interesting to note that Sparrowhawk and most of the characters are not white.  LeGuin very subtly made the characters people of color at a time when fantasy was dominated by European derived races. 

I give this book four stars out of five.  It’s a classic from which many authors have gotten inspiration, like the Harry Potter series and anything with a school for magic.  I read what was then just the Earthsea Trilogy back in college and loved it.  Rereading this first book, it felt fresh as ever, despite the lack of women in the story.  The second book’s protagonist is female, though.  I really look forward to reading the rest of the cycle, which is now a total of six books.