A Wizard of Earthsea

Image credit: Goodreads

While there is a lot of fantasy out there that shape the genre and give it breadth, there are only a handful of tales that stand aside from the shimmering, shining lot. In amongst the names of my own fantasy repertoire, I now add a new one bringing the list to Tolkien, Rowling, Pullman, Gaiman, Landy, Pearce, Lewis, and Le Guin.

A Wizard of Earthsea, the first in Ursula Le Guin’s classic trilogy, tells the story of Duny, a young Gontish lad who discovers that he has a talent for wizardry. Taught by his aunt, then a wise sorcerer named Ogion, who gives him his true name of Ged, he then travels to the Island of Roke to perfect his craft and earn his place as a wizard of Earthsea. But during his studies, anger and pride cause him to accidentally let loose a vicious shadow from an unknown realm that will hunt him forever unless he can hunt it down first.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about A Wizard of Earthsea is that it takes the story of the ‘Chosen One’ or ‘Destined Hero’ and completely turns it on its ear by having the protagonist consistently fail, thus turning him into something of an antihero. Ged is not inspiring, nor is he relatable to and, throughout the book, he faces a lot of battles and trials that he completely fails at. Despite all other characters praising his bravery and power, he’s written as rather a weak character who spends the entire book cleaning up a mess that he himself created and, while this doesn’t sound hugely thrilling in any way, it actually proves rather fascinating because all of the recognisable tropes of fantasy are here, yet they shape an outcome that is strange, alien, and different from the expected reading experience.

Image credit: Bunk History

Le Guin’s prose is succinct, poetic, and (from a modern perspective) slightly pretentious, which (considering it was published in the late 1960s) brings a new level of intrigue to the book as you can’t quite determine whether it’s completely serious or something of a satirical nature.

Either way it works for adult and young readers alike and has sparked my interest enough to continue on to The Tombs of Atuan.

A Wizard of Earthsea is the first novel in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy. It was first published in 1968 by Parnassus Press.