ged and amy

July 27, 2013

'But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on the act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow...'
A Wizard of Earthsea feels like a tale that has been told for centuries.
Spun a thousands times round a glaring fire by 'wise' old men, drunk on nostalgia and grandpa's backwater moonshine.
Not something penned in the late 60s.
I don't know how LeGuin does this, perhaps with a little magic of her own.
Whatever way, she does it with a great sea of majesty and not a drop of insincerity.
I think i'm going to love her.
So, from a book that felt like a mystical hug to one that's driving me insane.
I had to stop myself from hurling it across my bedroom last night it made me so mad.
I settled on vigorously flipping it the bird instead.
The characters are so petty and ugly and...human.
How dare they be so recognisably fallible.
If i'm going to inflict the painful breakdown of a marriage upon myself, then i'm gonna need some fantasy crap to go with it.
Maybe a dragon here, a manticore there.
A spell gone awry.
Even just some casual vampirism will do.
I have more than enough of my own crap to deal with in reality.
I do not want to have to wade through and make sense of anybody else's, let alone anybody fictional! 

Saying all that.
I cannot put this bloody thing down.
I blame my sister.
...
There will be vengeance.

Paul Watson said...

Ursula LeGuin is such a brilliant author. I read the Earthsea books many years ago (and re-read them several times since). Her book "The Left Hand of Darkness" is also a classic - although more difficult than the Earthsea books.

Louise Boyd said...

I'm never one to shy from a difficult read.
It seemed so silly that i hadn't read any of her books. We have so many in the house.
I was reading the paper - i can't recall which one - and it had a list of 'The 50 Books All Children Must Read' and i scored 7. I find that absurd, so i decided to rectify it and LeGuin seemed the best place to start.

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