Tehanu
Tehanu is the fourth book in the Earthsea cycle and another example of how up and down this series is. It's not quite as good as The Tombs of Atuan was, but it is significantly better than the other two books that came before it.
Tehanu was written nearly three decades after the first two books, and it takes place in the winter of Ged and Tenar's lives. Ged has stepped down as archmage and is somewhat lost throughout the book. Tenar is a grandmother now, and trying to redefine herself again since her children have moved out of the house and her husband has died. She adopts a young girl, Therru, who was abused and is disfigured.
The bulk of the book is pretty slow. It's mostly musings on feminism and how to start fresh when your life is mostly over. I liked the slow, meandering pace of the book. Although parts of it got preachy and, like Atuan, there were parts that made me wonder if LeGuin lives in the same world as I do. She talks at length about a woman's power extending only as far as the walls of her home and how women are constantly reinventing themselves and trading in one form of power for another while men simply accumulate more and more power throughout their lifetimes. Some of theses ideas seem rather outdated, especially for a book written in 2001.
The ending was rather rushed and seemed a little neat for a conflict that was nearly absent for most of the book. But it also involved dragons, so I'm willing to forgive quite a bit of narrative convenience. And the whole premise of the book, which focused on older characters, was a nice departure from the bulk of fantasy.
The next book in the series is a collection of short stories. I have high hopes that the shorter length will force LeGuin to be a bit more focused and improve her writing.
Tehanu was written nearly three decades after the first two books, and it takes place in the winter of Ged and Tenar's lives. Ged has stepped down as archmage and is somewhat lost throughout the book. Tenar is a grandmother now, and trying to redefine herself again since her children have moved out of the house and her husband has died. She adopts a young girl, Therru, who was abused and is disfigured.
The bulk of the book is pretty slow. It's mostly musings on feminism and how to start fresh when your life is mostly over. I liked the slow, meandering pace of the book. Although parts of it got preachy and, like Atuan, there were parts that made me wonder if LeGuin lives in the same world as I do. She talks at length about a woman's power extending only as far as the walls of her home and how women are constantly reinventing themselves and trading in one form of power for another while men simply accumulate more and more power throughout their lifetimes. Some of theses ideas seem rather outdated, especially for a book written in 2001.
The ending was rather rushed and seemed a little neat for a conflict that was nearly absent for most of the book. But it also involved dragons, so I'm willing to forgive quite a bit of narrative convenience. And the whole premise of the book, which focused on older characters, was a nice departure from the bulk of fantasy.
The next book in the series is a collection of short stories. I have high hopes that the shorter length will force LeGuin to be a bit more focused and improve her writing.
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