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Achieving the Balance
Oct. 11th, 2011 08:46 pmApril 2011
The Earthsea Quartet - Ursula Le Guin - Puffin, 1993
* * * *
As recent reviews will have made clear, I am a cartophile. I still have the huge maps that I created for roleplaying campaigns in my teenage years and if a map is provided in a novel, I will refer to it frequently to build up my mental picture. There is something really exciting about seeing a map full of strange names and icons and wondering what might be found there.
This goes some way to explaining why I have only half-read the Earthsea Quartet before now. I found The Tombs of Atuan, the second in the series, in the school library and was immediately attracted to the map of the labyrinth at the front, with its mysterious rooms marked as "Great Treasure", "The Painted Room" and "The Room of Chains". My teenage brain imagined an exciting chase through the tunnels as our sword-clad hero, chased by undead hordes, leaps over the carefully marked bottomless pit as he escapes with the magical Sword of Something Or Other to the world above.
In the event, the book turned out to be rather different, being a thoughtful story about Tenar, an adolescent girl chosen to be priestess of the tombs, and her rescue of - and by - the wizard Ged. I don't recall being disappointed by it, and clearly liked it enough that I read the following book, The Farthest Shore, about which, however, I remembered very little except for the Land of the Dead. The first volume wasn't available at school and I never felt it was necessary to go back to it. Now that the whole trilogy and Tehanu, its companion piece, is available in a single volume, it seemed sensible to read the whole thing again.
( Read more... )
The Earthsea Quartet - Ursula Le Guin - Puffin, 1993
* * * *
As recent reviews will have made clear, I am a cartophile. I still have the huge maps that I created for roleplaying campaigns in my teenage years and if a map is provided in a novel, I will refer to it frequently to build up my mental picture. There is something really exciting about seeing a map full of strange names and icons and wondering what might be found there.
This goes some way to explaining why I have only half-read the Earthsea Quartet before now. I found The Tombs of Atuan, the second in the series, in the school library and was immediately attracted to the map of the labyrinth at the front, with its mysterious rooms marked as "Great Treasure", "The Painted Room" and "The Room of Chains". My teenage brain imagined an exciting chase through the tunnels as our sword-clad hero, chased by undead hordes, leaps over the carefully marked bottomless pit as he escapes with the magical Sword of Something Or Other to the world above.
In the event, the book turned out to be rather different, being a thoughtful story about Tenar, an adolescent girl chosen to be priestess of the tombs, and her rescue of - and by - the wizard Ged. I don't recall being disappointed by it, and clearly liked it enough that I read the following book, The Farthest Shore, about which, however, I remembered very little except for the Land of the Dead. The first volume wasn't available at school and I never felt it was necessary to go back to it. Now that the whole trilogy and Tehanu, its companion piece, is available in a single volume, it seemed sensible to read the whole thing again.
( Read more... )