Critique: A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Quartet #1) (Ursula Le Guin)

The book begins by talking about the great mage Sparrowhawk/Ged from Gont. It sets the story up as if it’s being told by a bard. It means the reader is told information rather than shown it (if not for the bardic style, this would be a strike against this book). Considering such a large amount of time goes by in this story, the bardic style was the most appropriate choice.

 

*****SPOILERS****

 

Plenty of points makes this a stand-out novel.

Kargish raiders storm Sparrowhawk’s village. Note is made of their white skin, implying that Sparrowhawk and his people weren’t white-skinned. This was brilliant: by not overtly stating that the main people had dark skin and that light skin was deemed ‘other’, it makes brown skin the default position. Hence it’s only noteworthy to describe less-common skin colours. After this, Gontish people are described as having dark, copper-brown skin. The implications come before the description which was a brilliant choice.

‘To hear, one must be silent.’ At first glance, it seems bizarre to say something so obviously true. Yet it’s a sentence that presents itself as profound. One can listen and talk at the same time yet to hear, to truly understand what’s said, one must be silent to process fully the information.

‘To light a candle is to cast a shadow.’ This demonstrates the principles of cause-and-effect and that opposites are complementary and, maybe, necessary.

The description of ‘hearing the autumn wind fingering at the thatch roof’ is sensational.

Sparrowhawk’s staff is yew and bronze, unlike the oak and iron of other wizards. Oaks are associated with life and yew with death: this is appropriate, considering Sparrowhawk tried to summon a dead hero and came back from the dead himself.

Born Duny, Sparrowhawk is trained from ages seven to twelve by his aunt, a witch. She tries to bind him to her service but he’s so strong that he laughs it off. If not for the ‘told not shown’ style, the readers wouldn’t know that this was significant until much later, even though they needed to know its significance in that specific moment.

 

 

Plot

 

Sparrowhawk is taught by Ogion for a while before going to the school on Roke at age fifteen.

Within a month, Sparrowhawk is bettering students that have been there for a year. (Sparrowhawk is in the same classes as them, so does that mean students learn the same thing over and over again until they’re raised to wizards?)

Sparrowhawk summons a dead individual and out of this crack in the world leaps a shadow. Sparrowhawk ends up blind, deaf and mute for a few months after this. (So why the healers kept the blinds shut in summer I don’t know.)

At eighteen, Sparrowhawk is sent to his posting to Low Torning to protect against the Dragon of Pendor. As the shadow was weakening Sparrowhawk’s defences, Sparrowhawk banishes the dragon then sets of to do the same with the shadow.

Sparrowhawk goes to the abyss where he and the Shadow speak each other’s true name and it’s the same: Sparrowhawk. After this, they merge. With Sparrowhawk having fixed his mistake, the story comes to a satisfying end.

 

Women are not well thought of in Earthsea. Even though the story meets plenty of them, only one ever gets named.

There are two phrases that oft crop up: ‘weak/wicked as a woman’s magic’. Wizards don’t use magic unless there’s a real need because of the Balance and the Pattern they serve. So witches using magic whenever they want is deemed foolish, dubious and indeed dangerous.

A darkness appears after Sparrowhawk is forced to read a book. Ogion manages to dispel it then blames it on the lord’s daughter, saying she cast a spell on Sparrowhawk to gain sorcery knowledge for her and her enchantress mother. (Note: the men aren’t taking responsibility for their own actions.)

Sparrowhawk recalls all his magical teachers later in the book. The only one he doesn’t name is the witch. Whilst this matches with Earthsea’s attitude to women, it’s still a surprise because that witch was Sparrowhawk’s aunt!

 

 

Problems

 

The grammar and punctuation is mostly fine, making the mistakes stand out more.

‘What, after all, is the use of you? or of myself?’ Why the ‘or’ doesn’t have a capital when it’s the start of the sentence, I don’t know.

In one paragraph, we have, “Jasper speech,” Jasper prose, Sparrowhawk prose, “Sparrowhawk speech.” This should be split into two paragraphs, one for Jasper and one for Sparrowhawk, so that there is a non-confusing transition between the two.

Sparrowhawk heals cataracts in man. ‘I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me.’ It should be ‘until’ or ‘ ‘til’, not till (it’s not a shop checkout!)

 

Quite often, there were inconsistencies between the worldbuilding and the plot.

Jasper is condescending to Sparrowhawk so Sparrowhawk talks himself into hating Jasper and wanting to put him to shame. This reaction would’ve been fine if Sparrowhawk felt it but Sparrowhawk forces himself to feel like this. So I’m not convinced by this. This is why, when Jasper does an illusion and this ruins Sparrowhawk’s night, I’m not convinced.

As Sparrowhawk was off for a few months, it says he’s behind the other students. If he could overtake them within a month, it’s not feasible that those students could overtake him in less than a year. However, the fact that he performs badly at magic would account for this discrepancy, but this would only be post-injury.

Sparrowhawk gets tired from all the rowing. Isn’t there a spell for that? Yes, I know the book says wizards only do magic when they need to, but if they can create illusions and float around for fun, a spell to row the boat to achieve something positive (getting rid of the evil Shadow) is surely permissible?

The shadow completely possesses Skiorh. Now, the Shadow could only start to possess Sparrowhawk once Sparrowhawk tried to summon the dead and then came back from death. It’s doubtful that Skiorh did those things so it’s doubtful that Skiorh could be possessed by the Shadow. Unless mages are just more resilient to possession? It’s too important a plot point to be left in ambiguity.

Sparrowhawk says Ogion was right, that if Sparrowhawk chose the Shadow it couldn’t draw on his power, even though Ogion doesn’t say this. For such an important detail, it should be included in earlier prose (which is why the excuse ‘we don’t see all of Sparrowhawk and Ogion’s conversations so Ogion could have said it then’ doesn’t hold).

Sparrowhawk travels to the abyss to deal with shadow. I’m not entirely sure how he decided to go there, or that he should go there. Goodness, even him knowing he could go there remains unknown. For such an important part in the plot, travelling to the abyss would need some sort of pre-acknowledgement. Yet, whilst reading this part in the story, it doesn’t feel like information’s been neglected. I don’t know how the author manaSparrowhawk this but it’s impressive nonetheless.

It takes three days to get to the abyss yet sixteen to return. Why this inconsistency? Time dilation is a thing in fantasy, true, but there’s usually a rationale behind it. None is provided for in the book but through tenuous links, I have one. To get to the abyss, Sparrowhawk travels until there’s no east or west, or sunrise or sunset, where water is liquid enough to row through yet solid enough to stand on. Perhaps for there to be no such physical distinctions, the abyss isn’t a physical place. In a non-physical place, physical actions like travel could lack consistency. Plus, moving requires direction (east/west) and time (sunrise/sunset) so with neither direction nor time, moving wouldn’t follow the same rules.

 

 

True Names

 

Like many fantasy worlds, Earthsea’s magic relies on the true names of things. Whilst this is a trope I dislike, I can see when it’s done well or not. In Earthsea, it’s done excellently.

With Ogion, Sparrowhawk learns the Hardic runes which have their roots in the Old Speech, the language that gives all things their true names. ‘Runes that were written when the islands of the world first were raised up from the sea.’ This has to means that the Old Speech is older than the islands.

At fifteen, Sparrowhawk goes to famous Roke Island school. He meets Archmage Nemmerle and, for a moment, Sparrowhawk understands birds, water and himself, ‘a word spoken by the sunlight’. This is a beautiful description but it never states what this even means. Maybe it means the Old Speech is the language of sunlight? This would explain how the Runes could exist before the islands did.

Humans can’t lie in the Old Speech, yet dragons can twist the truth because it’s their language. But if a human is fluent in the Old Speech, I don’t see why they can’t twist the truth, too. (This point is resolved in the fourth book, rounding the quartet off nicely.)

 

There is still a question remaining over the true names, however.

The students learn that the sea has a true name yet individual seas have their own true names. What’s the point of the generic sea having a true name if it can’t be used?

Then Sparrowhawk befriends an otak, a species whose true name is hoeg. Sparrowhawk uses the species true name, rather than the individual otak’s own true name. Why use an individual sea’s true name but not do so with an individual otak?

Surely an individual otak, as an individual animal, is more distinct from general otaks than a sea is from general seas. Surely if something is more distinct than the other, its distinct true name would be the one more likely to be used over the general name?

Why it took Sparrowhawk so long to realise the Shadow was him, I don’t know. Archmage Gensher equated the Shadow with Sparrowhawk’s arrogance and ignorance before Sparrowhawk’s posting. That’s a pretty strong hint. Not to mention Sparrowhawk guessed the dragon’s true name by remembering stories: this is so tenuous that it shows Sparrowhawk’s top skills in discerning true names. Discerning his own true name, even in something else, should have been very easy.

 

 

Conclusion

 

All in all, this was a good book. There’s plenty in it, from its setting to its plot, that distinguishes it from the other fantasy books on the market.