What good is it to be a wizard in an ordinary world, or an ordinary man or woman in a magical world? Does magic solve problems or create them, or both? What is the source of power, and what makes sentience? How can magic that conquers death in one society be reconciled with a non-magical society of humans in the same world? In The Other Wind Ursula Le Guin has the guts to examine her world for its flaws and inconsistencies and successfully address them within its own myth. Sleeper agent Tenar opens a window for us into the effects of the one on the other within the structure and society of Earthsea, and everyone severally ties up the loose ends in The Other Wind. In Tehanu and “Dragonfly” she opens up several flip sides to her early subjects: women rather than men, ordinary people instead of wizards and kings, everyday concerns like chores and crime rather than magical catastrophes, and the simple behavior and merits of dumb animals rather than dragons. The story of Earthsea as told in the first three books is fascinating, exciting, and fun-but also superficial.Īt this point Le Guin’s emphasis on balance stops being a preoccupation of her characters’ magical theory and turns into her own task as a writer. As time goes on, however, Le Guin realizes there’s a lot more to be said about Earthsea than What, Who and How, but Why. We as readers learn about Earthsea, and wizardry, and dragons, as Sparrowhawk does, in typical bildungsroman fashion.

Early on, she’s still essentially working out the technical, practical details of how Earthsea and its cultures, creatures and magic work-and the fast-paced action of A Wizard of Earthsea gives us exposition without making it dry. Just as Ged, in his old age, is “done with doing,” by now Le Guin is far less interested in plot or character than in the implications of the one-sided world she created a generation earlier. After 37 years, it’s a testament to her writing skill that Earthsea, and Ged within it, have the coherence to support a generation’s-worth of changing focus without losing their own integrity or internal logic. She created Earthsea in 1964, introduced Ged in 1968, and finally ended the series (?) in 2001 with The Other Wind. Reading the Earthsea cycle in order will do more for you than simply get you up to speed on who’s who and what went before: so don’t start with this, the final book to date, if you want to really appreciate what Le Guin is doing. Plot schmot, do you really think it’s accidental that The Other Wind is more contemplative than adventuresome? Ursula Le Guin is a very deliberate writer.

The other wind