A Wizard of Earthsea
.jpg) Cover of first edition (hardcover) | |
| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Ruth Robbins |
| Cover artist | Brian Hampton (paperback) |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Earthsea Cycle |
| Genre | Fantasy novel, Bildungsroman |
| Publisher | Parnassus Press |
Publication date | 1968 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 205 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0395276535 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| OCLC | 1210 |
| Preceded by | The Rule of Names |
| Followed by | The Tombs of Atuan |
A Wizard of Earthsea, first published in 1968, is the first of a series of books written by Ursula K. Le Guin and set in the fantasy world archipelago of Earthsea depicting the adventures of a budding young wizard named Ged. The tale of Ged's growth and development as he travels across Earthsea continues in The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore and is supplemented in Tehanu and The Other Wind. The series has won numerous literary awards, including the 1990 Nebula for Tehanu, the 1972 Newbery Silver Medal Award for The Tombs of Atuan, 1972 National Book Award for Children's Books for The Farthest Shore, and 1979 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for A Wizard of Earthsea.
Plot summary
Ged (commonly known as Sparrowhawk) is a young boy on Gont, one of the larger islands in the north of the archipelago of Earthsea. His mother is dead, his much older siblings have all left home, and his father is a dour, taciturn bronze-smith with nothing in common with his son, so the boy grows up wild and headstrong. Ged discovers by accident that he has an extraordinary talent for magic. His aunt, the village witch, teaches him the little she herself knows, but his power far exceeds hers.
One day, he uses his talent and a fog-gathering spell he learned from a passing weatherworker to save his village from Karg raiders. The tale of his remarkable feat spreads far and wide, finally reaching the ear of a wise Gontish mage, Ogion the Silent. He recognizes that the boy is so powerful he must be trained so as not to become a danger to himself and others. In the rite of passage into adulthood, he gives the boy his "true name", Ged, and takes him as an apprentice. In this world, a magician who knows someone's true name has control over that person, so one's true name is revealed only to those whom one trusts completely. Normally, a person is referred to by his or her "use name". Ged's is Sparrowhawk.
The undisciplined young man grows restless under the gentle, patient tutelage of his master. One day at the taunting of the daughter of the local lord, Ged reads out a powerful spell from one of Ogion's old books. Even though he does not go through completely with the spell, a shadowy being was somehow released by it that follows Ged, haunting him at the edge of his awareness. Ogion finally gives him a choice: stay with him or go to the renowned school for wizards, on the island of Roke. Though he has grown to love the old man, the youngster is drawn irresistibly to a life of doing, rather than being.
At the school, Ged masters his craft with ease, but his pride and arrogance grow even faster than his skill and, in his hubris, he attempts to summon a dead spirit - a perilous spell which goes awry. The shadow seizes the chance to escape into the world and attacks him, scarring his face. It is driven off by the head of the school, the Archmage Nemmerle, who expends all of his power in the process and dies shortly thereafter.
Ged is wracked with guilt at causing the old man's death, but after a painful and slow recovery, he graduates from the school. Normally, Roke's wizards are much sought after by princes and rich merchants, but the new Archmage sends a willing Ged to a poor island group instead, to protect the inhabitants from a powerful dragon and its maturing sons, who have been seen scouting the region.
Ged eventually comes to realize that he cannot both defend the islanders against the dragon and fight against the nameless thing he summoned into the world. He takes a desperate gamble; in the old histories, he has found the true name of a dragon which might be the one he faces. His guess is right and by using the dragon's name Yevaud, he is able to force the dragon to vow that neither it nor its offspring will ever trouble the islanders.
Then, with no idea how to deal with his other foe, Ged tries to return to the safety of Roke, but the magical, protective Mage-wind drives away the ship on which he is a passenger. Unsure of where to go next, he decides upon the far northern island of Osskil. While there his pursuing nemesis nearly catches him by taking the form of a gebbeth, that is by taking over a man's body. Ged flees the gebbeth and finds what appears to be a safe haven in the domain of Benderesk, the lord of Terranen. However, Serret, the lady of Terranen, is the same girl who taunted him years ago, and she is determined to enslave Ged by using the power of an ancient stone. Fortunately Ged realizes his peril just in time and, taking the form of a falcon, flees yet again.
He instinctively returns to Gont and Ogion, who advises him to turn the tables on his shadow. In following his master's wise guidance, the roles of Ged and his enemy become reversed, and the shadow becomes the hunted.
Ged pursues the shadow southwards across the ocean, but is nearly drowned when the shadow lures him into steering his boat onto rocks. The vessel sinks, but he manages to reach a small island inhabited by only two old people, a Kargish man and his sister, who were abandoned there as children and who have forgotten there is an outside world and other people. Despite their fear of him they provide with food and water. After Ged regains his strength, he constructs another boat, held together by magic. When he is ready to leave, he offers to take the pair wherever they want to go, but the man fearfully turns him down and the woman does not seem to understand what he means. However, she gives him a parting gift of one of her few possessions, a broken half of an armlet. (The siblings' story and the gift's significance are revealed in the sequel).
Back at sea, the shadow nearly takes Ged unawares, but he senses it just in time and comes to grips with it. His enemy flees, but Ged senses that he has forged a bond that cannot be broken and that the shadow cannot now avoid a final confrontation. Ged follows the shadow south, but he is now unwelcome at every island he lands on. This is because the shadow has taken on Ged's own shape and has gone before him, frightening the islanders.
Increasingly despondant, Ged lands on the island of Iffish and there his luck begins to turn. The mage of the island is none other than Vetch or Estarriol, the only friend he made at school. Ged confides in Estarriol about his situation, and Estarriol agrees to help him. Together, the two wizards set off south and east in pursuit of the shadow. Eventually they leave the last known island of earthsea and head off into the open sea. As they draw closer to the shadow, Ged perceives the ocean gradually turning into land, an immensely powerful magic. Though Vetch cannot see the transformation, the boat runs aground. Ged steps out of the boat and walks off to confront his waiting shadow. Though some of his teachers had thought it to be nameless, Ged and his adversary speak at the same moment, each naming the other "Ged". So Ged embraces his foe and the two become one. By doing this he has accepted his own 'shadowside' and the possibility of his own death and thus, Ged has freed himself. Ged returns to the boat healed and a relieved Estarriol sails the boat back to earthsea and his home island of Iffish.
Inspiration
In 1967, Herman Schein (the publisher of Parnassus Press and the husband of Ruth Robbins, the illustrator of the book [1]) asked Le Guin to try writing a book "for older kids", giving her complete freedom for the subject and the approach.[2]
Le Guin has said[citation needed] that the book was in part a response to the image of wizards as ancient and wise, and to her wondering where they come from. Her short stories, "The Rule of Names" (1964) and "The Word of Unbinding" (1964), established some of the groundwork for the original Earthsea trilogy.[3]
Further inspiration came from the work of her parents, anthropologists Alfred L. Kroeber and Theodora Kroeber: see Ishi.
Translations
- Bulgarian: "Магьосникът от Землемория", first 1984
- Czech: "Čaroděj Zeměmoří", 1992, ISBN 80-7254-272-9
- Finnish: "Maameren Velho", first 1976
- French: "Le sorcier de Terremer"
- German: "Der Magier der Erdsee", first 1979, ISBN 3-453-30594-9
- Hebrew: "הקוסם מארץ הים", first 1985
- Hungarian: "A Szigetvilág varázslója", first 1989 ISBN 963-11-6420-9
- Icelandic: "Galdramaðurinn", 1977
- Italian: "Il Mago di Terramare", or "Il Mago di Earthsea", or "Il Mago"
- Polish: "Czarnoksiężnik z Archipelagu", 1983, ISBN 83-7469-227-8
- Portuguese: "O Feiticeiro de Terramar", 1980, ISBN 9789722328173, and "O Feiticeiro e a Sombra", 2003, ISBN 972-23-2817-4
- Russian: "Волшебник Земноморья", also "Маг Земноморья", first 1990, ISBN 978-5-699-29645-3
- Romanian: "Un vrăjitor din Terramare", first 2007
- Spanish: "Un mago de Terramar", 2000, ISBN 978-8-445-07333-9
- Swedish: "Trollkarlen från övärlden", ISBN 91-29-65814-4
- Turkish: "Yerdeniz Büyücüsü", 2003, ISBN-13 978-975-342-057-0, first 1998 Metis Yayınları
- Ukrainian: "Чарівник Земномор'я", 2006, ISBN 966-692-809-4
Adaptations
An original mini-series based very loosely on A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan was broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel. Le Guin has stated that she was not pleased with the result.[4]
Studio Ghibli released an adaptation of the series in 2006.[5] The film very loosely combines elements of the first, third, and fourth books into a new story. Le Guin has commented with displeasure on the results.[citation needed]
BBC Radio produced a radioplay version narrated by Dame Judi Dench.[6]
See also
Notes
- ^ Sieruta, Peter D. (March 2, 2011). "Smud-ged in Earthsea". collectingchildrensbooks.blogspot.com. Retrieved April 28, 2011.
- ^ Esmonde, Margaret P. (1981). "The Good Witch of the West". Children's Literature. 9. Project MUSE database.: The Johns Hopkins University Press: 185 - 190. ISSN 1543-3374. Retrieved April 28, 2011.
- ^ Le Guin, Ursula, The Wind's Twelve Quarters, (New York, Harper & Row, October 1975), foreword.
- ^ Le Guin, Ursula (December 16, 2004). "A Whitewashed Earthsea - How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books". slate.com. Retrieved 2007-08-16.
- ^ Tales from Earthsea (film)
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pfpcm
References
- Bernardo, Susan M.; Murphy, Graham J. (2006). Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion (1st ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313332258.
- Cadden, Mike (2005). Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 0415995272.
- Drout, Michael (2006). Of Sorcerers and Men: Tolkien and the Roots of Modern Fantasy Literature (1st ed.). China: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 978-0760785232.
- Martin, Philip (2009). A Guide to Fantasy Literature: Thoughts on Stories of Wonder & Enchantment (1st ed.). Milwaukee, WI: Crickhollow Books. ISBN 978-1933987040.
- Mathews, Richard (2002). Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415938902.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: checksum (help) - Pringle, David (1988). Modern fantasy: the hundred best novels: an English language selection, 1946-1987 (1st ed.). London: Grafton Books. ISBN 978-0872262197.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: checksum (help)