A Wizard of Earthsea

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 her fantasy archipelago of Earthsea. The tale of the eponymous wizard continues in The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu and The Other Wind. Le Guin has also written a number of other novels and short stories set in the world of Earthsea. This novel also became an original miniseries event on Sci Fi cheannel.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler This is the story of a young boy born on Gont, one of the larger islands that dot Earthsea. His mother being dead, his father a dour, taciturn and abusive bronze-smith, and his much older siblings having already left home, he grows up alone, headstrong and wild. The boy discovers he has a strong innate affinity 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 natural talent and a spell his aunt had taught him to save his village from a raiding party of barbaric Kargs bent on looting and killing. 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 that leads to adulthood, he gives the boy his "true name", Ged, and takes him as an apprentice. (A person's true name is revealed only to those who are trusted implicitly, since it can be used to control that person. Normally, someone 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. Ogion finally gives him a choice: stay with him or go to the renowned (and only) 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, Sparrowhawk masters his craft with amazing ease, but his pride and arrogance grow even faster than his skill and, in his hubris, he attempts a dangerous spell that goes awry. He inadvertently summons a spirit of darkness that attacks and scars him. The being is driven off by the Archmage, the head of the school, but in doing so, he exhausts all his power and dies soon afterwards.

Sparrowhawk is racked with guilt at causing the old man's death, but after a painful and slow recovery, he graduates. Normally, Roke wizards are sought after by princes and rich merchants, but the new Archmage sends Sparrowhawk, with his willing acquiescence, to a poor island group, to protect the inhabitants from a powerful dragon. After waiting fearfully for the spirit he released to return and try to possess him, he realizes he cannot both protect himself from the spirit and his charges from the dragon at the same time.

He takes a desperate risk; in the old histories, he has found the true name of a dragon that might be the one he must confront. His gamble succeeds and he forces the dragon to bind itself with oaths to never trouble the islanders. Freed from one responsibility, Sparrowhawk resolves to track down his other foe and destroy or banish it.

Sparrowhawk encounters and fights his nemesis several times. Ultimately, he confronts the shadow and defeats it by realizing that it is his own shadow. Though some of his teachers had thought it to be nameless, Sparrowhawk calls it by name – "Ged". In doing so, he reconciles the two sides of himself. Template:Endspoiler

Trivia

• It won the Boston Globe-Hornbook Award for juvenile fiction in 1968.
• Le Guin has said 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. See also Gandalf for the archetypal 'wise wizard'.

External links

• Ursula K. Le Guin's official website
• An excerpt of Tales from Earthsea
• Earthsea series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Preceded by:	Series:	Followed by:
The Rule of Names	Earthsea	The Tombs of Atuan