Clica una miniatura per anar a Google Books.
S'està carregant… The Other Wind (2001)de Ursula K. Le Guin
Best Fantasy Novels (403) Favorite Childhood Books (1,111) » 10 més Books Read in 2022 (1,903) Favourite Books (1,349) Newbery Adjacent (29) Unread books (364) Read These Too (103) Female Author (1,081) S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Consequences. Equivalent exchange. Equilibrium. Costs. The hallmarks of power in Le Guin works, magic here in Earthsea, are the consequences of actions taken. All accounts come due in "The Other Wind." This book is a beautiful closure of her Earthsea sagas, as warm in the telling and in the character portrayals as usual, and as human. It starts very slowly as far as progressing the narrative, but the last quarter is spellbinding (no pun intended). I wish there had been more, particularly concerning some characters, but there it is.
But there is more to The Other Wind than that: Le Guin's consistency now becomes revealed as a kind of destiny, a drive towards democracy if you like, an implicit impatience with the highfalutin genealogies such bogus mythologies are compelled to recite. Marvellously, the book contains humour, which is otherwise a kind of universal acid to children's fable: if it is funny, it corrodes everything it touches. Here it actually works. And the real magic now is the magic of writing. Love, too, is much more central and important than in the other Earthsea books. The loss that all lovers face, even when they are completely constant and loving, is one of the aching subjects here. In the first few pages of the novel, Ged feels “a sadness at the very heart of things,” and in fact essential loss, essential grief is the main thing that “The Other Wind” is about.... How to address that sadness is this novel’s question Pertany a aquestes sèriesPertany a aquestes col·leccions editorialsContingut aPremisDistincionsLlistes notables
The sorcerer Alder has the power of mending, but it may have become the power of destruction: every night he dreams of the wall between the land of the living and the land of the dead, and the wall is being dismantled. If the wall is breached, the dead will invade Earthsea. Ged, once Archmage of Earthsea, sends Alder to King Lebannen. Now Alder and the king must join with a burned woman, a wizard of forbidden lore, and a being who is woman and dragon both, in an impossible quest to save Earthsea. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Debats actualsCapCobertes populars
Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
Ets tu?Fes-te Autor del LibraryThing. |
As each of the previous novels introduced a key viewpoint character, so too does The Other Wind: Alder is a bereaved village sorcerer sent on a quest by his nightmares. He is at the focus of the first chapter, and then the story becomes very much an ensemble affair involving all of the principal protagonists developed over the earlier volumes. Ged remains on Gont, but Havnor is the meeting place of Alder, Tenar, Lebannen, Tehanu, and Irian. The second chapter also features the arrival of the Karg princess Seserakh, and the third brings in the Pelnish wizard Seppel. The fourth chapter is a sea voyage, so that the final chapter can take place on Roke with a climax at the Immanent Grove.
I couldn't resist interpreting the emotional swings of Tenar throughout the book as reflecting those of the author as she worked to gather up the threads of her creation and tie them into a finished work. There is an especially rich and dense passage just prior to the major plot resolution, in which the reader gets a quick description of the sleeping dreams for each of the many main characters.
The Other Wind offers no sense of an enemy or an oppressive evil like the preceding four novels did. Neither the dead nor the dragons are villains, and the old powers of the earth give only ambivalent solace. The book instead presents a time of perplexing crisis, in which established wisdom is undermined by a clearer view of the past, and diverse agents need to cooperate in order to create their future.
The completed Earthsea reminds me more of Delany's Return to Nevèrÿon than it does of any other fantasy series. The two had very different models and audiences. I suspect Le Guin of taking her cue from high fantasy as exemplified by Lord Dunsany, and Delany of taking his from the sword and sorcery of writers like Robert E. Howard. Earthsea was written for young readers (at least initially), and Nevèrÿon ... was not. But both bring a late 20th-century philosophical sophistication to their stories, a linguistic turn beyond Tolkienesque conlangs, and an exploration of non-modern societies in flux that can inspire reflection in modern readers. Both use their fantastic worlds to explore a diversity of mundane perspectives. Delany is perhaps more incisively psychological, Le Guin more stunningly poetic.
The Other Wind is not a long book; I read it in a little over a weekend. But it is very full, with its large cast and world-shifting resolution. Although Le Guin intimated that she had a view of what might happen later to Ged, among others, she did leave us a satisfyingly complete set of stories in the six books of Earthsea.