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language: English
country: USA
year: 1971
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
series: Earthsea, #2
dates read: 13.8.12, 4.11.16-5.11.16, 7.11.23-10.11.23
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan is an incredible (though flawed) follow-up to A Wizard of Earthsea, written partly in response to Le Guin’s desire to challenge her own reliance on male chacters and overlooking of women in A Wizard of Earthsea. its gender politics are, still, a bit dubious, particularly insofar as Arha-Tenar is associated with chthonic spaces (especially caves) into which Ged, a man armed with a phallic staff, penetrates. nonetheless, it’s a more than worthy sequel to A Wizard of Earthsea both thematically and aesthetically.
the novel follows a girl raised from childhood to be priestess of an ancient tomb, said to be the source of all things, which is meant to be absolutely sealed off from the light of day, gifted with dark powers and grimly aware that the authority of the tomb has dwindled severely over the centuries, though its worship is millennia old. a mysterious stranger who survives impossible odds and who she (partly) hates unintentionally helps her discover something unexpectedly and gloriously beautiful within the tomb, changing the course of her life forever, irrecovably separating her from everyone around her, and setting in motion the destruction of the tomb and, perhaps, the social order it represents.
sorry, wait, I got distracted, were we talking about Arha-Tenar or about Harrowhark Nonagesimus? this was the main thing I was thinking while rereading this book. it even has the soul-eating component, though Arha is eaten rather than eater. Harhahark and Gedeon.
anyway. Le Guin’s writing is, still, gorgeous, and the portrayal of Arha-Tenar successfully maintains the delicate balance between “child” / “teenager” and “sole priestess of ancient, nameless gods”: she feels both appropriately childish in her ambition, pride, and ignorance of her limits (until she butts up against them) and appropriately a reborn priestess of ancient, nameless powers, exulting in the darkness and silence of the Tombs.
the conclusion, too, though strange, feels right, following Arha-Tenar on her first few steps into an incomprehensibly, overwhelmingly new (kind of) life.
incredible book.
moods: emotional, mysterious, reflective