The Phlegmatic Review of the Year

[philmophlegm]

Some of my favourite things from 2011. Also, some of my not-so-favourite things.
Warning: may contain sport. I know most people on my friends list don't really do sport, but…well tough. This is my review of the year. Also contains books, games, television and a whole host of other stuff.

Comments

[bunn]

This post appeared shortly after another on my list from someone who had read the Earthsea trilogy (first three books) this year, liked ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’, loved ‘The Tombs of Atuan’ and found The Farthest Shore’ a bit ordinary.

I absolutely adore all 3, of course.

[philmophlegm]

Had they read Tehanu and The Other Wind?

[bunn]

I don't think so. (I don't seem to have a Le Guin icon...)

[philmophlegm]

Neither do I. This dragon seems potentially quite Other Wind-ish, but it's actually Dragonlance...

[skordh]

I'm not sure what I would think if I read them all as an adult. I read the first 3 as a child and loved them (although found the first part of A Wizard of Earthsea absolutely terrifying), then re-read them as an adult and appreciated them even more. Tehanu was so different that I didn't appreciate it first time round but I did much more so later. Tehanu seemed to be saying something about the world of Earthsea that didn't get said in the first books. Then The Other Wind came along and was different again - in tone more like the earlier ones but in some ways seeming to contradict what Tehanu had been saying. I suspect when I re-read it later I'll appreciate it more.

"For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after." If I'm remembering it right this is an Earthsea statement about life and death but it doesn't apply quite so well to book series. It seems there are always more words that can be spoken into the after silence and they can change the sense of the earlier ones. Is that bad? Not necessarily. It's unsettling