2011 Reading #34: Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin
Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge.
32. Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith.
33. The History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus, translation by Peter Fisher, edited by Peter Fisher and Hilda Ellis Davidson.
34. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. Oh yeah. All my high-fantasy misgivings and gender questions from the previous books are acknowledged here. The style is less epic and more personal, making the perils much more frightening and real. The cultural assumptions of the feudal, male-dominated society are pointed out and questioned, to a greater or lesser degree. And the wizards of Earthsea lose their breezy gloss and are revealed as just men, in some cases deeply flawed and dangerous ones. Tenar, from The Tombs of Atuan, is the protagonist here, and she's a wonderful character to revisit long after the events of that book. Since escaping her fate as the servant of the Nameless Ones, she's been intermittently content; she's raised a family and made a life, and yet the way in which it is so easily uprooted here forces here to realize that she's never been fully at home. I loved this both as a story of characters I cared about, and as Le Guin's answer to her own work.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge.
32. Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith.
33. The History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus, translation by Peter Fisher, edited by Peter Fisher and Hilda Ellis Davidson.
34. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. Oh yeah. All my high-fantasy misgivings and gender questions from the previous books are acknowledged here. The style is less epic and more personal, making the perils much more frightening and real. The cultural assumptions of the feudal, male-dominated society are pointed out and questioned, to a greater or lesser degree. And the wizards of Earthsea lose their breezy gloss and are revealed as just men, in some cases deeply flawed and dangerous ones. Tenar, from The Tombs of Atuan, is the protagonist here, and she's a wonderful character to revisit long after the events of that book. Since escaping her fate as the servant of the Nameless Ones, she's been intermittently content; she's raised a family and made a life, and yet the way in which it is so easily uprooted here forces here to realize that she's never been fully at home. I loved this both as a story of characters I cared about, and as Le Guin's answer to her own work.