A boy grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the Master Wizard.
A bit cliché, but it seems like maybe it established some of its cliches rather than just following them, so that can be forgiven.
Definitely aimed at a teenage-reader crowd, but still an enjoyable read; Le Guin's style of writing lends more of a mythical feel to the story.
Fine fantasy quest, childish feelings tempered to balance and self-confrontation, and well done for that. I'm feeling LeGuin's own regrets about how male-dominated her first books are, however.
Fabularnie to zwykła pospolita podróż bohatera, ale styl trudny do określenia. Dostrzegalne ulotne feministyczno—ekologiczne wpływy (niczym u „Nausicaä z Doliny Wiatru”), choć kobiet jak na lekarstwo, bohater jest trochę jak z „Mrocznej Wieży” Kinga. Na to wszystko magiczna warstwa, kontynentalna wersja „Harry'ego Pottera”. Intrygująca, pięknie napisana historia, która wiele zyskała dzięki zacnemu przekładowi Barańczaka.
While I do wish I had encountered this book while growing up, even now I can‘t help but give it 5 stars. As Le Guin herself states in the afterword, this book was at once familiar in its usage of old fantasy tropes yet at the same went so far beyond that.
The story is still epic in scale, yet the cast is much smaller than would be expected. No wars stand at the center of the plot, but instead the main character‘s growth and self discovery. Le Guin makes her observations about the different characters with clear-eyedness and poetry. She writes like an anthropologist in that she withholds prejudice for different cultures, skin colors etc., seeing merit in all of them. She in fact manages to turn a surface level story of the battle between light and darkness into a rich study of grays.
The same skilled observations are …
While I do wish I had encountered this book while growing up, even now I can‘t help but give it 5 stars. As Le Guin herself states in the afterword, this book was at once familiar in its usage of old fantasy tropes yet at the same went so far beyond that.
The story is still epic in scale, yet the cast is much smaller than would be expected. No wars stand at the center of the plot, but instead the main character‘s growth and self discovery. Le Guin makes her observations about the different characters with clear-eyedness and poetry. She writes like an anthropologist in that she withholds prejudice for different cultures, skin colors etc., seeing merit in all of them. She in fact manages to turn a surface level story of the battle between light and darkness into a rich study of grays.
The same skilled observations are made for the world and magic system. Descriptions are beautiful, yet not overly flowery. Instead there is a certain understatedness that gives the imagination more than enough to make the world feel alive, while never detracting from the actual action going on. Rather, certain omissions and unexplained terms indicate that the world has more secrets hidden everywhere, just waiting to be discovered by the reader.
The Wizard is understated while still feeling grand. It is beautifully crafted by a true master of the genre and will invite the reader to revisit Earthsea time and time again, be it through the other Earthsea books or inevitable rereads.
This is rightfully considered a classic I would recommend to anyone not fully scared away by a bit of magic.
Refreshing to realize high fantasy doesn't have to be laid out in tomes and be riddled with vuolence. This book is short, entertaining and thoughtful. And Le Guin writes well.
Immense storytelling and really subversive for the genre when it was written.
A Wizard of Earthsea is a masterpiece in worldbuilding, a miracle of economical storytelling, an endlessly quotable novel, LeGuin's lyrical prose style at its most beautiful. The "saga" mode of writing makes this feel like a book out of a real Earthsea, constantly hinting at a fully existing history and cultural corpus. I also love the writings around it, reading the collected novels edition I'm surrounded by introductions, essays and afterwords from LeGuin herself that make me appreciate the text even more and show what a great human being she always was.
Fun and quick read. This was a perfect respite after reading way too many research papers and other weighty nonfiction.
This is a timeless classic I had read before. It is the story of the early years of the most famous wizard of Earthsea and how his early years formed him. Earthsea is a place of a thousand islands far away and yet somehow familiar.
I first read this in 2011 and rated it 3. I was unimpressed with the book and its sequels and couldn't understand why it was supposed to be so good. I didn't see it.
Now on re-reading, I can finally appreciate the timeless quality of its beautiful language and the clear, recognizable plot that still does not feel cliched or dated at all. And I can see how this must have inspired so many other books I have read. (I am looking at you [b: Name of the Wind|186074|The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)|Patrick Rothfuss|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1515589515s/186074.jpg|2502879]).
Coming here and seeing my own …
This is a timeless classic I had read before. It is the story of the early years of the most famous wizard of Earthsea and how his early years formed him. Earthsea is a place of a thousand islands far away and yet somehow familiar.
I first read this in 2011 and rated it 3. I was unimpressed with the book and its sequels and couldn't understand why it was supposed to be so good. I didn't see it.
Now on re-reading, I can finally appreciate the timeless quality of its beautiful language and the clear, recognizable plot that still does not feel cliched or dated at all. And I can see how this must have inspired so many other books I have read. (I am looking at you [b: Name of the Wind|186074|The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)|Patrick Rothfuss|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1515589515s/186074.jpg|2502879]).
Coming here and seeing my own 3 rating from just 7 years ago shows how much context means to reading books. My reading habits have changed and my enjoyment of this book is a completely different one.
Sometimes you can go home again. Just as captivating today as when it first sunk its hooks into me back in second grade.
Sweetly told coming-of-age story, that preaches Daoism as much as Daoism may be praught. I loved how it takes a very male story and turns machismo into a self-punishing weakness, but was also troubled by how even Le Guin wrote a story in which the women were all minor characters and very limited in what they could do. I gather later Earthsea books fix that, and look forward to them.
Sweetly told coming-of-age story, that preaches Daoism as much as Daoism may be praught. I loved how it takes a very male story and turns machismo into a self-punishing weakness, but was also troubled by how even Le Guin wrote a story in which the women were all minor characters and very limited in what they could do. I gather later Earthsea books fix that, and look forward to them.
This was brilliant. There is so much in it that I would not have picked up as a kid, but now it spoke very strongly to me. The notion of the conflict being an externalized version of the main character, the rambling pace that it took, and the focus on trust was all excellent.
I'm not normally a fantasy reader, but I love Ursula Le Guin. I heard her refer to this as her most anarchist book, so I had to read it. It is about power, knowledge, and how we need to own our worst selves. I found it delightful.
Dass es nur wenige Dialoge gab, war schon etwas nervig, auch wenn es zu der Plotline der "Reise nach innen" passt, die in diesem Buch herrscht. Großartig fand ich die Umsetzung der "Shadow"Idee von C.G.Jung (wenn ich mich nicht irre :P) Ich mochte die Wandlung des Hauptcharakters sehr , seine Auseinandersetzung mit Macht und Korruption. Es haben Frauen gefehlt imBuch und auch hier und da gabs nervigen Realweltsexismus. Anderseits waren beinah alle negativen Frauenfiguren weiß, während die einzige positive weibliche Person die gegen Schluss auftauchte, ein dunkelhäutiges Schwarzes Mädchen war,und auch der Hauptcharakter ist Schwarz. Generell wurde "weiß" als Marker für barbarisch und unattraktiv benutzt, was angenehm war,grade für ein Buch von 1968. Aber ich mag v.a. auch das Handwerk . . Le Guin schreibt großartig und ich kann sie flüssig lesen, und ihre Worte ziehen mich ziemlich schnell in ihren Bann!
