Comments on: Disappointing https://readingtheend.com/2008/09/15/disappointing/ before I read the middle Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:15:54 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 By: jennysbooks https://readingtheend.com/2008/09/15/disappointing/#comment-14919 Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:15:54 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=188#comment-14919 Well, crap, Nymeth. I just returned the two sequels to the library – I checked them out for my mother and she had finished them and I returned them. If only I’d known there would be no Unpleasant Ged in the sequels. I feel silly.

I trust you, though, because I know of your great love for Diana Wynne Jones and Neil Gaiman, so next time I’m there I will give Ursula Le Guin another go.

]]> By: Nymeth https://readingtheend.com/2008/09/15/disappointing/#comment-14918 Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:07:03 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=188#comment-14918 I wonder if you’d feel differently about the second Earthsea book, The Tombs of Atuan. Ged only shows up at the end of the story. The protagonist is Tenar, one of my favourite female characters ever, and the story is much darker and more thoughtful and intimate. I think that one of the problems with A Wizard of Earthsea is that this kind of epic story doesn’t really suit Ursula Le Guin’s writing. She’s much better at more personal stories like the one told in The Tombs of Atuan.

Of course, she’s one of my favourite writers, so I’m more than a bit biased here. But at first I wasn’t all that impressed with A Wizard of Earthsea either. It was only later than I began to appreciate it in a so-that’s-how-it-all-began sort of way.

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