just words

When was the last time you sat down with a book and just got totally lost in it? I’m talking about hours flying by, people looking for you because you’ve forgotten all your worldly responsibilities. I’m talking about out-of-body experiences wherein you’re like hanging out with characters from the book, a psychosis-like dissociative state in which, while reading, nothing else matters because the world you once knew has melted away, replaced by the world of the book. I’m talking about feeling as if you’re personally involved with the author, like you know their thoughts and can relate to them on some deep, profound level. I’m talking about feeling as if the book was written for you and you alone, like it speaks directly to your soul somehow. I’m talking about being overcome with intense longing whenever you can’t read the book, as if, whenever you put it down, it becomes like a long-lost lover, the one that got away, the one you dream about.

When was the last time you felt like that about a book?

The last time I felt like that was actually a couple of weeks ago when I decided, after watching the Studio Ghibli movie for the tenth time or so, to pick up A Wizard of Earthsea, written by Ursula K. Le Guin and published in 1968. It’s a high-fantasy novel set in a world called Earthsea, an ocean world with thousands of little islands, all with different cultures and customs and whatnot, where magic exists and is performed by knowing and using a thing’s “true name.” The story is about a gifted young mage named Duny, whose true name is Ged, though he mostly goes by his use-name, Sparrowhawk, and it follows him in the third person as we watch him grow from a stubborn, prideful child to a slightly less stubborn, more humbled adult. It’s essentially a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story, a story about coming to grips with oneself, or more specifically, coming to grips with one’s inner darkness. And there’s just something magical about it. A Wizard of Earthsea feels eternal, like a story that was always meant to be told, like it was floating around in the great aether of stories out there, just waiting for someone like Ursula K. Le Guin, with her beautiful mind and unbridled talent, to come along and put it to paper.

I can’t tell you what it was specifically about A Wizard of Earthsea that so entranced me; maybe it was the fast-paced storytelling, the epic-poem-like prose, the general mysteriousness of the world, or maybe it was just a right-moment-right-time type of thing, or maybe some sort of dark sorcery. But from the very first page, something hooked me and did not let go. Some books, when I’m reading them, my mind will drift; I’ll start thinking about work, or what I’m doing tomorrow, or some conversation I had earlier that day, and although I will read the words on the page, I won’t be able to recall them minutes later. But this was never the case with A Wizard of Earthsea. I absorbed every word fully, anticipating each new word with bated breath, thinking of nothing else but the words, never once becoming bored with them. I was so into this book that I finished it in less than two days, and while it’s not a long book by any means, only about 200 pages or so, this is still a record for me. Most books I read take the span of several weeks or months to finish, depending on length, but not this one, this one I could not put down.

Maybe I got sucked in because I felt a deep connection with Sparrowhawk, who starts his journey as a stubborn, prideful young boy but, after dealing with problems that were entirely of his own making, becomes changed, wiser, by the end. Throughout the book, Sparrowhawk makes a fool of himself and has to deal with the consequences right up until the very end, and this is how I feel literally every day about my own life. Sparrowhawk’s journey felt allegorical to my own, especially my growing up, my dropping out of high school, my being forced to get a job, my hating that job, my slowly learning how to take care of myself, my slowly learning how to take accountability for my own bullshit, and my slowly coming to grips with all the dark aspects of my personality. The only difference between me and Sparrowhawk is that Sparrowhawk is an innately powerful wizard who can talk to dragons and turn himself into a dragon, and me, well, I’m just your average low-talent 21st-century idiot living comfortably in a first-world country, so maybe we’re not actually all that similar now that I’m thinking about it. Yet somehow it still felt like Ursula K. Le Guin was writing about me, like she had tapped into the young male adolescent psyche, perfectly capturing all the stupid pride and compulsive contrarianism of that age, and this left me in total awe, left me wondering how the hell Ursula K. Le Guin, a woman of 38 at the time of writing A Wizard of Earthsea, was able to capture all that without having experienced it herself. How could she have possibly known what it was like? She must have grown up around a lot of stupid boys.

At the time of its release, A Wizard of Earthsea was labeled “children’s literature,” but the book is by no means a children’s book. Sure, it’s fast-paced and entertaining, with cool wizards and big dragons and powerful magic, which is partly why it’s such a joy to read, but underneath that high-fantasy crust is a mantle both philosophical and spiritual: concepts like “identity” and “the self” are explored through Sparrowhawk’s coming-of-age journey; ideas like “truth” and “knowledge” are examined through the magic system involving “true names,” begging questions like “how are things named to begin with?” and “does language actually have anything to do with it?” The novel also explores Taoist concepts like balance and harmony, as major plot points revolve around Earthsea’s balance being disrupted due to the irresponsible use of magic. The book is also dark as hell: wars are going on, slavery is a thing, people die left and right, and there are no happy endings, no bangs, only whimpers, meaning it’s definitely not your standard children’s fantasy novel. But it’s no Game of Thrones either; it’s not shocking simply for the sake of being shocking. A Wizard of Earthsea’s darkness exists for good reason, to support its overarching themes. And yes, I know, this all sounds heavy-handed and intellectual and whatnot, but Ursula K. Le Guin writes this stuff into the story so subtly, and with such skill, that the novel never once feels preachy or pretentious, which is another reason I enjoyed reading it so much.

Another thing I like about A Wizard of Earthsea is that, with it not being a standard fantasy novel with romance and happy endings and all that, I was always unsure of what was going to happen next. When reading each page, there was always this sense of nervous dread, and as a result, everything felt high-stakes and serious, which kept me on the edge of my seat. This complements Ursula K. Le Guin’s fast-paced prose because you never have to wait very long to find out what actually happens next. This praise could also be a criticism, depending on your perspective, since all that dread leaves little room for humor. The story and dialogue are full of wit, but there are no laugh-out-loud moments, not even a single chuckle. The prose takes itself very seriously, like an epic poem, mythology almost, yet the language is neither flowery nor hard to parse nor eye-roll-inducing, which is some kind of feat. The prose is actually very simple and to the point, like: “Sparrowhawk sailed to this place, this is what he saw, this is what he felt, this is what he did,” meaning a lot of stuff happens; Sparrowhawk’s journey is sprawling and dense, even though the novel itself is only about 60,000 words or so. And since a lot of stuff happens and so much of that is subtly injected with philosophical and spiritual subtext, it’s one of those books that, depending on where you’re at in life and what headspace you’re in, can be interpreted in many different ways, like as a simple high-fantasy adventure, or an allegory for the Jungian shadow, or an epic poem full of life lessons, or all of these things at the same time. A Wizard of Earthsea has something for everyone, even if it lacks humor sometimes.

After finishing A Wizard of Earthsea, I was left starving for more, so I ordered the rest of the series off eBay and have been reading through them at about the same pace as I read the first novel. To date, I have read five out of the six Earthsea novels: A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, and Tales from Earthsea. I’m working through the final novel, The Other Wind, now. This is the fastest I’ve ever read a series of novels in my entire life, if that tells you anything about the quality of these books. And although I wouldn’t say each novel gripped me quite like A Wizard of Earthsea, the second and third novels come very close. The second novel, The Tombs of Atuan, is another coming-of-age story, just this time about a young girl in a cult, examining the ways cults exert control by cutting people off from their families and distorting the truth, but it’s a much slower burn than the first novel. The third novel, The Farthest Shore, follows Sparrowhawk once again as he seeks to stop a wizard named Cob from eliminating death, thus making all beings immortal, and I enjoyed this one a lot, especially the resolution in which Sparrowhawk basically out-philosophizes Cob about life and death: “In life is death. In death is rebirth. What then is life without death? Life unchanging, everlasting, eternal? What is it but death, death without rebirth?” This highlights a common theme in the Earthsea books: there is no true villain, no Big Bad to defeat, only differing viewpoints, differing circumstances, differing environmental pressures, and as such, conflict resolution is never as simple as just “kill the bad guy, save the world.” This is a core philosophy of the Earthsea novels.

And this brings me to an almost entirely different topic altogether, the Studio Ghibli film Tales from Earthsea, which doesn’t seem to understand the core philosophy of the Earthsea series at all, which is why I say “an almost entirely different topic altogether,” because it’s just barely Earthsea. I would like to say that I had read the novels before watching the film, but this would be a blatant lie. The film actually introduced me to Earthsea, years and years ago, and for that I thank Studio Ghibli, although I should have read the novels much much sooner. The film doesn’t really get the books or follow them even loosely, instead only using the names of people, places, and concepts from all six books to tell a totally new story that ends up being basically incomprehensible and, worst of all, doesn’t spiritually align with the themes of Ursula K. Le Guin’s original work. For example, the film is full of blood and violence, which the books only rarely depict, and Cob is positioned as the Big Bad Villain, with the climax resulting in Cob’s death at the hands of Sparrowhawk and his companions, which resolves all the conflicts in the movie. Ursula K. Le Guin herself was not happy with how Studio Ghibli adapted Earthsea, but rather than putting words in her mouth, I’ll just share what she actually wrote about the film:

“Much of it was exciting. The excitement was maintained by violence, to a degree that I find deeply untrue to the spirit of the books … Both the American and the Japanese filmmakers treated these books as mines for names and a few concepts, taking bits and pieces out of context, and replacing the story/ies with an entirely different plot, lacking in coherence and consistency. I wonder at the disrespect shown not only to the books but to their readers … in the film, evil has been comfortably externalized in a villain, the wizard Cob, who can simply be killed, thus solving all problems. In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil. My books are not conceived in terms of such a war and offer no simple answers to simplistic questions.”

Her full response can be found in her online archive. I include it here because, in her critique, the soul of her philosophy is revealed. And after reading the Earthsea novels, I agree with her critique completely. But it’s funny because, without this film, I would have never known about Earthsea, so the film still holds a special place in my heart. And, divorced from the source material, it is a beautiful film, full of great environments and smooth animation and wonderful music, it’s just doesn’t hold a candle to the Earthsea novels, especially A Wizard of Earthsea.

I’m confident in saying that A Wizard of Earthsea is one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, even those who are put off by fantasy or science fiction. Before I read A Wizard of Earthsea, I had this weird hang-up about fantasy novels. I had read stuff like The Hobbit and liked it, but I had started so many others, like A Song of Ice and Fire and Brandon Sanderson’s stuff and whatnot, and been so unimpressed that I had developed this idea that fantasy novels were pretty much all escapist fiction that couldn’t really tell me anything about my life. So I found myself gravitating more toward literary fiction, as it felt more meaningful, more substantial. But I was wrong. I was being close-minded, as I can often tell so clearly in hindsight. There is deep insight to be gained from all writing, even if, on the surface, that writing might seem like a run-of-the-mill adventure story, there is almost always something more meaningful going on underneath if you are just willing to dig a little bit. I realize that now. In Sparrowhawk, I saw myself. In his journey, I saw my journey. A Wizard of Earthsea has changed me.

Ursula K. Le Guin passed away on January 22, 2018. She had incredible thoughts and ideas. She spoke to me, and many others, through her writing. Sometimes I wish she were still alive so that I could write her a letter or an email or something, so I could tell her how much her work means to me. But then I remember her words, the words she spoke to me through Sparrowhawk, her words about an old Earthsea woman’s inevitable death.

“Aye, that's a consequence of being alive.”

And then I smile, grateful for all she’s left behind.