The Tombs of Atuan
Sep. 3rd, 2014 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliThe Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Spoilers for Wizard of Earthsea ahead.
I actually read this one first as a child, but I think it works better in this order.
So we start with Tenar, and having been introduced to her as a small girl with her parents, we then get to see her transformed into Arha, the Eaten One, the First Priestess and the sole priestess of the Nameless Ones, the dark and mysterious powers of the Place -- it needs no other name, the oldest and most sacred place.
So we watch her grow up about the Tombs, the mysterious rocks there, and learn her own secrets, because the First Priestess is always reborn as herself. She learns of power and politics, has a friend, works out the Labyrinth, and hears stories about the evil sorcerers, and how in the Treasury, they keep half an amulet, which a Priest-King had broken, thus fatally weakening a sorcerer, and then sent there to be kept safe forever. Many thiefs had come to steal it.
And, in due course, one comes in her lifetime.
The rest of the tale involves light in dark places, disbelief, an empty coffin, a rabbit, and quite a bit more.
Spoilers for Wizard of Earthsea ahead.
I actually read this one first as a child, but I think it works better in this order.
So we start with Tenar, and having been introduced to her as a small girl with her parents, we then get to see her transformed into Arha, the Eaten One, the First Priestess and the sole priestess of the Nameless Ones, the dark and mysterious powers of the Place -- it needs no other name, the oldest and most sacred place.
So we watch her grow up about the Tombs, the mysterious rocks there, and learn her own secrets, because the First Priestess is always reborn as herself. She learns of power and politics, has a friend, works out the Labyrinth, and hears stories about the evil sorcerers, and how in the Treasury, they keep half an amulet, which a Priest-King had broken, thus fatally weakening a sorcerer, and then sent there to be kept safe forever. Many thiefs had come to steal it.
And, in due course, one comes in her lifetime.
The rest of the tale involves light in dark places, disbelief, an empty coffin, a rabbit, and quite a bit more.
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Date: 2014-09-04 06:02 pm (UTC)I love the scene - this is U K LeGuin at her finest - where Tenar challenges Ged to Do Magic if he's such a hot-shot wizard… and he just sits there… and in disgust, she gets up… with a rustle of silk.
“That's the gown Princess Whoever was wearing at Whatever-it-was,” he remarks, while she's just goggling at herself, at the lace, the pearls, the primary colors, the jewelry… and then it fades, leaving her in her poverty. [Later, he's describing the dance of dragons, watching them pinwheeling like autumn leaves up in the bright blue sky - and she snarls at him to shut up! - because without even trying he's making her whole life seem so poor, so worthless…
Did you ever read her novel, The Lathe of Heaven?
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Date: 2014-09-04 07:07 pm (UTC)did read Lathe. Didn't like it much.