Ursula Le Guin: Earthsea

[Danny]

Has anyone read Ursula Le Guin's "Earthsea Quartet" or "The Other Wind" and "Tales from Earthsea".
I'm reading "Tehanu" at the moment, and so far I think it is the best of the series.

[Elf Of The Grey Havens]

I've read them... They were a bit weird...

[Danny]

I know. Sometimes it's hard to know where the plot is going... :)

Oh..."A Vitruvian Badger"! Cool sig!

[PrinceOfTheWest]

I'm reading "Tehanu" at the moment, and so far I think it is the best of the series.Is that the last one? I read Earthsea a long time ago, and loved them. She didn't write anything in the series for a while, then came out with another. LeGuin is a talented writer, and the original trilogy is well worth the effort. I think she did herself a disservice with The Tombs of Atuan by taking so long to bring Ged into the story. It was only the second book, and when I picked it up, I was wondering "Where's Ged?" He doesn't even show up until halfway through. I think if she'd put even a minor scene earlier in the story to let you know he was coming, people would have been more patient.

I'll have to pick up Tehanu.

[Someonebeatmetowunderkind]

I think I have read most of her stuff at one point or another. I liked it.

[Danny]

Yep, Tehanu is the last part of the "Quatet".

Originally it was a trilogy, though after a gap of about 10 years Le Guin wrote Tehanu and thus the trilogy became a quartet.

Tehanu is unlike the other three, and the central character is Arha (Tenar) from "The Tombs of Atuan". Essentially the book is very slow and their is virtually no action, though there is a great deal of internal monologue on Tenar's part. The book is actually about Tenar's reflection on her life, and I havent finished it yet, but I think the young girl Therru in it, who was crippled by her parents in a perverse act of violence, is going to end up as the Archmage of Earthsea.

[Ithilien]

Oh I love the series. They have such a romantic, lonely mood that no other book has equaled. I haven't yet read the fourth though.

[Danny]

Ged is sort of like Rurouni Kenshin, don't you think?

[Ithilien]

I just did a google search and it doesn't really seem so - but then again, I don't know the anime. In what ways are the characters similar?

[Danny]

Both characters have been through a great deal of trauma. Ged lost his power restoring the balance to Earthsea, and Kenshin suffered a great deal of trauma after fighting in the Bakumatsu.
Both characters are legends in their own time, and each of them just wants to fit in and to be a normal part of society, wishing for no honour as they feel they don't deserve any.

[Ithilien]

Hm...that is very similar.

[Ithilien]

Just a question, if they were to make a movie of The Wizard of Earthsea and the other novels, who do you think should play the characters?

These are some of my ideas:
Christian Bale - Ged
Natalie Portman - Arha