Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
226 pages
Published 1990
Read from July 21 to July 22
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
I so called this when I read A Wizard of Earthsea.
Well, maybe not so much called it as suspected it: There was no way Le
Guin would create a world dominated by male-only magic without
eventually addressing the issues of gendered power inherent in her
fictional universe. Tehanu gets right to the point, presenting a
blunt, broad metaphor for how society marginalizes and subdues women,
relegating them to lives as accessories to and dependents of men. Tenar,
the central character of The Tombs of Atuan, returns as an older
widowed woman, a role seldom encountered in fantasy (or, for that
matter, in fiction in general) -- a role of particular powerlessness, a
superfluous stage of life after a woman's societal "usefulness" has been
exhausted. She's joined by Ged, himself rendered powerless, a man
unmanned in a male-dominated society. It's practically textbook gender
studies fiction, and the lack of subtlety is driven home by a
particularly one-dimensional villain who appears just long enough to
subjugate our heroes before being rather inevitably dispatched. (Oops, I
guess I should have warned you about spoilers. Oh well.)
Despite this heavyhandedness, I enjoyed Tehanu
quite a bit. The story may not be subtle, but Le Guin's prose here has a
delicate touch, a melancholy tinge of fading years and a long lifetime
behind it, an affecting match for the heavy themes. Above all I enjoyed
the novelty of a female protagonist in late middle age. Tehanu isn't quite the breezy fantasy classic that is A Wizard of Earthsea, but all in all I'd say it comes in second best of the Earthsea novels.
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