In this series, I’ll be working my way through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea works and analyzing her prose chapter by chapter. Spoilers follow.
Chapter 9: Orm Embar
Length: 19 pages, 141 paragraphs
Setting: At sea
Characters introduced: Orm Embar
You’ll forgive me if, having only read this Earthsea entry once before, I gave the Children of the Open Sea a bit too much credit as being beyond the affects of the imbalance in Earthsea. Of course they are affected, as all things are affected.
Without going into grizzly detail, Le Guin has caught us up in an apocalypse. The story comes crashing back in on Arren and Ged. First the chanters forget their songs and then, as if the narrator is concerned they might have missed the point, a dragon descends onto the page.
The dragons are in trouble. The Children of the Open Sea in their drifting village beyond the map are in trouble. Islands are burning. The world is being eaten away at the edges.
Then something happens that Le Guin has only done once before in Earthsea when Ged flew to Ogion from the Court of the Terrenon. The scene shifts far away from our protagonists.
We return to Roke, to the Master Summoner and the Master Changer. Roke is at the center of Earthsea, and magic is dying there, too.
We’ve had our breather. Unless I’m much mistaken, this last third of the book will take us on a hard run to there and back again.
Until next time.
chasetriesagain.com 