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 2: Otter
Length: 27 pages
Setting: Havnor
What most impresses me about The Finder as a whole and especially this chapter, is how Le Guin takes us to a world that is recognizably Earthsea but feels transposed into another sub-genre of fantasy altogether.
This version of Earthsea is ruled by cruel men, and others become cruel in their shadows. Otter’s father beats him to try to suppress his innate talent for magic and protect him. Hound delivers Otter into servitude because it’s his job and doing so protects his own neck.
Gelluk feels like a sword-and-sorcery villain. There is an almost pulpy quality to this wizard driven mad by his obsession with and exposure to mercury. He’s the kind of villain I’d expect Conan to fight, and finding him in Earthsea changes the shape of the world.
Le Guin also revisits the crude and cruel magics we glimpse in Tehanu. Gelluk’s use of magical restraints paired with Anieb’s magical visit to Medra in his confinement shift some essential note in the music of Earthsea’s magic. The epic quality is not gone, but in this story it no longer has the grand, mystic quality of The Lord of the Rings. Now, there is something of weird fantasy about it. This use of magic feels more psychic, more pulpy.
I won’t lie, thus far Tales from Earthsea doesn’t resonate with me the way the previous Earthsea works have, but it’s interesting to see Le Guin show just how versatile the setting can be.
Until next time.
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