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snurri ([personal profile] snurri) wrote2011-02-06 02:41 pm
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2011 Reading #15: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Books 1-10.
11. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron.
12. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith writing as Claire Morgan.
13. Surviving the Siege of Beirut: A Personal Account by Lina Mikdadi.
14. Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason.

15. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Re-read). Possibly you have heard of this one. I have to confess something--I read the Earthsea books (the original trilogy, anyway, which was all that was out at the time) back in junior high and didn't really imprint on them. I knew there was something there, but I was a bit befuddled; at that time what I wanted from fantasy was pretty much swords and--actually, that probably covers it. (Well, and axes, which were somehow even cooler than swords, which was why dwarves were the greatest thing ever. Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu! But I digress.) So I think when I came across this book I was befuddled; I mean (and remember, this is my 13-year-old self talking here) OK, he indirectly slays a few of the young dragons, but he defeats the big one by talking to it? And the big villain is his own death or something? I just didn't get it, then. Reading it now, I want to put half the book into a file of memorable quotes and demand that it be required reading for ethics courses. Now I get it, or at least much of it. If I read it in another 25 years I'm sure I'll get even more.

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