Tehanu, Ursula K Le Guin

Tehanu is the fourth book in the Earthsea series. This is not the last book of Earthsea, which is how it was described when it was released in 1990. The book follows the story of Tenar, who first came into the series in book two, The Tombs of Atuan. This has a more personal feel about it than the other books. There is less emphases on magic. Tenar is now living on Gont after rejecting the chance to live with the aristocracy on Havnor with Lebanon. She initially lived with Ogion and rejected his offer to teach her magic. She has chosen the life of the farmer’s wife and is known as Goha. She married a farmer called Flint and has two children called Apple and Spark.

At the start of the book Flint has died. She is living alone, feeling isolated and uncertain of her identity. She finds a small child abandoned by travelling vagabonds. The child is badly burnt as she was pushed into the camp fire by her father. One side of her face is burnt and one hand is burnt into a claw. She adopts the child and calls her Therru (meaning “flame” in her native tongue of Kargist).

This isolated but tranquil existence is changed as Ged, the once Archmage and common thread throughout the series, arrives on the back of the dragon Kalessin. Ged had lost his magic whilst bringing balance back into the world and closing the breach between the world of the living and the dead.

There are themes revolving around gendre issues. The space that the different genres exist in and the power they have is explored in an elegant fashion. This is described eloquently by the witch that Tenar befriends, Moss.

“Ours is only a little power, seems like, next to theirs,” Moss said. “But it goes down deep. It’s all roots. It’s like an old blackberry thicket. And a wizard’s power’s like a fir tree, maybe, great and tall and grand, but it’ll blow right down in a storm. Nothing kills a blackberry bramble.”

I would guess that Le Guin having left this world behind in 1972 after The Furthest Shore, had never really left Earthsea behind. Those amazing characters had been whispering in her ear. Like her readers, she wanted to know what had happened to them all. How had they resolved their lives and what decisions they had made. She had created a world of such vividness it wasn’t that easy to escape. Try diving in yourself.