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A review by mburnamfink
Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin
4.0
Tehanu is the most challenging of the Earthsea books so far, a story of maturity and redemption rather than youth and power.
We catch up with Tenar. After the events of The Tombs of Atuan, Tenar went to Gont, lived with the wizard Ogion for a year, and then lived an ordinary life. She became the Goodwife Goha, had children, and then became the Widow Goha when her husband died. The story begins with her taking in a horribly burned and abused girl, who she names Therru. Therru was maimed by a group of rogues that included her mother and father, pushed into a fire and left to die. Her scarred half-face and fused hand attest to damage that will never heal. After this introduction, Ogion summons Tenar to his hut as he dying. Tenar witness the old wizard pass, and then Ged returns on the back of a dragon, no longer Archmage after the events of The Farthest Shore, and almost dead himself.
In a lot of respects, this is an awkward and non-traditional story. Tenar spends a lot of it powerless. Fairly so in the cases of Therru, Ged, and Ogion, all of whom have suffered wounds no one can heal. But also unfairly as she deals with the sexism of Gontish society, which treats middle-aged women as adjunct beings, and with the curses of the corrupt mage working for the Lord of Re Alba, and the violence of the bandits who maimed Therru and threaten to return to finish the job. The first three quarters of the book stumbles, but the last section is a dark and fantastic return to form, and there are good bits scattered throughout.
Many critics have focused on the difference between male and female power, and the character of Auntie Moss, a witch who says that "A wizard without his power is like a nut with the meat scooped out. Is there anything left after that?" and who contrasts wizardly power by saying that her roots go deep into the dark, deeper than she knows. Le Guin, in her excellent closing essay, notes that Moss is not her authorial voice. If her true (Taoist) beliefs are in this book, it is that power is in potentiality, in the emptiness that might be filled. And that seeking after dominion in any way is a false power.
We catch up with Tenar. After the events of The Tombs of Atuan, Tenar went to Gont, lived with the wizard Ogion for a year, and then lived an ordinary life. She became the Goodwife Goha, had children, and then became the Widow Goha when her husband died. The story begins with her taking in a horribly burned and abused girl, who she names Therru. Therru was maimed by a group of rogues that included her mother and father, pushed into a fire and left to die. Her scarred half-face and fused hand attest to damage that will never heal. After this introduction, Ogion summons Tenar to his hut as he dying. Tenar witness the old wizard pass, and then Ged returns on the back of a dragon, no longer Archmage after the events of The Farthest Shore, and almost dead himself.
In a lot of respects, this is an awkward and non-traditional story. Tenar spends a lot of it powerless. Fairly so in the cases of Therru, Ged, and Ogion, all of whom have suffered wounds no one can heal. But also unfairly as she deals with the sexism of Gontish society, which treats middle-aged women as adjunct beings, and with the curses of the corrupt mage working for the Lord of Re Alba, and the violence of the bandits who maimed Therru and threaten to return to finish the job. The first three quarters of the book stumbles, but the last section is a dark and fantastic return to form, and there are good bits scattered throughout.
Many critics have focused on the difference between male and female power, and the character of Auntie Moss, a witch who says that "A wizard without his power is like a nut with the meat scooped out. Is there anything left after that?" and who contrasts wizardly power by saying that her roots go deep into the dark, deeper than she knows. Le Guin, in her excellent closing essay, notes that Moss is not her authorial voice. If her true (Taoist) beliefs are in this book, it is that power is in potentiality, in the emptiness that might be filled. And that seeking after dominion in any way is a false power.