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- Mar 27, 2016
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- 2,202
The books that truly stand out for me are the Earthsea Trilogy. It’s difficult writing today to find words to describe just how important these books were to myself and people that I knew in the late 70s and 80s. Despite their simplicity they seemed to express deep truths of our inner world, in a way that no other books have for me, before or since. I was particularly taken with the third book with its acceptance of human frailty, much like the ending of Shakespeare’s Tempest. Even now, many years later, as I struggle to reconnect with the experience of that time, I feel these books as friendly oases within myself.
I regret not having attended the book signing in London for Tehanu, the fourth book. I could easily have rearranged commitments. A friend went: when she was in front of Ursula getting her book signed she said “I just want to say thank you”. I thought that was great. I devoured that book and to my bemusement was left shocked and perplexed by it. Maybe ten years later I read it again and wondered what on earth I’d been shocked about: in the intervening years I’d got older and become accepting of the truths that the story embodies.
I do not remember the fifth and sixth so well, and have not looked at them since first reading. I recall “The Other Wind” as a re-visioning of the Earthsea world to accommodate her ever-deepening perspective on Taoism. I will look at them again.
Frustratingly I cannot find my copy of her translation of the Tao Te Ching. In her introduction I’m sure she wrote of how she’d always loved this book, that her father had selected a chapter from it to be read at his funeral, and she was wondering which chapter she’d choose for her own funeral. I’d like to know which one she chose.
A truly great individual who has enriched my world immeasurably.
I regret not having attended the book signing in London for Tehanu, the fourth book. I could easily have rearranged commitments. A friend went: when she was in front of Ursula getting her book signed she said “I just want to say thank you”. I thought that was great. I devoured that book and to my bemusement was left shocked and perplexed by it. Maybe ten years later I read it again and wondered what on earth I’d been shocked about: in the intervening years I’d got older and become accepting of the truths that the story embodies.
I do not remember the fifth and sixth so well, and have not looked at them since first reading. I recall “The Other Wind” as a re-visioning of the Earthsea world to accommodate her ever-deepening perspective on Taoism. I will look at them again.
Frustratingly I cannot find my copy of her translation of the Tao Te Ching. In her introduction I’m sure she wrote of how she’d always loved this book, that her father had selected a chapter from it to be read at his funeral, and she was wondering which chapter she’d choose for her own funeral. I’d like to know which one she chose.
A truly great individual who has enriched my world immeasurably.
