Tehanu (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 4)

While I love to pick up a fantasy novel and be transported to another place, I don't always enjoy the jolt when I come back to the mundane world--and that's assuming the book isn't so cliched that I never go on a journey to begin with. Tehanu is unique in many ways and is one of my favorite fantasy novels because some of its characters have been jolted into the mundane world themselves and find that their most powerful weapon turns out to be love. Tehanu is a triumph. Read it and become wiser.

This book continues right from the end of The Furthest Shore. The story is slower then the other three, yet it is also much deeper. The primary themes again are being: who are we? Especially who are we after loss? For Tenar/Ghoa it is the loss of husband; for Ged the loss of power, ceasing to be a mage. Also it is man's struggle to conquer death. We also learn in this book that in earthsea, man and dragons were once one race. Men are the children of dragons that horded and built fortresses and forgot how to fly. Therru is an adopted child of Tenar and we find out that she is really the daughter of Kalessin the oldest of dragons. Yet we also find out that Kalessin is really Segoy the creator of earthsea. Segoy leaves his daughter with Ged and Tenar saying he will one day be given a child by them. Key Notes on Names: Tenar / Gohn - Arha Ged / Sparrowhawk - Hawk - Duny Therru / Tehanu Kalessin / Segoy - Oldest Origon / Aihak

I had the pleasure of reading the entire cycle from A Wizard of Earthsea through to The Other Wind in a two month period. Apparently for some people, having to wait several years between the end of The Farthest Shore and Tehanu gave them time to build up rather unrealistic expectations of what Ursula K Le Guin should have written. The first three books were not exclusively about Ged. Indeed, he was the central character but the books were really about Earthsea itself, and why not continue the cycle with someone else as the main focus? For some, I believe Ged is seen to be the Archmage and nothing else, he can't be free to change and evolve. And the same holds true for Earthsea-Earthsea cannot evolve and grow in a different direction for a good many people. But that is what happens in life. Change is inevitable, change is good. Change is what keeps life from being one-sided and boring. Earthsea and her characters change and develope and keep one guessing what is going to happen. Ged is not just a wizard, he is also a man, a man with feelings like other men, with problems like other men. Tenar is not just a vessel for an unseen power, she is a woman with power of her own; and Tehanu is a survivor and possesses a magic all her own. Change is magic. Change is hard for some to accept, harder than it can be to accept the concept of magic. I am for an Earthsea that explores different levels of being in the world. This book, and the subsequent books, forge ahead instead of looking behind.

I heartily and respectfully disagree with those who think that Tehanu is a longwinded and boring piece of sentimental crap. From my reading of the first three books, Ged always had complex feelings and fears that were evident to the reader. I don't see how Tehanu is very different, except that Tenar's complexities are thrown into the mix. It is true that Tehanu is a more emotional book than the other three, and maybe that's what makes it repellent. Perhaps it's just that older women out of their prime, stinky old witches, and quiet old men are not very appealing characters for a fantasy story. But this novel weaves together the fantasy of Therru's transformation and the reality of fear, pain, and disappointment. The events that made the strongest impressions on me were: 1. Ged's recovery from his loss of power. Sooner or later, everyone loses something that means everything to them. In Ged's case, he realizes that he was a person before his wizardry, and his power does not define him as a human being. He finally understands that he was Sparrowhawk all along, and must pick up his life where he left off at 15. Tenar must also face the same predicament; she must return to being Tenar instead of Goha, a farmer's wife. This theme really had an impact on me, and probably will on other hypersensitive people. 2. Tenar's fear for herself and Therru. This books is not merely a 200 page diatribe on the evils of men and child abuse, but a perceptive look at the effects of abuse and the anger that women sometimes feel. I live alone in a cabin, which is a risky situation for young women. I have been "stalked" before and I share Tenar's anger at men who think that they can make me fear them. My favorite moment is when Tenar stands at the open door brandishing her knife, because in all her futility, she is not afraid of these men. I always thought guys were lucky because they don't have to worry about getting raped or abused, and maybe this novel will give them insight into the helplessness that some females feel. 3. Therru's transformation and her interest in Aunty Moss. Therru, for all her seeming weakness, turned out to be the strongest character. She begins as a beaten, disfigured child; in the end she is still disfigured and shunned by most people, but she has an inner strength that allows her to save Ged and Tenar and overcome evildoers. I find it enchanting that someone so berated and rejected has an inner power so strong. Aunty Moss is another character that teaches an important lesson. Just because someone is unhygienic/disgusting/toothless does not mean they are not kind people. Everyone deserves respect, not just pretty people. Some people who read this will still think that Tehanu a crazed feminist rant on abuse and evil men. Hopefully they can look beyond their perceptions and try to find the deeper and more universal themes in the novel. I think the book is a beautiful piece of introspective writing that I will reread ag

For two decades, Ursula Le Guin's landmark EARTHSEA cycle was considered a trilogy. The surprise publication of a fourth novel in 1990, TEHANU, generated expansive critical acclaim and represents Le Guin's courageous and brilliant feminist deconstruction of her own fantasy masterwork.Tenar of the Ring, priestess-heroine of THE TOMBS OF ATUAN, has become a middle-aged farmer's widow, who abandoned both wordly fame and the promise of esoteric power for 'a man, children, life'. Those children grown, she adopts an abused girl, Therru, and later the responsibility of caring for the archmage Ged. Ged, having defeated a great evil which threatened all Earthsea, has returned from the lands of death, as related in THE FARTHEST SHORE, but has lost his magecraft and potentially his will to live. The course of the story reveals a shining destiny for burned Therru and the tender budding of a relationship between Tenar and Ged.While direct statements in TEHANU of the feminist agenda are a little heavyhanded, the gentle unfolding of the world of feminine experience through Tenar's activities is moving and perceptive: the ceaseless 'women's work', the harmony of feminine companionship, the joys and fears of motherhood and the bitter acknowledgement that women must always be conscious of 'doors locked' against the violence of men. The consummation of Tenar and Ged's relationship was for me the climax of the novel, and as powerful a landmark in Ged's journey towards self-knowledge as naming his own shadow in THE WIZARD OF EARTHSEA. The wizardly denial of sexuality, and of the worth of women, must end for Ged with the loss of his power, and he makes a halting progress to Tenar's side and to reclaiming the selfhood and masculine identity he believed poured away with his power. The 'Song of Ea' proclaims: 'In silence, the word...in death, life'. Le Guin adds now that only through acceptance of woman can man be found - and vice versa.Le Guin has always been a writer who challenges, who believes implicitly that one of fantasy's most vital functions is precisely that - to challenge. 'Tehanu' is the name of a star which Tenar, claiming the power of Naming hoarded by men throughout the earlier Earthsea novels, discovers to be also Therru's True Name. TEHANU is a bright beacon for modern fantastists prompting them to re-examine their motives for reading and writing fantasy - do we search out fantasy to liberate ourselves, to reveal truths about our real world, or is it a reactive, conservative, destructive urge all too often valorising patriarchal ethics system which exclude women and women's magic? TEHANU's conclusion is a little abrupt and unsatisfying, raising more questions than it answers: why do men fear women, why must power for one must be gained through disempowering others, would breaking the hegemony of mages be good for Earthsea, can two natures can exist in one body? Thankfully, THE OTHER WIND, the latest Earthsea novel, continues the mighty task Le Guin has