All throughout Earthsea, magic is disappearing. Wizards are forgetting the ancient words at the heart of magical spells. Sorcerers are turning to materialism. For many, addiction to Hazia—a marijuana-like substance—is becoming a cheap substitute for real magic. Meanwhile, the villages and towns of Earthsea are seeing their lives getting worse but struggle to see how this could be connected to the disappearance of magic. And at the heart of the world of magic, the town of Roke, the old wizards would rather not confront the ills that are sweeping Earthsea.
Behind all of this lies, in part, a renegade sorcerer who is openly breaking the ancient codes of magicians. He practices dark magic, including promising and, apparently in some cases, delivering immortality to himself and those who’ve chosen to follow him. By upsetting the delicate balance of magic and reason in the world, this wizard catalyzes the emergence of black hole like entities that suck all magic into a void and thus threaten the continued existence of the world as a whole. As the previous two books in author Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series demonstrated, the world of Earthsea is predicated on an ecological harmony between the Earth-like laws of the physical sciences and the moderate usage of magic; however, if this balance is upset in either the direction of magic or science, there are dire consequences.
What becomes apparent in the third book of the series, The Farthest Shore, is that part of what is necessary for this balance to occur does not have to do with magic or science, but rather politics. Earthsea is, at the start of the novel, lacking a charismatic leader. There is not a figure to tie things together and follow. As such, an atmosphere of every man for himself develops. Moral values, including maintaining the balance between magic and reason, become platitudes that people may pay lip service to, but not actually believe in any meaningful way. This, in turn, paves the way for figures such as the wizard who practices dark magic and for others to follow him.
Enter Arren, the heir of one of the oldest ruling families in Earthsea. Arren is a young man on the verge of adulthood when he goes to visit Ged, the protagonist of the previous two Earthsea novels and now the Archmage of Roke. Upon meeting Arren, Ged almost immediately understands that the boy is destined to be the king of Earthsea.
Without knowing what exactly they are looking for, the pair strikes off throughout the waterways of the world. As they go from town to town, picking up clues regarding the malaise spreading through Earthsea, Arren and Ged develop a strong relationship. Indeed, as much as their journey is premised on finding out what is causing the magic in Earthsea to disappear, it is also about the Arthur and Merlin like education of a future king. At the heart of this education are values derived from Taoism, the belief system that Le Guin herself practices and proselytizes on behalf of. One of the central values Ged tries to impart is that, if the harmony of the world is to persist, then humans must follow the order of nature and refrain from acting for the sake of simply acting. This means that the most efficient way to achieve a goal is to paradoxically buck common sense and not act. Well, that’s not exactly true; it’s not that one can’t act outright, but that if one is to act, then that action must be executed when and only when there is no other option and, further, that the action would have to occur just so. Ged uses the example of a leaf falling from a tree. The leaf does not fall until it, along with the wind, the tree, and a variety of other ecological factors determine that that particular moment is the moment it should fall and none other. By not falling until that exact moment, the leaf helps maintain the harmony in the world. If leaves decided to fall earlier than that or later, the rest of the ecology would get out of whack and chaos would build. Another example is Ged’s decision to stay in Roke even though he could sense that the world outside was slowly deteriorating. He saw these problems, but did nothing about it. He just stayed at Roke and grew old. This is because, throughout all that time, he never felt as though it was absolutely necessary to act. It was only when he met Arren and saw that accompanying this young man was the action that he must commit to at this stage of his life that he chose to act.
Much of the second half of the novel is about a related Taoist value regarding the acceptance of death as a fact of life. The dark magician, Cob, is, in some ways, a tragic character. A village sorcerer, never part of the elite community of wizards trained at Roke, Cob was prodigiously talented but also hateful of others and determined to strike out on his own. He did so by staving off death and ended up deeply damaging the harmony between the natural world and the community of wizards. To not die, is to radically alter the balance of everything else in the world’s ecology. When Arren can accept this as the truth, when he knows that he will die, he has the strength to step forward to the throne.
As with all of Le Guin’s writing, each sentence here can be savored. It’s a gorgeous book and it has a lot of wisdom. One criticism, though, is that, after reading through the novel, I don’t have a great sense of who the character of Arren actually is or what makes him tick which is surprising given the amount of time we spend with him. Ged, on the other hand, remains a wonderful creation and the older version of the character is totally consistent with the development of the character through the previous books. His concluding action is poetic and wonderfully fitting. The fact that Arren, though, seems somewhat incomplete makes the whole philosophical/moral/pedagogical element of the book a bit didactic, which is a shame because, as mentioned, it does offer a lot to mull over.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels 