Earthsea is in trouble again. Dragons--beings of great power and mystery--have begun wreaking havoc at the fringes of the kingdom. And nightmares of the dead have begun plaguing the populace. Alder, a simple mender, is determined to find out why he keeps dreaming of his dead wife, and the land of the dead. He pursues Ged, the former Archmage of Earthsea, but Ged merely advises him to turn toward others. When he does, he sets in motion a sequence of events that will forever change Earthsea.

Ursula K Le Guin's The Other Wind is a quiet little novel of great eloquence and power. Like Tehanu, it is, in some sense, a sequel to her classic Earthsea trilogy, in that it occurs chronologically after the trilogy and borrows a great deal from its predecessors (including, to be honest, a significant proportion of its emotional effect). But fans of Earthsea will be disappointed to know that the beloved Ged does not leave his rustic retirement to save the world again. But it is a disappointment tinged with satisfaction. The appeal of the returning hero has seduced too many writers into pale repetitions of their former glory. Le Guin is too wise and honest of a writer to fall into this trap. Her integrity to her characters is bracing, not exploitative.

It's hard to convey to a stranger just how good of a writer Le Guin is. Like the world she describes, her writing is simple and unadorned. But it powerfully portrays both melancholy and simple satisfaction. This is, of course, not a huge range of emotion--no operatic highs and lows here--and as a result the entire novel feels somewhat muted. But Le Guin accomplishes more with this limited set of emotional possibilities than most writers do with their melodrama and histrionics. The Other Wind is more meditative than exciting, but it keeps a steady (if light) touch on your heart.

I have always liked the way Le Guin portrays magic in Earthsea. The Other Wind is no exception. For too many other fantasy writers, magic is about rules: what you have to do to get it, how much mana you use to exercise it, and so on. But Le Guin has the right idea. Magic isn't about rules. It also isn't about showiness and power. In Earthsea, magic is a mysterious and dangerous thing--part of the fabric of reality, true, but a fundamentally unknowable one. Most importantly, magic is a tragic function, and not in the sense that doing magic costs you an arm and a leg, or a first-born child, or teenage angst. Rather, doing magic puts you in touch with the vastness of reality, and it's a daunting sight. Almost unique among fantasy writers, Le Guin properly sees magic as a way of looking past our mere perception of things and into their true essence. Magic is tragic because it is humbling; it is a glimpse into something well beyond ourselves, more powerful and more important. No wonder Ged doesn't want to be drawn back.

Ok! That's enough wallowing in self-indulgent purple prose. The upshot of all of this is that The Other Wind is a superb follow up to the Earthsea trilogy, and a vast improvement over Tehanu, which, it seemed to me, sort of missed the point.

Copyright © 2005 Steven Wu