A Wizard of EarthSea: Style and imagination

A Wizard of EarthSea by Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin writes with style and imagination. A Wizard of Earthsea is a wonderful coming of age story that presents a lot of excellent lessons in personal growth and maturation while still being an entertaining story.

Le Guin’s Ged is a well thought-out character who’s existence and life story are very well developed. The description of events in Ged’s early life sets up a realistic background from which to understand later occuring events, not only in this novel, but the others in the Earthsea series.

I enjoyed the philosophical points that Le Guin makes when pointing out some of the flaws (e.g, pride, vanity, overconfidence) that are so common among adolescents and can lead to some very real problems.  And, importantly, the development and personal growth of Ged the hero is not so sudden that it becomes unrealistic. This is, to me, a part of what makes Le Guin’s writing so special.

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JOHN HULET is a member of the Utah Army National Guard. John’s experiences have often left a great void that has been filled by countless hours spent between the pages of a book lost in the words and images of the authors he admires. During a 12 month tour of Iraq, he spent well over $1000 on books and found sanity in the process. John lives in Utah and works slavishly to prepare soldiers to serve their country with the honor and distinction that Sturm Brightblade or Arithon s’Ffalenn would be proud of.

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