it took becoming a parent who has to do 3am feedings to rewire my brain enough for audiobooks, but i have arrived
it took becoming a parent who has to do 3am feedings to rewire my brain enough for audiobooks, but i have arrived
You know the drill when you pick up any book by LeGuin. Focus on relationships and personal growth is the value. While the setting is fantastical and exotic, the emotions are visceral and suck you in so heavily you forget you are reading, you are there. “I think,”Tehanu said, in her soft strange voice, “that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn‘t do. All that I might have been…”
'"How can I tell you everything?" she said.
"Tell it backward," he said.'
'"Once when my lord the Archmage was here with me in the Grove, he said to me he had spent his life learning how to choose to do what he had no choice but to do."'
‘How men feared women! she thought, walking among the late-flowering roses. Not as individuals, but women when they talked together, worked together, spoke up for one another — then men saw plots, cabals, constraints, traps being laid.
Of course they were right. Women were likely, as women, to take the next generation‘s part, not this one‘s; they wove the links men saw as chains, the bonds men saw as bondage.‘
'Alder said reluctantly, "It is a great deal to ask of a kitten, to defend a man against the armies of the dead."'
I really enjoyed this final volume of the Earthsea cycle. While I found more personal depth & meaning in The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, this is still an excellent conclusion. LeGuin pulls together so many threads from throughout the series & wraps it all up masterfully. To think these were written over 30-plus years, and to see the growth of the characters and the depth & coherence of the world across all the books—it‘s impressive.
4.5/5⭐ I can't pretend I understood everything going on (e.g. Lebannen's extreme aversion to the Kargish princess didn't make complete sense). However, the themes of life, death, cycles, and balance are exquisite. There were moments of such simultaneous subtlety and profoundness that I cried. These books demand multiple rereads to fully soak in because of Le Guin's mastery. Probably the best written fantasy series I've ever read.
I think that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.
She listened intently, seriously, as if these small matters were as weighty as the strange events they‘d talked about here three days ago.
Such a fitting and beautifully done illustration by Charles Vess to the conclusion of this book and series. LeGuin deals with themes of death, life, rebirth, balance, and reconciliation in this one as she deftly tells the story of dragons and humans in the last volume of the Eartsea series. The Other Wind may vie Tehanu for my favorite book of Earthsea.
Just finished, spaced these out over the year. Might start from the beginning in January (depending on how many books I get for Christmas), beautiful stories.
How I managed to miss this, the fifth installment of one of the seminal series of my young adult life, I have no idea. I'm just so glad to have found it. So glad to have it now that this author's talent has left the world. It is everything I'd hope for in the tale and the atmosphere and the language. It feels like homecoming.
RIP.
Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.
I bet there‘s a UKL book for most of these book prompts. This time the search of my GR shelves came up with these 2 by UKL (both GREAT Books) and the Shadow of the Wind by Carlso Ruiz Zafon, also a wonderful book, as well as a series “Windsinger” by Robin Hobbs‘ alter ego Megan Lindholm, which I haven‘t read yet. #NoteworthyNovember #Wind @Jess7
Libro #15 terminado
En el otro viento de Úrsula K. Le Guin
Reseña:
Es muy distinto a lo que normalmente leo! Me costó leerlo por que no llego a atraparme!! Si me llamó la atención lo bien definida que está su sociedad!! En si no encontré un personaje principal, todos hacen la obra!!
#ursulakleguin #enelotroviento
#leyendo #leeressexy #libros #libro #amoleer #amoloslibros #bookaddict #bookstgrammers #book #bookstagram #books #book📖 #bookaholic
Empezando libro número #16
En el otro viento de Úrsula K. Le Guin
Al hechicero Alison le aterra conciliar el sueño, pues hacerlo significa trasladarse a la tierra de los muertos para encontrarse con su esposa. Ella falleció muy joven y desea tanto regresar a él que lo besó a través del bajo muro de piedra que separa nuestro mundo de la Tierra Seca, donde la hierba está marchita, las estrellas, siempre quedas, y los amantes se cruzan sin recono...
#weather #aprilbookshowers #day2 @RealLifeReading Frost, wind, and mist...
I found another #weather book!
And the weather today in the San Francisco Bay Area is lovely and sunny ☀️ 🌷#aprilbookshowers