Definitely my least favorite in the series so far.

However, the last quarter of it was hauntingly beautiful and very well-written. I will remember that imagery for sure! And the rating is mostly thanks to this last part.

In many ways, for me, the book felt like a step back. The complaints I had about A Wizard of Earthsea returned: no female characters that matter and this very sort of traditional story and character archetypes. Sparrowhawk really annoyed me - he feels like the kind of gruff withholding sage that gets on my nerves. Arren didn't really impress me as a protagonist.

It seems unfair toward the book, because I am sure it was highly influential back in the day and part of the tropes and vibes I am tired of started off here. But since I did not have access to the books as a child / teen, I can never know what I would have felt about them at the time. I am excited to read Tehanu very soon. I have so many people assuring me I will love it!

Perhaps Tehanu will offer a different perspective and a more engaging story. Maybe it will address some of the issues I had with this book and bring a fresh take to the Earthsea series. I'm looking forward to finding out and seeing if it can change my overall impression of the series.

Attempting to describe a great book is a bit like attempting to describe the beauty of a sunrise.

It was red and stuff was glowing orange and yellow. It just doesn't translate. Which is an interesting thing to my mind because OF COURSE a sunset doesn't translate.

It's photons and light beams and refraction and fire and energy, no mere words. But shouldn't a book? It IS mere words.

But it's not. It's the fatigue you feel at the end of a work day when you recline in your favorite chair and open the book to the furthest dog-ear.

Or the noise of a skateboarder grinding on a nearby rail in your favorite park and your annoyance at the distraction.

It's the slow imperceptible slanting of light through window blinds as you read the day away.

It is the memories that the book invokes. It is the new ideas that the book inspires.

This is not true of all books. Some books are mere words. There are characters and conflicts and the occasional witty metaphor and it all resolves and the person who finishes reading this book is the same person who started it.

The Farthest Shore is not such a book. It tells the superficial story about Sparrowhawk - now Archmage of Roke - and a young prince, Arren, as they travel about Earthsea in an attempt to figure out why magic is going extinct.

This story has everything you could hope for in a fantasy. There's dragons. Huts made of dragon bone. There's an exotic people, the People of the Open Sea, who live on giant rafts.

There's a land of death into which our heroes must travel. There's thieves and scoundrels and slavers and a corrupt powerful mage.

But none of those are why I give this book five stars. They had to be there to earn the five stars, yes, but they are like the wrapping paper on a present.

The presentation matters, it does, but the core fulfills. And the core of The Farthest Shore is strong.

Told from Arren's point of view, this is a bildungsroman (that's a fancy word for coming-of-age).

It talks about a life of being vs. a life of doing without suggesting that either is the better. It confronts evil vs good and speaks of it in fresh language, not as yin and yang, nor as black and white.

Arren says: "I see why you say that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are innocent; they kill because they must.”

Ged responds: “That is why nothing else can resist us. Only one thing in the world can resist an evil-hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable of evil, is capable of overcoming it."

It confronts, too, the strangeness of immortality, the inherent despair of believing or needing an afterlife.

Such a belief is not forced upon you: this is not a pedantic tale. But it is there, if you care to see it.

The great evil of this book is the result of people thirsting after eternal life. But as Ged says: "How can one appreciate life without death?"

Indeed, implicit in the idea of a heavenly afterlife, is the notion that this life, our life here on earth, needs something more to be complete. But I do not think that is so.

I believe when I live, I am living, and when I die that I shall be dead, and that is good enough for me.

It is this complexity - combined with the grandness of adventure - that leads me to suggest that this is one of my very favorite books. Read it?

"On the Far Side of the World" is an epic narrative that Le Guin constructs about the balance between death and life.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that it was the most disturbing and terrifying book I have ever read for me.

This story takes the reader on a journey through a world where the boundaries between the living and the dead are blurred.

Le Guin's vivid descriptions and masterful storytelling draw the reader in and make them feel as if they are a part of this strange and mysterious world.

The characters are complex and well-developed, and their struggles and conflicts add depth and emotional resonance to the story.

Overall, "On the Far Side of the World" is a powerful and thought-provoking work that explores some of the most fundamental questions about life and death.

Muy interesante y divertida

This article is about a novel that I really enjoyed. The story of Ged and Arren's search for equilibrium and adventure is extremely entertaining. The third book in this series appealed to me much more than the second one. The second book felt a bit heavier to me, but this one, on the other hand, is really cool. We will see how the story continues and what new adventures await the wizard. I was completely engaged in the plot and the characters. The author's writing style is vivid and descriptive, which made it easy for me to imagine the scenes and the world they inhabit. I can't wait to read the next installment and find out what happens next.

From the very beginning of the series, if it had been like this, I think I could have believed that it was as much of a legend as it was launched. At the end of the 3 books, all I can say is: "It's very chaotic but of a kind that somehow makes you read it."

I am planning to consume this series in the mornings, under the traffic noise, while waiting for the service to go to work, because I'm not very willing to allocate much more time.

Specifically, if I were to comment on it as the 3rd book, so far, it was the best of the series. Considering that it is actually a series that has been extended later, it seems that it will remain so.

After enjoying the first volumes, I'm not so sure about this one.

The narrative seems to involve what Clute & Grant would call thinning of the setting. It appears that an evil sorcerer is causing wrongness on the setting. I guess I'm not really into that.

While the first two volumes had more substantial and important human themes and more moral depth, this one reads more like a pulp adventure. There are gratuitous mythic creatures and a strange mechanism revolving around the interpenetration of a life/death dichotomy. This is much talked about but never really explained, except that supernatural abilities are traded away for some kind of messed-up immortality. The idea that the main objective of this narrative is to end the free trade in supernatural abilities by destroying the market for them is really interesting. However, the narrative is quite YA and avoids getting into details. There are nifty bits about the Rune of This and Rune of That, but they're not very developed. Still, there's a cool kernel in there. Like in the previous installments, the setting gets a bit of development through some small disclosures of historical events that are also cool, but not much is done with them. (By the way, the Children of the Sea, who are also amazingly cetotheologists, are fairly clearly the basic inspiration for the main setting of The Scar.)

And then, for no obvious reason, the protagonist gets nerfed at the end. So, I guess no good deed goes unpunished? Otherwise, it's episodic at times, until the unexplained arrival of the aforementioned mythic creatures, who are basically Plot Couriers. The most annoying thing seems to be the slippage in point-of-view discipline. It doesn't completely follow the main juvenile protagonist but expressly jumps to some other people and impliedly shifts to Mr. Ged a couple of times.

Recommended for those who notice gaps in the order of events, those who don't punish, and those who sail off the map.

I have a deep affection for Ursula K. Le Guin's initial two Earthsea novels.

\\n  A Wizard of Earthsea\\n and The Tombs of Atuan are among my top favorite fantasy novels. I firmly believe that together they form an essential duology that showcases some of the most captivating and genuine storytelling about identity and self-discovery.

So, it was with a certain degree of trepidation that I delved into The Farthest Shore.

In this third Earthsea novel, magic is on the verge of dying. Our protagonists are a significantly older, more experienced, and wearier Ged, and the youthful and exuberant Prince Arren of Enlad. This contrasted pairing is both interesting and the main source of suspense. However, I also sense that Le Guin aimed to write about a wizard who was old but not necessarily wise from his own perspective.

Le Guin emphasizes the fact that magic does not lead to a longer life or necessarily any real power. Magic is a potent and omnipresent force in Earthsea - everyone conceals their true names for fear that someone might gain power over them. But whenever it actually appears, it is rather underwhelming. Arren's reactions to Ged's infrequent and unimpressive uses of magic bear witness to this, and on a broader scale, the consequences of magic's disappearance reflect this idea. Every time Ged and Arren visit an island where people have forgotten their magic, they react as if wizardry has always been mere trickery. Instead of confronting their challenges directly by demonstrating powerful acts of wizardry, Ged simply shrugs it off and continues with his quest. Even at the climax, when he does perform some powerful magic, his most effective assets are his confidence and his powers of persuasion, which he uses to undermine their enemy. (His faith in Arren and Arren's importance would be a close third.)

The significance of magic, and its inversely proportional profile, has been another recurring theme in Earthsea. After all, the much younger and more headstrong Ged gets into trouble in The Wizard of Earthsea for attempting forbidden magic on a dare. (It turns out there's a good reason it's forbidden!) The remainder of the novel is essentially him spending years traveling around Earthsea and cleaning up the mess he created. No wonder he spends the rest of his life, including his time as archmage, focused on maintaining the Balance.

Now, in The Farthest Shore, Le Guin takes the "magic is dangerous" stance to an extreme, exploring the possibility of completely extinguishing magic. As much as it might seem cool to be a wizard, I have to admit that I'm glad we don't have magic in the real world - people would constantly be meddling with my things! Yet Le Guin rejects a magic-less Earthsea as empty, a mere shadow of what it once was. Like Narnia or countless other fantasy worlds, Earthsea depends on magic as much as it does on wind and wave.

Ged comprehends what is at stake. Arren, on the other hand, does not. He is much more like Ged from the first novel - albeit without the magic powers or the huge arrogant attitude. Instead, he develops a bit of a hero-worship crush on the much older archmage - but that infatuation is tempered by a nagging sense of doubt that only grows as the duo gets closer to the enemy behind their problem. Le Guin alternates between Ged and Arren's perspectives to allow us to see two interpretations of the voyage.

By the end of the novel, it becomes evident that the entire adventure was primarily for Arren's benefit, with Ged's and Earthsea's interests being secondary. Arren's prophesied role requires an understanding of the Balance and the dangers of magic, morality, and humanity that his youth prevents him from having. One recurring lecture Ged gives involves the idea that humans are unique animals because only humans can do evil. Sharks aren't evil; they kill because that is their nature as predators. Humans, with their ability to work magic, can cause great evil to each other and the world in their quests for immortality and power. (Le Guin views these two desires as two sides of the same coin: any quest for power ultimately becomes a quest to conquer death, i.e., to have ultimate power over life - likewise, any quest for immortality necessitates finding more and more power to stop death). And Arren and Ged only confront the evil man behind magic's degeneration at the very end of the book - most of the journey is actually about how Arren reacts to the situations they encounter and whether Ged uses magic in them.

Once again, Le Guin impresses with her ability to incorporate philosophy into a low-key fantasy adventure. This is the sneakiest coming-of-age quest story I've read in a long time. But I think it would be a mistake to overlook this essential aspect of the book. If you approach this looking for a "Ged/Sparrowhawk adventure" like A Wizard of Earthsea, you'll be disappointed, because this is very much about Arren and the preparation he needs to assume his new position.

For Ged, this is in some ways a farewell. Le Guin creates a fascinating triptych of Ged throughout these three novels. As I mentioned earlier, the Ged of the first book is youthful and headstrong and essentially has to learn patience and wisdom to manage his own great skill at magic. The Ged who appears in The Tombs of Atuan is more knowledgeable but not necessarily wiser - Le Guin actually portrays him through Tenar's eyes as a pushy interloper whose presence was uninvited and whose arrogance is unbearable. I enjoyed this less-sympathetic portrayal of someone who was once our protagonist; in her typical style, Le Guin reminds us that those we view as heroic from one perspective could equally be seen as villainous or, in this case, merely unwelcome. This older Ged is undeniably an adult, fully in possession of his powers and in the prime of his adventuring life. Now, in The Farthest Shore, Ged is middle-aged. He's not old, but his adventuring days are coming to an end, and his position as archmage sometimes restricts and irritates him. He embarks on this quest with Arren a little too eagerly, and in some ways, he perhaps views the conclusion as the result of his old arrogance and impatience resurfacing. Le Guin demonstrates how a character can change over time, how events can temper their attitudes and reactions, but how stress and danger can sometimes cause regression.

On its own, then, The Farthest Shore is not overly impressive. It's still Le Guin, of course, and most of her work is better than that of the average writer. Yet it is underwhelming in many ways compared to the previous Earthsea novels. We don't have the same connection to Ged that we had with him or Tenar in the previous books. Arren, while important, can be annoying. The quest is subtler and less tense than the previous ones.

However, when viewed within the context of the Earthsea series, The Farthest Shore becomes more remarkable. Unlike the first two books, I don't think I'll be naming this one as a favorite anytime soon - those first two books hurt; it's like Le Guin delivers consecutive sucker punches to the gut. In contrast, this novel is far less emotionally wrenching but no less philosophically interesting. While you could do worse than just reading the first two books, I would still recommend that you read this one as well.

I'll conclude with a quotation, Ged admonishing Arren for thinking the archmage might possibly know how to cheat death:

Listen to me, Arren. You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose …. That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure.

Le Guin's writing is always beautiful and always painful, for in that pain and beauty we discover the truths of what it means to live, love, and be human.

My reviews of the Earthsea series:
← The Tombs of Atuan | Tehanu →

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7.2

It was a good start, no doubt about that. However, in my personal opinion, it was the weakest final act among the first three.

The story had its moments, but it just didn't quite reach the same level of excellence as the previous installments.

Nonetheless, I have heard some really, really good things about the next one, which is Tehanu.

People seem to be raving about it, and I'm quite excited to see what all the fuss is about.

I'm hoping that it will be a real standout and bring the series to a whole new level.

Maybe it will have a more engaging plot, more developed characters, and a more satisfying conclusion.

Only time will tell, but for now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to reading Tehanu.

I am always weeping after finishing an Earthsea novel, and this was no exception!

Le Guin is truly a master. The line "Endurance may outlast hope" just hit me so hard at a time like this.

It makes me wonder how different my life might have been if I had read this series as a child.

The stories in Earthsea are so rich and profound, filled with complex characters and themes.

Each book takes the reader on a journey through a magical world, exploring the meaning of life, love, and sacrifice.

I can't help but be moved by the beauty and sadness of these tales.

Le Guin's writing is so vivid and engaging that I feel like I am right there with the characters, experiencing their joys and sorrows.

I highly recommend the Earthsea series to anyone who loves fantasy and wants to be transported to a world of wonder and magic.

4/5✨

I have really liked it, just like the previous books. Ursula has a magnificent mastery of the narrative (descriptions, progression, reflection, transmission of emotions, sensations...), just as Gavilán is the Great Mage of Terramar.

However, the ending (the defeat of the bad guy) has seemed a bit weak to me (I felt the same in the first book of the saga). I lack that spark, that burst of conclusion.

Overall, the story is engaging and well-written. The characters are vivid and the world-building is impressive. Ursula's ability to describe the scenes and convey the emotions is truly remarkable. But the ending could have been more powerful and impactful. It left me a bit disappointed, as if something was missing.

Despite this, I still recommend the book to fans of fantasy and adventure. It has many great qualities and is definitely worth reading. Maybe the next book in the series will have a more satisfying ending.

I have nothing more to add to what I already said about the previous two books in this trilogy. The writing of this author really appeals to me. The stories, which are of classical fantasy, as well as the characters, have great depth. The translation is quite good, and there are only a few proofreading errors. I highly recommend this series.

It's truly a pleasure to read these books. The author has crafted a wonderful world filled with magic and adventure. The characters are well-developed and relatable, making it easy for the reader to become invested in their stories. The translation has done a great job of capturing the essence of the original text, allowing readers who don't speak the original language to enjoy the books as well.

In conclusion, if you're a fan of classical fantasy, I would definitely recommend giving this trilogy a try. You won't be disappointed.

(review in English below)

I've got little to add to what I already wrote about the previous two books. I really enjoy this author's writing and the depth of her classical fantasy stories and her characters. The translation is good and the proofreading is ok. Recommended.

Ursula has now ended, and I'm very sad. :/ There isn't really much to say. It was still very, very beautiful. It seems to be a series that shouldn't be missed. I'm sorry for being late. Five stars.

Ursula was an amazing series that captured the hearts of many viewers. The story was engaging, the characters were well-developed, and the production values were top-notch.

Despite its end, the memories of Ursula will live on in the minds of those who watched it. It was a truly remarkable series that will be remembered for a long time.

I'm sure that many fans are already looking forward to what the creators will come up with next. In the meantime, we can all look back on Ursula and appreciate the wonderful entertainment it provided.

Five stars is a well-deserved rating for this outstanding series.