One thing I like about the Earthsea books is that each one is completely different than the last. The first and the third novels bear some resemblance to each other (and are, I think, the weakest of the books), but the others are all very very unique. Tombs of Atuan is a character study, Tehanu is a brilliant and complex modernist psychological narrative in a fantasy framework, and Tales of Earthsea is a hodgepodge collection of shorts, novellas and anthropological details giving flesh to the world in a mosaic narrative approach.
The Other Wind is no different. Instead of the straight forward main character based approach of the past novels, this one takes a large cast dealing with the events. And as with the other Earthsea books, the events deal with the land of the dead, and the meager wall that separates them.
This is, to put it simply, one of the best I’ve read this year. I hope Le Guin continues to write Earthsea books, and I really hope she continues to push boundaries, to experiment within her own world and within the concept of fantasy is and can be. The book isn’t as revolutionary with what it does to fantasy as Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu were, but it still takes chances. It reminds me of the chances Peter S. Beagle took with The Last Unicorn, Giant Bones, Innkeeper’s Song, and most like Two Hearts, because it combines modern narrative techniques in surprising ways with traditional fantasy environment.
And this is most obvious in the plot. It’s not as subdued or slice of life as Tehanu was, this does have a plot that moves out in a circular fashion, and behaves a lot like a mystery. The characterization is much akin to that of the more character based novels, and the sheer detail of the world is very much in the style of the slower moving Tehanu. And this is a great thing- one of the best parts about this novel and Tehanu are the slice of life sections, were people are just being human. This is something rarely seen in any fantasy novel. Fantasy novels are so obsessed with plot and plotting they ignore the tiny details that make up life, they ignore those human moments that are so wonderful and beautiful.
Most fantasy novels are obsessed with saving a world. But in doing so (in getting caught up in the plot engine) they leave out the scenes that make the world *worth saving*. Those little moments, like sitting on the roof of a house, eating some bread and cheese and watching birds take flight in forests below. Slow moving scenes who show what wonder a world could be- people talking just to talk, the world moving to just move. And that’s what makes the Earthsea series so amazing, when it has these scenes that other fantasy novels leave out. These wondrous life scenes.
