Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

[King Bob]

I thought I would re-read this since I hadn't read it since high school and could only remember one tiny incident from it (that he created a wizard's staff from a blade of grass). I assume you all have read this, since there just weren't that many fantasy books in those days. Perhaps some of you remembered it better than I did.

It was told in kind of a fairy tale style, which worked well and flowed nicely, although it took me a page or two to get used to it. I got the feeling that it might have been an inspiration for J.K. Rowling - not in the storyline, but some elements: (here only nearly) parentless young man who goes off to wizard school, the great evil unleashed by one who is proud and vain, the protagonist destined for great magic, the more down to earth friend who has a maybe love interest sister, the quest that seems impossible and follows a path unknown, and the death of the head of the school fighting the great evil. This may be just my opinion, and not meant to take away from Rowling's or Le Guin's considerable achievements.

In all I found it well imagined and well done. I am looking forward to the next book.

[Drunk Monk]

She poached ideas from so many sources.

But she made it work.

Honestly all I remember about Earthsea was that there was this dolphin-beast bits on the spines and when you lined up all three books, it would form complete dolphin-beast. I thought that was super cool. We do that with our mag now. Line up all the issues since 2000 and you'll see the zodiac animal of that year.

Did you ever see the Studio Ghibli version?
[youtube]8hxYx3Jq3kI[/youtube]

[King Bob]

And there was the animal companion that get gets while at school, which then is killed during a battle with the evil creature.

And "great artists steal" as Picasso (apparently never) said. A better quote is from T.S. Eliot:

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

Never saw that, but not that wild about that animation style. And those were great covers - the later ones are not as good.

[cranefly]

He also borrowed heavily from Le Guin. Just like with Le Guin's Earthsea books, if you line up all those people's spines just right, you suddenly see God.
--cranefly

P.S. Yes, we're back from Dhalgren. Will try to write something up soon.

[King Bob]

Just read in the NYT that Michael Stipe named Dhalgren as one of his top 10 books, because in the future you can have sex with everybody.

[Drunk Monk]

...this is like the mayhem issue, ain't it? Actually, I've never seen that.

And look at this, there was a live-action mini-series or something...
[youtube]xHCGk5d3Gsw[/youtube]