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Reading: The Other Wind
Jul. 5th, 2017 12:26 pmThe Other Wind is the sixth (and final) Earthsea book. Published in 2001, along with Tales from Earthsea, it picks up the themes of Tehanu and the novella 'Dragonfly' to complete the re-visioning of Earthsea begun in those two books. It mirrors The Farthest Shore in having death and the fate of the dead in Earthsea as one of its key themes, and goes much further than that book in examining the concept of the "dry land" where the souls of the dead reside (which seems to owe something to Hades in classical mythology) and arguing instead for true death and oblivion. The Farthest Shore ended with Ged fundamentally changed by his experience in the dry land, stripped of all his magical powers; The Other Wind fundmentally changes the dry land itself, and perhaps also the world of the living and the way magic works in Earthsea.
The book revisits many characters from the earlier books; I particularly liked the glimpse of Ged, fifteen years after Tehanu, at peace with who he has become and living contentedly with Tenar and Tehanu on Gont, and the Kargish Master Patterner of Roke. There are also engaging new characters, particularly Alder, the village sorceror whose dreams of the wall that divides the land of the living from the dry land are the catalyst for the events of the novel. It isn't a particularly plotty novel; mostly it's an inward exploration, as the characters use reflection and dialogue and the gradual sharing of traditional wisdom and histories across three cultures to arrive at an understanding of the nature of the problem they are facing and the way to solve it.
Interestingly, I felt that the depictions of the land of the dead and the ultimate resolution of the plot reminded me of the land of the dead sequence in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, published a year earlier; there was also a mention of death as a "gift", and a few other things, which reminded me of the end of Season 5 and some of the themes of Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which aired in 2001 and 2002. Clearly there was something in the zeitgeist at the turn of the millenium which made people ponder the nature of life and death and life after death.
The book revisits many characters from the earlier books; I particularly liked the glimpse of Ged, fifteen years after Tehanu, at peace with who he has become and living contentedly with Tenar and Tehanu on Gont, and the Kargish Master Patterner of Roke. There are also engaging new characters, particularly Alder, the village sorceror whose dreams of the wall that divides the land of the living from the dry land are the catalyst for the events of the novel. It isn't a particularly plotty novel; mostly it's an inward exploration, as the characters use reflection and dialogue and the gradual sharing of traditional wisdom and histories across three cultures to arrive at an understanding of the nature of the problem they are facing and the way to solve it.
Interestingly, I felt that the depictions of the land of the dead and the ultimate resolution of the plot reminded me of the land of the dead sequence in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, published a year earlier; there was also a mention of death as a "gift", and a few other things, which reminded me of the end of Season 5 and some of the themes of Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which aired in 2001 and 2002. Clearly there was something in the zeitgeist at the turn of the millenium which made people ponder the nature of life and death and life after death.
