The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 2) Mass Market Paperback – September 1, 2001

Currently reading all the series that are linked to the Legends anthologies (with the exceptions of Stephen King and Anne McCaffrey, as I'm in the process of reading all of their works [and I've already read all of the Dragonrider stories written so far... Todd, I'd LOVE to see a continuation of the sort of cliffhanger Anne left with her last solo novel]).This one was harder than the first to get through. As she wrote in the afterward (written 40 years or so after the book was originally published), the book was one of the first solo focus books written strictly from a female point of view, and it was written REALISTICALLY, to boot, acknowledging the patriarchal and misogynistic worlds the heroine and the writer both exist in. As a writer, you're advised to write what you know, and the book definitely fits that mold: it's a bleak and disheartening look at a girl that, while ostensibly having autonomous power, is ultimately constrained by the reality she's come to recognize... she genuinely has no REAL power. Yes, she has "absolute" power in her one fiefdom, but outside of that little word, bo one else recognizes it as power. With the help of a protagonist from the first book in the series, she slowly comes to this realization on her own, and learns to trust to help them BOTH become free (her for the first time in her young life).Even though it WAS a difficult slog, it has opened my eyes a little bit more to the difficulties women face in just trying to live their own lives, let alone improve themselves. The way things are going, it's looking like the props women have been getting recently are being completely undermined by our society, and that's not good... for ANYone.

A young girl is taken from her home to be the new high priestess of unseen powers that reside under the Earth. Hers is a world of darkness and forgotten treasures, with but little to do. Years pass. Then, a thief appears in the tunnels, and she must decide how to deal with him...The Tombs of Atuan has great character beats and motivations, solid themes, and conflicts that are more than good guy vs bad guy. The prose is clean, yet alive. The novel's beginning is a bit of a drag, but, it could be argued, the books is about imprisonment, so the reader must go through the process of being locked in the tunnels with priestess Arha to make the resulting adventure meaningful. Once Sparrowhawk shows up, it's hard to put the book down.

Reading this book again as an adult simply proves the magnificence of Le Guin's writing. Thanks for the child I was and the woman I am!

The prose was incredible, the story beautiful and terrifying and intensely deep. I feel like need to meditate on what I read so I don’t forget both the wonder and the lessons learned. This story is timeless!

I love this cycle..this is the second of three stories of the Wizard Ged. I Although this is the least interesting of the three Earthsea Cycle books, which is unfortunately because the characters are primarily women, it is still a good yarn and well worth the read, especially if you are reading the trilogy. a tomb full of women, who live in a Egyptian - Aztec kind of religious seclusion, extreme, dire. Coming to age in this strange temple, the characters are well drawn though somehow muted, dwarfed, like the lives they live, shardsof color and bits of humanity.. but somehow less developed as characters ... with alot of time spent on describing things.. walls, rocks... hills. . A religion of women who are owned by the men they serve, and deadened by the religion made to serve the men... except in the case of Tenar, who serves the dead. There are details of the rituals thatkeep the gods alive, dangerously present. She makes peace with the ominous dark because she is told she is the ... voice of the dark the queen of the dark. These pages, of the little girl in the dark, tired and fullfilling her role,are really very good. Le Guin always discovers interesting things about these worlds she weaves, and she manages to make the living stone enmity so palpable that even I was anxious to get out of the tombsand back up onto land again. Her protagonist, though kidnapped and left to sleep in windowless dark, with eunichs as friends, still cannot bring herself to serve the masters she has been given to, and let anyone die downthere in the tombs. She gives her own supper and water, and learns about that which is forbodden from a character who would surely get her in as much trouble as he is in, that is, death by way of starvation and thirst, ifshe is discovered. Her kindness, that which is innate to women and children, I think, saves a man who will live on to save the world. And he seems to be almost romantic in his attachment, and this is something Ialso look for in the books, that he might like some woman and she might have something to offer him that he cannot find in his own manifestations of magic.

Good book

Tão bom quanto o primeiro, ou até melhor. A prosa de Ursula é incomparável, é de uma fluidez e de uma poesia que tornam difícil largar o livro. A história melancólica da protagonista é fascinante, assim como o universo e os personagens criados por Ursula.

Second book in the Earthsea series. If you've read the first one, you must read this

I'll read it again. And recommend highly, for children and adults alike. It reads like a fireside story and comments on some very deep internal behaviours. Ursula knows what she's doing.

If you are like me; buying all the mass market paperbacks of this wonderful series, because you love the covers and want the books all to be in the same size: think again. They don’t come in the same size. This book is 19 centimeters long instead of the 17 cm advertised. A bit of a dissapointment