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I'm so happy that there is a Le Guin thread. I mentioned this before in the book of the month thread, but I picked up A Wizard of Earthsea on a whim from a crazy 'nam vet creative writing teacher in high school's unsanctioned and unsolicited "hey kids take these books home before the man throws them in the trash". (he also had us read find and read aloud some dirty limericks in Slaughterhouse Five) I didn't end up reading it until I was in my 20's, and it took me a few tries to actually get into it (hadn't read a book for fun in a decade at this point), but I ravenously picked up and read the rest of the series as soon as I could. It's a little strange to me that Le Guin is so far underrated...I mean, in my opinion, Earthsea trumps LoTR in every way. They got some great movies made, and all Earthsea got was some piece of poo poo that took samples from the first two books and made up its own story from those bits. And it wasn't even a good story. It was cheesy, inane, and predictable. It was infuriating to say the least. I think at one point the "bad guy" was deadlocked with hand-to-hand weapons against Ged, and he said "This is where brute force trumps slight of hand!" Dude, magic is real, it isn't 'slight of hand'. Then Ged doesn't even loving use any real magic, he just changes color and gets stronger or some stupid poo poo to defeat him. The only thing they really got right was casting Danny Glover as Ogion. I wish the series had the pop appeal for Honest Trailers to make an episode for it. And didn't the head wizard of Roke die trying to undo what Ged did? In the movie he just goes "wow that was inconvenient." But I digress. I really really am itching to reread the whole series now, especially Tehanu. I remember being mostly bored, but extremely invigorated near the climax when that old witch tells Therru to speak her Name. And weren't her burn scars self-inflicted? Wasn't that determined at some point? I can't remember but it seems like the people who left her behind weren't as bad as initially presumed. For now I am reading Left Hand of Darkness. I was reading it at work and someone asked me what it was about. I told them Michael Jackson. I might be funny, or racist. Probably not either, though.
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Jan 12, 2014 06:59
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:00 |
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