Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Ursula K. Le Guin's Tehanu.

The Short of It

Plot: Rejecting a life in court, Tenar settles down to be a farmer's wife. When she takes an abused girl as her ward, she sparks the ire of powerful enemies.

Page Count: 289

Award: 1990 Nebula

Worth a read: Yes
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass. A++++++

Technobabble: Nah.
Review: A very different Earthsea. Fresh characters and a more intimate setting offer a much clearer image of day to day life, while background rumblings from those in power herald big changes. Excellent characterization all around, including of villains. Le Guin's writing is excellent, as always. Plot is mostly characters reacting to situations beyond their control - but characters are compelling and writing is crisp enough that it works.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

When I first read this book I was probably in fifth grade - and I hated it. Why shift the focus from Ged? He's cool as heck! And sure he sacrificed his power in the third book, but he should get it back now, right? Like any proper badass in fiction! Sacrifices only need to last long enough to be emotionally impactful but should be walked back when they get in the way of cool stuff!

Tehanu is a departure from the trilogy in many ways. Also a side note - Tehanu is book four of the Earthsea Trilogy, meaning it only has two sequels. Classic.

In reviewing the trilogy, I noted that the three together form a stunning and full arc for Ged: from searching for power at any cost, to understanding the cost of power, to finally giving it up for the good of others. Ged has run his race. Tenar, on the other hand, gets little exploration after we part from her at the end of The Tombs of Atuan. Her story is the opposite: born to great power and all of the restrictions that come with it, and choosing to give that all up. This is her story, exploring what it means to truly give everything up for a simple life.

Le Guin's books often achieve the impossible by being engaging despite almost nothing happening. At its core, this is a book about a widow running a farm, the girl she adopts, and the old friend for which she cares. Little changes over the course of the story, and most plot beats are responses to situations beyond the control of the main characters. They do not do things of their own accord - they react, and often with slow deliberation.

Tehanu focuses on one of the major underlying issues in Earthsea: the total inequality of men and women. All mages are male, and they refuse to teach women. This (as well as underlying patriarchal systems of governance) are mentioned in other books, but are often background. Here it is a primary theme.

“Ours is only a little power, seems like, next to theirs,” Moss said. “But it goes down deep. It’s all roots. It’s like an old blackberry thicket. And a wizard’s power’s like a fir tree, maybe, great and tall and grand, but it’ll blow right down in a storm. Nothing kills a blackberry bramble.”

Similar themes are brought to the fore even more pointedly in the next two books, but we'll get there when we get there. It would be easy to say one of two things about this: either that it's heavy-handed proselytizing which kicks one out of the story, or that it's revolutionary feminist literature that changes everything. It seems that it's something far more nuanced: Le Guin confronting the consequences of her own rules for a world that she created. It does not feel either preachy or shoehorned in because it all follows from the way that Earthsea was set up in the previous books - and it does not feel like a revolution for the same reason. I would argue that it still counts as feminist literature, but simply because it is what it is, and it tells the story that Le Guin wanted to tell. 

Reading this again after all these years I understand where Young Liam was coming from. This is a very different feel than the Earthsea Trilogy. I like it far more now than I did then, but I do not love it the way I do the trilogy. 

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

It's rare that we dive into the discourse on these books, and it usually only happens when things are pretty bad. That's not the case with this one. That said, it's worth examining a bit of the back and forth on the effectiveness of Tehanu as feminist literature.

There are two camps:

1. Tehanu ultimately fails as feminist literature by staying within the structures of patriarchy.
2. Le Guin writes a successful feminist novel that addresses the issues of her previous books.

The first can be seen in this BA thesis and this review, the second camp comes through in this reread review.

I lean towards the second camp, but with the caveat that this is in the context of also reading books five and six of the series. As much as it irks me to agree with a BA thesis, a fair point comes through: 

The novel's numerous promises of change are broken one by one, and the feminist reading position is undercut because the female protagonists have internalized the traditional gender roles in the patriarchal society of the Earthsea that Le Guin has created. Although it might raise the consciousness of an unaware reader in its portrayal of a patriarchal society, Tehanu fails to assert the power and importance of its female protagonists and the novel definitely fails to overturn the logical structure of patriarchy.

Without going much further into spoiler territory for the next two books, that logical structure of the patriarchy is addressed. I would therefore argue that Tehanu forms a bridge from one to the next. Thus while women still end up in a caretaker role at the end, it is still clear that there is far more to the power they hold than most assume. And this is taken further in the following books.

And now for something completely different.

The best decision made in this series is to not give Ged back his power. It would undermine his whole arc, and everything he learned. Which means that putting him at risk and making it clear that he might just die without his powers is brilliant. In so many other stories that would lead to a single, final, desperate burst of strength. Here, it does not come from Ged. Stick to your guns, Le Guin!

Also, did not expect that girl to have dragon powers. Very groovy. Great for making s'mores.

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