Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you, 1 book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews: just covers.
I waver between Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu as my favourite Earthsea, but I think Tehanu wins, particularly these days when I'm much closer in age to older Tenar than the teenager she was in Tombs.
The power in Tehanu for me has always been the devastating and unflinching way it articulated how (in many ways) awful it is to be a woman: that you will work unceasingly and people won't even recognise it as work, or as necessary and important (because it takes place in the home), that it's highly likely you will experience abuse at the hands of men, and people will shrug it aside, or blame you — and that in spite of all this, life would have joy, and value, and purpose, and meaningful connections. I remember reading the book for the first time as a teenage girl, and taking all this in, and kind of mentally bracing myself: okay, it was likely that my future would hold some or all of this awful stuff, but now I was warned, and prepared, and even if I couldn't avoid it, it was something that I could survive.
I actually didn't much like it when I read it as a teenager, but when I came back to it as an adult, I was blown away, and I really think it gets richer the older I get.
One little detail that I am especially appreciate these days is that Tenar's son turns out to be not a great person. She has a daughter she raised who is a good person and loves her, but then this son who lacks in gratitude and integrity, even though Tenar presumably invested as much in him as she did in her daughter. To me, it's an important sketch of the way in which societal conditioning of men can be such a powerful force.
Yes yes yes to everything you say about that (very telling) detail with Tenar's son. Le Guin was such a perceptive observer of people, both as individuals and as part of various social groupings.
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The power in Tehanu for me has always been the devastating and unflinching way it articulated how (in many ways) awful it is to be a woman: that you will work unceasingly and people won't even recognise it as work, or as necessary and important (because it takes place in the home), that it's highly likely you will experience abuse at the hands of men, and people will shrug it aside, or blame you — and that in spite of all this, life would have joy, and value, and purpose, and meaningful connections. I remember reading the book for the first time as a teenage girl, and taking all this in, and kind of mentally bracing myself: okay, it was likely that my future would hold some or all of this awful stuff, but now I was warned, and prepared, and even if I couldn't avoid it, it was something that I could survive.
It's an unbelievably accomplished book.
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I actually didn't much like it when I read it as a teenager, but when I came back to it as an adult, I was blown away, and I really think it gets richer the older I get.
One little detail that I am especially appreciate these days is that Tenar's son turns out to be not a great person. She has a daughter she raised who is a good person and loves her, but then this son who lacks in gratitude and integrity, even though Tenar presumably invested as much in him as she did in her daughter. To me, it's an important sketch of the way in which societal conditioning of men can be such a powerful force.
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