Cheap The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Trilogy Book Two) (Book) (Ursula K. Le Guin) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Trilogy Book Two)

Not too bad.....
The second book in the earthsea cycle is about a girl who is born a high priestess(or actually, a reincarnation of one). Her true name is Tenar, but was called Arha, the "eaten one." She is a priestess for the godkings and is the one who goes through the labrinyth of Atuan. The labrinyth is completely dark, and has to be memorized by touch and sense of direction since there is no light. I think there are holes in one part of the labrinyth(or the tombs, I can't remember which), where you can look down into them and light will pass through. No one was ever allowed into the undertomb of the labrinyth. Turns out Ged is the one seeking the ring of Erreth-Akbe. I could go farther but don't want to ruin the story. The story was okay, in terms of the way it's written. Half the time, the book bore me because it didn't really have a clear story plot. Still recommended though.

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Bit of letdown
The best part of the second book in the Earthsea series is the first book... This story, thankfully very short, is a letdown. The writing is excellent but the storyline centers on a very weak and uninteresting character. I would imagine only people really interested in the series should bother reading it, all others should skip it.

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A Book That Should Haunt Any Thinking Reader
Innocence and darkness are mixed so beautifully here that it is truly a haunting story. A 'dalai-lamaistic' faith system as ancient and timeless as the world in which it dwells is the under-pinning premise here - Tenar is the re-incarnated High Priestess of the Tombs with a thousand previous lives. She is taken from her parents as a mere child, loses her name and any real identity and becomes utterly sunken in this dark dry spiritual world. She believes. She becomes. The reader remembers who she really was but she doesn't and the reader is cut to the heart. Le Guin paints something really vivid here and all the more so because her young heroine stumbles literally in complete darkness. She shows you how a life can be swallowed up in absolute ignorance and how tragic that is. When Ged arrives and leads her out of darkness, Tenar is given back her name but realizes that she is left with nothing else. Everything she was taught was a lie. This is how the book ends. It is no wonder that Le Guin wrote a 'follow-up' devoted to Tenar (Tehanu) because I think she felt she owed it to Tenar and to the readers. A real gem of a story.