Better than Potter--By Mike

I'm one of the few cranks in the universe who does not love the Harry Potter series. I've always found the books shallow, repetitive and devoid of real drama. The children never have to work very hard for their magic, they just memorize a few spells, eat cool flavors of jelly beans and make fun of non-magicians. I knew there was better fantasy material out there for both children and adults, but I couldn't quite put my finger on the right argument until I rediscovered Ursula K. LeGuin's incomparable series "The Wizard of Earthsea." I read it as a teenager; she wrote the first book back in 1969. LeGuin does not pander to children, nor patronize them with product tie-ins. Earthsea was actually conceived for adults, but her writing is so elegantly simple that it can be read by teenagers, read aloud to elementary kids, or re-read by middle-aged cranks like me.

Earthsea is a wholly created universe of pre-modern culture. It's an island archipelago loosely governed by a set of lords we never meet, and whose influence is rarely felt in the outer islands. There are dragons and evil spells, but not comic book dragons -- these dragons have been around for thousands of years, they are evil, they stink, and they are wise. The people of these islands live basic agrarian lifestyles, rendered in poetic yet unsentimental detail by LeGuin. Occasionally among them is born a child with vague powers beyond the human; Ged is one of those children. But he is not a happy go lucky wizard. He loses his mother, has a distant and uncaring blacksmith for a father, and is left to his own in the foothills of his island. The magic of Earthsea is not textbook magic -- it is deep Jungian magic, based on the shadows of peoples' souls and the true names and natures of objects. Wizards gain control over the people and the elements by discerning the true names of things, which are known to only a few people. Once it becomes clear Ged has some crude powers, his arrogance and isolation get the better of him. To impress a few children who are teasing him, he tries a spell he is not ready for, and calls forth a shadow that he is not strong enough to confront. The rest of the series is about Ged's unhappy search for that shadow, which alternately stalks him and flees from him to all corners of the vividly rendered archipelago. What I loved about the series then and now is that it offers a pervasive sense of melancholy about the state of humans and the possibilities of supernatural forces to improve their sorry lot; all spells that are cast threaten to upset the balance, and no spell is cast for free in the universal sense of things. The villains are terrifying but very human and recognizable; the decent people are mysterious and rarely comforting. I'm now reading it aloud to Maya and Madeline, and we will see if they have any of the same reactions I did. Written by Mike/Dad