Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Another book composed of two novellas. These two are both about people searching for the Second Foundation, that of the psychologists, mentalists, and psychohistorians.

Part 1: “Search by The Mule”
The Mule returns to continue his obsessive search for the Second Foundation. Convinced they threaten his power, he has spent the five years since “The Mule” not expanding his empire much, not knowing where he can safely strike. He’s led on a merry chase by the Second Foundation that ends with his conversion to a benevolent dictator so that he can live out his days.

I’m not sure what to make of this story. I enjoyed reading it, but thinking back on my time reading the book—I couldn’t do my notes right away because of my broken arm—I recall this story dimly. It’s a cross and double cross, the final defeat of the Mule. And Asimov’s boring writing style does help keep the plot clear. But it still doesn’t thrill. It’s like somebody once said, “work on your descriptions, Isaac,” and he took that to mean, “add more boring sentences to your descriptions, Isaac.”

One thing here is that where “The Mule” talked about the soft people of the Foundation becoming too reliant upon Seldon’s Plan psychologically, Tazenda is a hard world to live on, a farming world full of snow and high winds, and it clearly creates hard people. These farmers are salt-of-the-earth folk, open with what little they have, used to isolation, and set in their ways.

The other point here is that the Mule’s downfall is precipitated on his inability to imagine people with power not wanting to use it—he can’t imagine people unlike himself. So, in his search for the Second Foundation, he’s always looking for a kingdom, a galactic power of some sort, even if he does look for a small one rather than a successful one. The Second Foundation instead hides in obscurity. This allows them to strike without warning, to plan safely, and to have time to set up their trap. In other words, because the Mule assumes other mentalists must be like himself, he falls. Similarly, because Seldon assumed that human reactions wouldn’t change, and yet the Mule was able to do just that for the ruling class of the Foundation, the Seldon Plan almost falls apart. These twin themes drive the point home well: just because you think you’re right, don’t expect others to rely on your same premises. This a great tactic too: both cause and effect in the plot are saying the same thing. The cause shows the Mule that assuming others agree with his view of reality, which both brings him to power and causes his downfall; while the effect shows the Foundation Seldon’s premise of human reactions, which both brings them to power and almost causes their downfall. Right now I can’t think of another book that pulls off this tactic, and it’s sensational.

Part 2: "Search by the Foundation"
Arkady Darell, a 14 year old girl and the granddaughter of Bayta Darell from “The Mule”, searches for the Second Foundation on behalf of the First Foundation. Some Foundationers want to eliminate the Second Foundation as a threat, they resent their influence and wish to act independently. Meanwhile, the Second Foundation struggles to figure out how to right Seldon’s Plan after the First Foundationers come to rely on their oversight for safety, sinking further into complacency and softness. The solution is to convince the Foundation that the Second Foundation exists underground on Terminus, then let them kill those Second Foundationers and think that they have won, when in reality the Second Foundation has stayed hidden and powerful behind a human shield of martyrs.

I think in one way Asimov improved as a writer here: every time I think, “huh, that’s strange”, it turns out to be intentional and part of the plot—the Second Foundation taking control of Arkady’s flight, being able to get her out of the spaceport, etc. Whereas in earlier stories there are always a number of things that are incongruous all the way through the story—the most egregious of which that I have come across is the “investigation” in Caves of Steel. In the preceding books of the Foundation Series, there are many of these incongruities, only a few of which are able to be post facto rationalized by the reader. Yet here he seems to have his writing consistent in a way that allows his storytelling to really succeed.

At the same time, the writing is still laughably bad. At one point he sets up a chase scene, and it’s getting exciting. He’s building tension well, and using quick sentences to drive the pace forward. The chase is getting more and more intense. I’m admiring that he seems to have written something a bit better than his norm. And then, this sentence, “She was running now—running wildly—searching madly for an unoccupied public booth at which one could press a button for public conveyance.” I burst into laughter and laughed for ten minutes. Asimov uses three phrases to support this tension ("running now—running wildly—searching madly", which show his typical tendency to redundantly insult the reader’s intelligence) yet subverts all of that tension by allowing himself an aside about the uses of a public booth (”at which one could press a button for public conveyance”). This disappointing lack of followthrough with the tone and scene—here even in a single sentence—shows why I read Asimov in spite of the writing. As Asimov puts it himself, “I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be 'clear'. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize.”

Yet, and this is something I need to think about more, something I need to discover more about, Asimov tells a story well. Yes, he has his “public booth” moments, but those are fairly rare—mostly because there’s often little in the way of chasing or fighting. Asimov writes dialogue and monologue, interspersed with sparsely narrated action. And he punctuates those typical scenes in his stories with action, but often has a hard time convincing the reader of the import of the action. It’s as if he thinks two or three phrases alone will set the reader on a new track, “What? I said ‘he was being followed now.’ After 30 pages of languid reflection, why isn’t me writing, ‘he is being followed’ enough to skyrocket the tension?” Tension is something to build, something to create and nurture. And Asimov isn’t great at it in any of the first three Foundation books. Yet I will still state that he tells a story well.

I’m trying to figure out why I think he tells a good story. The science fiction I like the best is that which explores characters and ideas. His dialogue explains the stories, and this helps focus his narratives on exploring ideas. So, I am finding that I personally tend to not mind Asimov’s poor writing because the ideas often carry his stories. His clear plots tend to ruminate on ideas more than human psychology. His characters are often two dimensional analogies for aspects or interpretations of the ideas. His window dressing, the worlds he creates, tend to act like his characters in being sketchy analogies of aspects of ideas. So, I think that’s probably why I find he tells good stories: the rigid focus on ideas. His dialogue, plots, characters, and worldbuilding all stay rigidly focused on the overall idea of the story. Everything is in service to the story—even to a fault in Asimov’s writing: there’s often a lack of applicable conclusions to draw from the stories because they are so farfetched that applying the Mule’s superpowers to day-to-day life or history is a stretch; the dialogue seems forced and doesn’t explain the samey-sounding characters so much as the story; the characters are typically caricatures and lack interest; and the worldbuilding leaves much to the imagination of the reader. But those are all the flipsides of the specific ways Asimov succeeds at telling stories.

There are only two memorable characters in the entire first three Foundation books: Arkady Darell and the Mule. The Mule, though driven by revenge for his mutated appearance forcing an outsider nature, is slightly inconsistent. He’s still a great example of treating the villain like a human character because all people are heroes to themselves. But Arkady seems consistent, strong, and a well-written character. She is headstrong, intelligent, curious, and trying to find her place in the world. She knows what she wants and Asimov allows that to enter the story. It’s refreshing to finally see characters in Asimov’s writing, and I hope there are more characters in his future stories.

The themes here center around paranoia and the already-mentioned Herodotus conclusion about softness. The whole narrative tries to resolve the softness problem, but the resolution comes about because a few people still retain their drive, despite the soft times of the Foundation at large. And instead of subverting the trope, the efforts of the Second Foundation reinforce the trope, hinting that Asimov believes Herodotus’ conclusion to be inescapable, but short-circuitable. These few hard people of the Foundation are hard because of their paranoia. Scared of the power of the Second Foundation, their cadre of pseudo-revolutionaries sparks this whole adventure tale. It’s difficult to determine what Asimov is trying to say about paranoia though—useful, but not to be trusted too far? Useful only when paired with accurate, intellectual analysis of reality?

Conclusion
“The Mule” and “Search by the Foundation” are the strongest stories of this series so far. Strong enough that I now want to go back and re-read the earlier tales and see if I missed something. “Search by the Mule” is a good tale, but aspects seem inconsequential to the story—why a frozen farming world? I think Asimov is a bad writer, and in my research have realized that he only ever did one draft, essentially, after imagining the ending, then the beginning, and exploring how to connect the two. His work could’ve really been improved by more revisions, but his storytelling can be superb. Having now read the Foundation Trilogy, or the first three books of the seven that Asimov wrote about the Foundation, I can’t really see the reasons for the one-off “Best Series of All Time” Hugo award, but it’s not a bad series. Maybe the later four books in the series will help me enjoy them because they come when Asimov is much more experienced as a writer. He has to be better later. He can’t be worse, can he?

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

There I was, stuck in bed healing from an arm broken in five places, and the only audiobook I could find while drugged out was Foundation and Empire. After disliking Foundation, I was not excited for this book—I sat on it without reading it for four years. Then, I tried to pump myself up to it by reminding myself how good of a short story writer Asimov is—this book is a collection of two novellas—and how much I liked two of the three novellas in The Gods Themselves. And after I turned on Foundation and Empire, I found out that I enjoyed it. These notes are trying to figure out why.

It’s certainly not that he has vastly improved as a writer. He’s not deplorable here, there’s no massive intro-info dump to drag the whole book down. But he still uses simple verbs too much and doesn’t explore the dictionary or sentence structures enough to keep me interested in his writing. His sentences are often redundant: he still insults and patronizes the reader’s intelligence by explaining too much. For instance, an Asimov tendency is to physically describe his characters—who are futuristic humans who have different fashion cues than we do—then take two more sentences or paragraphs to describe how that physical description should be interpreted by the reader. He tells some things poorly. Things like this annoy, especially when the storytelling is good and these descriptions distract.

And that is exactly where Asimov starts to shine here, the story pacing and scope. The first tale, “The General”, tells the story of the Empire’s last effort to seize The Foundation. The story apparently loosely follows the lines of Byzantine history regarding Belisarius (the General is named Bel Riose) and Justinian. The story is told from the perspective of two captives of Bel Riose: one a double agent, another an old politician who is forced to help the general because his family is hostage.

As a sequel to the earlier five short stories, this story retains a Foundation trader as a main character. Yet, here Asimov uses the switch of narrative focus to military science fiction as a springboard to start to explore themes other than economic or political ones with his series. Political themes still exist here, but the focus is on military intrigue. This variety is much needed, and it contributes to my enjoyment of the story. Where Asimov already created a vibrant, complex world, this story finally starts to use that complexity to explore other paths, and its narrative benefits from this exploration by being engaging for its own sake. I’m not saying that writing stories with easy to grasp risks—like military science fiction—is better, I’m just saying that Asimov does it well here, and he had already trod the economic and political whodunnit in the other five stories.

The second story is “The Mule”, where I really started to enjoy the storytelling. “The General” was a good foray into new territory. This is a good short story, full stop. Another military and political drama, this time two Foundation citizens save a clown from his master, an ambitious mutant known as The Mule, who has it out for the Foundation. They end up being entirely unable to stop him from conquering the Foundation, and when Seldon’s Crisis Speech is about a different crisis, the power goes out on Terminus and The Mule takes over. His power comes from mental powers to affect the brains of others. The first Foundation is helpless because they are physical scientists. However, the four heroes attempt to find the mythical Second Foundation—full of psychologists and psychohistorians—to seek help or warn them. One of the heroes dies while trying to share that he found the Second Foundation, killed by one of the other four, because another of the other four has been The Mule all along.

Typically, Asimov would just end it there. Instead, he spends a few pages actually marching back through the story and laying out the inconsistent and uncharacteristic choices the characters made that led this one to realize who The Mule was—portrayed as an interview between The Mule and the murderer. And then the friendship shown overpowers the villain’s sense of revenge and he lets his two friends go alive, so that he can then go continue his search for the Second Foundation, the unknown threat. This backtracking and resolution is a vast improvement over all six short stories that have come before in this series. I certainly had noticed that some choices seemed uncharacteristic, but honestly, based on Asimov’s usual writing skill, I thought it was just a lack of clarity. To have Asimov take me back through where his characters erred in hiding their identities is brilliant, and provides a nice cap on the story. Yet even the Mule’s reasons for letting the Darell’s go seems inconsistent with the tale of woe that led him to try and take over the galaxy.

The other thing so strong about this story is the length. The length allows some complexity and allows the content to have impact on the story itself. Instead of trying to do too much with too little, Asimov writes a longer tale, probably a novella more than a short story, so that he can discuss more of the implications of what he’s talking about. This allows things that happen early on to come back with power at the end, allowing the reader to feel that time has passed and the story is coming full circle, helping things make sense without more info dumping. Asimov doesn’t abandon concise narrative though. One thing he’s always done is allow the reader to figure some of the narrative out, to reflect on earlier parts and gain insight through hints dropped by Asimov. Though he often spends a lot of time spelling things out too far, it’s usually only description or character based.

This story also gets away from retelling Roman history in the Foundation series. Though the Mule can be analogous to charismatic figures from history, his specific superpowers do not line up with any known figure from history. This is more of a supervillain story, from the pages of comic books, and less of a historical narrative. But there still exists one obvious example from history: the Herodotus conclusion that soft times create soft men. After a number of Seldon Crises have passed, like the one in “The General”, and the Foundation realizes that none of their efforts were actually needed to survive some of the crises, they start to trust in the Seldon Plan more and more, becoming almost religious about it, yet also becoming complacent, losing some of their drive. The independent traders complain about the central government’s complacency and plan a revolution, a rebellion, yet are utterly derailed by The Mule.

I think this tenor and depth of writing suits Asimov, and the length is perfect for his voice. I quite like “The Mule” as a novella, and may go back and read it again soon. And this encouraged me to give the first book another try. Much improved, still bad writing, but the storytelling carries the writing well.

The Other Wind by Ursula K Le Guin

Over time, Ursula K Le Guin wrote her Earthsea stories. She later took apart some of what she built early on—she changed her mind, and changed her Earthsea world. I’m not at all upset or in disagreement with her over this. I am actually more into this than an author who ignores or is embarrassed by their earlier works. I’m happy people change their minds, it gives me hope. The question here is this: now that she has deconstructed parts of her world, what does Le Guin do with it? The answer is quite simply that she continues to deconstruct it, taking apart the afterlife on Earthsea. That’s the theme of the book: death.

But there’s a problem with death here. You’ll need to remember The Farthest Shore to understand. The problem with death is that dead human souls go to the Dry Lands, where they have a listless, colorless existence, an eternal life of boredom. Well, turns out, the Dry Lands once belonged to the Dragons, humans stole it so long ago only the black wizards of Paln remember that, and Dragons want to claim it back. Some forgotten spell set up the Dry Lands, and apparently messed a bunch else up too in Earthsea. So the heroes research and talk and decide to bring in more voices to their discussion. Finally, by deconstructing the containing wall of their afterlife, the immortal human souls are then able to rejoin the cycle of life, death, and rebirth instead of being trapped in a black and white world, a fake immortality. This also means the humans are able to live up to their end of their ancient treaty with the Dragons, reconciling the two cultures—that’s the main plot—and in the meantime a subplot reconciles the Kargish lands with the rest of Earthsea, and another subplot also reconciles the black magicians of Paln with the Roke Wizards.

This plot relies on what her earlier books contained. The referential nature of this book clearly means that this is not a book to read unless you’ve read some other Earthsea first. Even then, it’s a fairly strange plot on the surface. But though Le Guin seems to be just talking about this made up world’s death and afterlife, this outlandish fantasy plot is actually doing something applicable. She’s talking about looking around, questioning what is, realizing that some of reality is the result of ancient, forgotten errors, and then doing what needs done to fix it despite the fact that those old mistakes are not ours. Taking responsibility for fixing problems that weren’t ours to begin with, reparations, the strength of humility, overcoming biases and fears to allow change for the better, sacrifice, the importance of wisdom and power. It’s a strong theme that really came home for me as a contemporary analogy to post-colonialist country borders.

But that’s not all the book does. Le Guin weaves in the tales of her characters: Alder, Idrian, Tenar, Tehanu, Lebannen, Ged, Seserakh, the master wizards of Roke. The story focuses on their day to day, on trying to get along with each other, on the conflict inherent in trying to come to grips with their discovery of what’s wrong with death. In other words, the heroes do heroic things, but they’re just people. In the midst of all this crazy, metaphysical, mythological repatriation, Seserakh’s sea-sickness is a major plot point. Tehanu’s shyness proves important throughout. Alder trying to deal with dreaming about his recently-dead wife sets this whole book off. And there are a hundred other examples of how Le Guin keeps these heroes people and not archetypes. It’s a strong tactic that made this book memorable for me. It adds complexity to the narrative and contextualizes the heroes’ quest in the same way Gawain and the Green Knight did so well—though much more completely than that text.

And that should be enough said. This is a great book, but it utterly relies on the reader having read the three preceding books in the series, at least. Le Guin balances the overarching, fantasy plot with relatable, human subplots perfectly. She relates her fantasy plot to current ideas about redrawing the map of the world, things like letting Tibet and Kurdistan exist, redressing mistakes made during the colonial era, getting cultures to work together, doing the courageous to fix the mistakes of the past, and taking responsibility for actions not that were done by you, but which are perpetuated by you. It’s a great book that doesn’t get bogged down by these high themes, nor does it lose itself in the details of the characters’ lives, but it shows just enough of both to allow the book to work well as a closing novel in this series of six books. Because it was more complex, I was more into this one than the other books in the series, and the first five were so good that I didn’t regret having to read them to fully appreciate this masterpiece at all.

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

This wonderful author wrote two beloved series that both prominently feature collections of short stories. This is the fifth book of Earthsea, and it’s a collection of short stories. That’s an unusual tactic. But I think that the short story, novella, novel, poem, play, and essay all have their own strengths. I also really enjoy short stories—China Mieville, Isaac Asimov, Raymond Carver, Franz Kafka, Sherman Alexie, Ray Bradbury. Two questions guide these notes: why use short stories, and should this book stand alone?

1. Why short stories? What does Le Guin use this form to do? Pessimistically, short stories aren’t strong enough to stand on their own, they become a sort of fan service collection of lesser quality work, thrown away ideas. Optimistically, the concise form allows the author to focus on a single theme more, or, in this case where the short stories are part of a larger world, they can deal with characters that are not essential to the main stories of the world.

Here, Le Guin writes five stories, along with an introduction and the pseudo encyclopedic “Description of Earthsea”. These tales tie into the stories of the novels sometimes, and sometimes start their own stories. They run the gamut from historical context to origin story to small love story. And it is that variety that I love the most about this book. Rather than writing “Five Adventures of Ged”, she has taken the opportunity to flesh out her world significantly. Before this book, I thought of a small Earthsea. After this book I thought of a larger Earthsea, and I think that’s useful to the point of the book.

The five stories are:
“The Finder”: The original founding of Roke was done by women and men together, rather than the men-only tale that the school lies about now.
“Darkrose & Diamond”: A wizard of great potential gives it up for the love of a woman.
“The Bones of the Earth”: Ogion learns his greatest spell from a woman, and learns to despise Roke’s male-dominated nature—explaining why he isn’t archmage and why he looks with measured disdain on Roke.
“On the High Marsh”: A man seeking power was thrown into exile, this describes the exile and shows how he is redeemed by love.
“Dragonfly”: And the fifth tale is the epilogue to Tehanu, the novel that precedes this book, and the introduction to The Other Wind, the novel that succeeds this book. In this story, a woman who is part dragon gains access to the male-only college of wizards on Roke.

The first one fills in some gaps in Earthsea lore. By showing the importance of women to the early school on Roke, Le Guin changes the way I think about the characters in the novels. Gone is some of the awe for the wizards, as their petty superstitions about women get in the way of the true balance they are constantly paying lip service to.

The second story is one that wouldn’t fit into a novel easily—its length means that it wouldn’t work as an aside, and its content relies upon that length for power. Yet it’s just a small love story in some ways, and not complex enough to justify centering a new novel around it. So, this story perfectly works as a short story exploring an alternate Ged, one who fell in love with a girl and regrets giving it up for the power of magic.

The third story chronicles one of the legendary deeds attributed to Ogion in the novels—stopping the earthquake on Gont. Yet, by looking at it in detail, we see the network of friends who were essential to Ogion’s deed, especially the woman who sacrificed herself, selflessly knowing she would get no credit. This story probably could have fit into the first novel, or the third, or the fourth. But the short story form allows the writer to focus on the themes and characters more, and spend less time drawing it together with the novels, in a way that makes this a powerful stand-alone tale of Earthsea. Though it helps explain Ogion better, it is also simply an exciting tale to read.

The fourth story is probably the best one. It takes an antagonist from the novels, after he has been defeated and exiled, and shows his exile and redemption. He loved power, was defeated, realizes his mistakes, and now experiences the power of love as a path to redemption. Ged, the man who beat him, shows up simply to show forgiveness. It’s a tale of self-forgiveness, dealing with mistakes, and love that simply stands alone better than the rest of the stories in this book.

The fifth story sets up the central questions of the coming novel. Yet, like the first story, it relies heavily on the surrounding context of Earthsea as laid out in the novels to work at all. These characters of the Masters of Roke are sketchy here, and their reactions are better understood when having read the other novels. Yet, for a short story, this would be a distracting aside in any of the novels except the forthcoming one. This could have been the opening chapter of the next novel pretty easily, but the narrative structure is so self-contained that it may have been quite awkward.

In using the short story form, Le Guin is able to focus on different aspects of these characters and her Earthsea world. In general, Le Guin uses these short stories to flesh out the world of Earthsea. Some of these tales insert women into places of power and importance in Earthsea. This is a sort of retconning—and to me this term does not have a negative connotation at all. Who am I to enforce that an author never change their mind? Here, we have an author who decided to put women into stories that were generally thought to be male dominated in the past.

2. The second question then is whether these stories stand on their own enough, or if Earthsea knowledge is necessary for them to work. My impression is that the answer is a mixed bag. “On the High Marsh” stood out to me, for sure, as a great short story in its own right. And its my favorite because it seems to exist as a story Le Guin wanted badly to tell, without reference to the novels—though that reference is there for people who read the novels.

The other two middle stories mostly stand alone. But they are so enhanced by prior Earthsea experience, that I hesitate to call them great on their own right. They’re good stories, but I think that knowledge of the context helpfully points out some of the contradictions that make these stories enjoyable.

However, the opening and closing tales are so dependent on prior Earthsea knowledge that they disappoint as stand-alone short stories.

I’m always struggling to review sequels, books in series. I mean, on the one hand they don’t often stand on their own, and I really want them to. On the other hand, they are written for a specific audience, usually one who has read the prior book or books. I will just say that this book works as intended. As a reader of Earthsea, this book worked for me. But it wasn’t perfectly satisfying either, as I wanted more stand alone stories, and less tie-ins.

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K Le Guin

Another Earthsea novel, another coming of age tale with another new character. Ged is also there, stealing the limelight. However, in this novel, he is there from the beginning and it’s a much stronger start. In some ways this is my favorite of the original trilogy, and in some ways this is my least favorite of the original trilogy. In trying to determine why, I have come across two aspects of storytelling and two aspects of the writing that I want to talk about.

In terms of her writing, Le Guin has adopted strong, confident writing. And the biggest addition to her repertoire is her expanded descriptions. Where in the earlier Earthsea books things were described sparsely—except for the tombs themselves, but those were in darkness so there wasn’t much to describe—here the descriptions extend longer. And this extending allows the reader time to pause and ponder what Ged has taught the young prince Arran, time for the writer to fill in some gaps in the Earthsea world; but not through exposition: Le Guin still uses effective, sparse hints at the surrounding context. Yet this further description of the world is appreciated after the claustrophobia of the tombs.

The characters here are great: partly because of what came before, and partly because of what Le Guin does here. On the one hand, seeing the old Ged, wise and patient, advising against action unless action is needed, is Le Guin writing a strong father figure; yet after reading the other books, and realizing who Ged was and what he has become, this character is more powerful. The new characters are interesting—Arran follows his own path to adulthood, separate from that which Ged and Tenar took. He goes from a haughty, aristocratic young prince who thinks he knows how the world works, to a humble, strong young man who is able to prioritize others over himself. So, I appreciated what Le Guin did with the characters here—continuing to explore instead of rehash.

One aspect of her storytelling that allows such diversity of character is that this novel is a journey. Ged and Arran are constantly coming to new lands and meeting new characters. This structure is also reflected in her emphasis on description—more opportunity and more need to introduce more aspects of Earthsea. For a journey narrative, I could probably think of a better one, but it would be very hard for me to think of one. This is a really good journey narrative because Le Guin finds a happy medium between delving too deeply into a place the characters are basically passing through, yet not losing site of the place itself, giving the reader enough information to make the place seem alive. She does a really good job structuring and pacing the novel so that each stop, each island, is alive, yet doesn’t rabbit trail the novel too far away from its narrative thrust.

But that narrative thrust is my problem. Every fantasy novel seems to want to save the world from some overarching evil. And here, Le Guin adheres to the trope. It’s indicative of a larger problem: where the first two novels subverted and played with tropes, this one spends more time adhering to them, and less playing with them. There’s a prophecy and wouldn’t you know, this boy Arran is the one prophesied about. The old wise wizard saves the day, and he comes off much more like Merlin in this book, though that is tempered by his fatherlyness. And the real fallout of this problem is that some of the action, the situations the book embarks on, is overly foreign—too relegated to this fantasy world, and not as easily conceived by the reader. It's hard to fear a dragon, and so Le Guin does more telling than she should here, because her telling is inadequate to draw me into the full import of what she is saying. Okay, so magic is dying out, but the first two books spent a lot of time showing that magic wasn't the most widespread thing in this world, so who cares? It seemed like Le Guin is a better writer than storyteller here, because the overall thrust of the book is a disappointment. But this is probably just squabbling. I still wish that I could write something this good, despite this one fault.

The theme of the book is death, power, and love. Three strong themes that Le Guin handles beautifully. Though these three themes are wrapped up in fantasy trappings, Le Guin manages to make them understandable and applicable to her reader still the same. Death is naturally something to fear, but there is a healthy way to approach it. Power is most useful when it doesn’t insist upon itself, but is selfless when required. Love, as a theme, takes place between Ged and Arran as father-figure and son-figure. This is a good portrait of a parent-child relationship, and it is nice to see a fantasy book without some scantily clad heart-throb.

In all, another fantastic book by Ursula K Le Guin. I’m loving exploring her work more after being floored by The Dispossessed. There is some other strong stuff in her oeuvre. And this book counts among them. It’s better written than the other two Earthsea novels in the original trilogy. But the overall driving force of the story does let it down some.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin

This sequel to A Wizard of Earthsea delivers, but in a different way than the first book. Instead of the almost non-stop action in that earlier novel, this one starts out slow with the new main character, Tenar, growing up as high priestess of the Nameless Ones, the old gods. Raised as an orphan in the desert religious complex, Le Guin creates an interesting dynamic for Tenar: she is technically the reincarnation of the prior highest priestess, but politically she is a child and the newer gods are now more popular, so her power is actually pretty limited. Navigating this intense world of interpersonal religious politics fills the early part of the book with a different tenor than A Wizard of Earthsea, as Tenar learns the limits of her power and learns her place in this society. Eventually Ged arrives, looking for the other half of a broken magical talisman, and the action begins in earnest. But that slow opening really helps build the character of Tenar firmly. She is a proud and self-questioning young woman, often alone and in the dark, who is forced to self-reliance and starts to expect no help from others. When she meets Ged, it’s at a time in her life where her own curiosity, and the situation in the temple complex, makes an act of rebellion attractive, so she doesn’t outright kill him, and that rebellion starts her on her own path towards becoming a helpful, functioning member of a society. I think Le Guin is making a preference known for the culture of Earthsea over the superstitious culture of the Karghish lands.

And yet, though the structure of the story follows Tenar’s path, the first half, the impact of the story on the larger world is down to Ged’s hero quest to find the other half of the broken ring, the second half. This disconnection led to me questioning where the story was going in moments. Unlike Le Guin's novel, The Dispossessed, where the two stories combine into one clearly and cleanly, here it seems more like the story is a bait and switch⁠—I think the story is about Tenar, but then Ged arrives and everything focuses in on him. This is nitpicking though, because when Tenar approaches another culture as curious and open as she does, of course her life will change. So, while Le Guin’s writing improves, I think her storytelling takes a step back. In all, I would recommend this book to almost anybody though, because taking a step back from the heights Le Guin has achieved is a small thing in comparison to other writers.

That nit pick aside, this is a really enjoyable read. Delving more deeply into the psychology of the coming of age tale, aspects of Tenar stay unchanging, while she also changes drastically through her childhood. This is a really well done coming of age story, and how many examples do we have of a woman’s perspective on the same? Fantasy is usually all beautiful women with no power other than sexual or evil, and heroic men who take what they will. This alternate view is beguiling and I appreciate it immensely.

The theme of the book is again empathy and accepting the wholeness of being⁠—both the light and the dark alike. But in a way, this novel is the mirror of A Wizard of Earthsea: a woman’s coming of age tale, instead of a man’s; Ged goes from the mountains to the indoors while Tenar comes from the deserted tombs to the biggest city in Earthsea; where Ged gains power, Tenar loses it, though maybe uses is a better word to choose; where Ged accepts myths, Tenar lets some myths go; and most importantly, Tenar becomes complete too, like Ged did, but in the opposite direction through accepting her lightness. Where Ged was learning to deal with his darkness, Tenar is learning to accept her light⁠—literally and figuratively, as she was mostly raised in physical darkness. Tenar and Ged somewhat mirror each other, as do their tales. That said, the theme here also embraces taboo and is the best example I can think of for a story about overcoming superstitious taboo. Religion, superstition, and personal choice over place in society also all play important roles as themes in the novel.

It’s a strong novel that I really enjoyed. I look forward to a second read in the future, knowing now what I do about the story and being able to fit the two parts of it together, I think a second read will be better than the first. I wonder whether a sentence or two at the beginning, to give away the ending, would’ve been as helpful here as it was to Ged’s novel.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

This is the story of Sparrowhawk, Ged, a young adult who has the gift of wizardry, learning to control himself at the same time as he is learning to control his powers. Structurally, it's a hero's quest, but it treats the hero more like Gawain in Gawain and the Green Knight, in terms of getting down into the nitty gritty psychological frustrations of day to day life. This isn't Merlin. This is a boy learning to be a man.

She assumes the reader knows what is what in the world of Earthsea. Instead of expository worldbuilding, Le Guin focuses on the story and drops hints where needed to flush out the context. This tactic of sparse backstory contrasts directly with Tolkein’s tendency to describe the history of every lichen-covered rock. And to me, it contrasts favorably. The focus of the novel rests firmly on the characters and story rather than the world being built. Which, when I’m reading a story, is something I prefer. It reminds me of what I like about China Mieville, those few, important hints flushing out a world and still leaving the reader space to use their imagination. It’s a style of writing I’m thoroughly convinced is effective, and Le Guin helps prove it here.

I think the point of the novel rests in the combination, the wholeness Ged reaches by melding himself with the shadow. The light and the dark coming together into one character. Though there are many other points to the book, I think this aspect is the clearest and touches all the other points: Ged’s pride and desire for power releases the dark shadow, which then runs rampant. He initially hides from it until he realizes how much of a danger to others it is. Then he systematically hunts down the shadow, needing help from his friends and finding other dangers along the way. He finally realizes that the shadow is a part of himself, and he calls it by his own true name, at which point the two become one. As a young adult novel, it’s easy to see Le Guin trying to show ways in which competitiveness, self-worth, and service to others are both beneficial and destructive. Like hiding: initially, he has to hide from it because he has no power to match it, then his hiding becomes cowardice and he has to hunt it down. Hiding is a benefit initially, but turns into a destructive crutch. His service to others first blinds him from his need to confront his shadow, but then he confronts it out of a desire to protect others.

One thing I always find interesting about magic in novels is what it says about the author’s prioritization of aspects of reality. For Le Guin, magic is power over things that comes only from understanding an aspect of the thing. Knowing the true name of the thing gives one power over it, as well as some innate ability to project that power, which can be trained to work more effectively. Empathy is a large part of what she seems to premise that power on. When Ged is trying to be helpful, he almost always succeeds. When he tries to hurt others, he fails and hurts himself and unintended others more. It’s a powerful system of magic, and one that clearly reinforces the theme of the novel.

In all, I really enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea and don’t know why I hadn’t picked it up before. The writing isn’t as good as Le Guin gets later, but it’s also not as bad as some of her earlier works. It seems by trying to write for a young adult audience she allowed some sparseness to influence her voice in a way that I appreciate. A good story, written well, which leaves the reader plenty to think about and plenty to fill in. What more could you ask for?

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Outside of three books, I simply don’t like Neil Gaiman’s writing. Especially in American Gods and Anansi Boys, the sentence structures repeat again and again to the point of boredom. The word choices prove useful but not effective. In short, I regret reading those books. However, The Sandman is one of the best things I have ever read and it’s near the top of my “To Re-read” list. I ended up with the audiobook for Norse Mythology one day before a road trip with my wife, and we loved it. So, I thought I would give Gaiman another go, and I thought I would read a book I had heard was his best.

The Graveyard Book may be perfect. His language and sentences fit in well with the story and cast of characters. Where I’ve been known to say he writes like a young adult author, or a journalist⁠—when he’s writing a young adult book, he absolutely shines. The short sentences provide a rhythm for the mood to build off of. The word choices focus the attention onto the characters and actions. The structure of the novel allows almost each chapter to be seen as a short story, a separate episode in Bod’s life. There is humor and terror and heartwarming moments, and conspiracies and chases and supernatural creepies. Myth and legend and urban fantasy⁠—dishwashers and goblets, ghost witches and modern mayoresses.

And that complexity dealt me a blow I hadn't seen coming: instead of using metaphors and extensive worldbuilding to talk about race relations, immigration, or crime, the novel is full of natural diversions into these subjects. They surprised me, but not in a deus ex machina way: oh, the writer must have written himself into a corner so here comes the gods/eagles/dragons to save the day. Yet it doesn’t bog down under the weight of associations because of Gaiman’s deft handling of them. Instead of discussing issues specifically, he touches on them generally. He shows guiding principles instead of spelling out specific courses of action. He embraces the mystery of aspects of his world instead of explaining everything.

I read it in a single day. That’s how enthralled I found myself. Part audiobook⁠—as read by Gaiman himself⁠—and part text reading. I cannot say enough good about this book and how it balances including interesting concepts and delving into them just enough to keep the book engaging without diverting the book. Great work.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

(Please keep in mind that this is an unfinished novel published posthumously and seemingly against the wishes of the author. Though his asking his friend to burn all his unfinished works may have been a joke because he probably asked the one friend least likely to do it. But that's a debate I don't know enough about to have.)

I keep coming back to Kafka’s impenetrableness, in my mind, with a reflection that I spent the whole novel thinking, "What's this all about?", and, “No person would react that way!” I’m not thinking of any single way that a character reacts—except possibly for the Lawyer’s maid, though even she seems a caricature of people I know—but rather in two actions that characters complete, in a row. These actions do not line up to. For instance, K is meeting with the manufacturer at the bank, and suddenly his actions, mood, character changes so drastically that there seems no thread tying him and earlier him together. This, of course, could be due to a point Kafka is trying to make. But I couldn’t tell because I found too few clues in here as to what Kafka is on about. So, what clues did I find?

• Religion. Kafka’s religion is unstated, but he deals with religious themes and things that ape religion in ways that assure religion is never far from the page. The closing sacrificial scene, the priest’s scene, the penitent waiting rooms, the kissing of the lawyer’s hand—these things are so reminiscent of religious experiences, religious acts, that religion is ever on the tongue of this novel. And the clearest analogy to religion in the novel is the court system.


• Court. The main theme on-page is either Joe K’s psychology, or the court system, which adheres to no known court system—or so say the experts. Is Kafka taking the piss out of the court system?
  —Yes, probably. Yet at the same time, he is taking the piss out of justice, and laws, only as they are implemented by humans. Kafka's objections, except for one example in the conversation with the priest, seem to be about laws and court systems that reflect little of the Socratic sense of justice and personal rights. These impenetrable, uncommunicative, and unrealistic systems are what give the book its dystopian mood. This vast, nebulous, unknowable, and oppressive court system is unrealistic, but may ape aspects of legal systems that are tenable.
  —But maybe the courts are a metaphor for something. And if so, the merchant at the lawyer’s office seems to give a clue that it may be a metaphor for sociability, some egalitarianistic pun on courtly behavior. Society requires a sort of game, or performance, for one to not be considered crazy. So does this court system.

• Theater. And that performative aspect is huge here. By the time I got to the final scene in the quarry with the sacrificial altar stone, I thought we would at last get a scene with no audience. But somebody throws a window open to watch from a distance. Every scene has an audience, even if that audience is sometimes just K. And K consistently refers to theater terminology to try and interpret his perceptions. The theater of life, of living in a city, like in the fragment of him on the divan, provides an energetic undercurrent for the novel.


• Sex. The lawyer’s maid has a fine figure and is attracted to all of the defendants; Elsa is K’s unseen regular squeeze; Fräulein Bürstner and K seem to share something more than a kiss, at least some underlying sexual tension exists there; the woman whose husband is the court usher tells K he can do anything he wants to her. Yet K gets more good advice, instead of just promises of advice, from the painter, who is surrounded by girls.

• Business. K’s personal business is always getting in the way of his professional business as CFO of a bank. And on this aspect of the court, K’s arrest provides both opportunity and impediment. Opportunity comes in the form of contacts with the prosecutor and the painter, while he worries that his arrest and trial are taking too much time away from his professional life. He works late often, and is seen to be in the office early, and is praised for his organizational skills at work—this is clearly an important aspect of K’s being.

So, it seems that Kafka is accusing government of inherent evil, or a lack of conscientiousness. For example, in the court itself, the idea that the accused could even know the accusation against them is ridiculous. But not just the government, the whole of the society because both are indistinguishable in areas. Yet, it seems that Kafka is content as a writer to offer pithy phrases like, “They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.” He writes these wonderful phrases, and some truly memorable scenes, instead of sharpening his overall point or indictment. It seems that he might be full of himself: too sure that readers will pick up on what he’s after to actually put in enough clues. I feel that K’s psychology and impenetrable actions detract from the overall pointedness of the novel by confusing the issues being discussed and even how they are being discussed. How much of this is due to its unfinished nature, I don't know.

But I also appreciate the open-endedness of it all as much as I am annoyed by it. I don’t want to be spoon fed. Sure, maybe a little more given to the reader would have been profitable. I get the sense that the reader’s perception of events differs from the narrator’s, which differs from K’s. And this confusion reigns in the reading of this novel. But this confusion is probably the point of the novel! The court is after all affecting K in the same way. And what a mood and scene set by Kafka, where the reader is right there with K, feeling frustrated and annoyed, yet reading on because of the wonderful writing and scenes. Kafka creates and sustains such a poignant mood that, for all his impenetrableness, I found the book easy to finish and well worth reading. Sure, with something like the Metamorphosis, or In the Penal Colony, I come away with a much better idea of Kafka’s point, so I'm more likely to recommend those. But for fans of Kafka, this is a can't miss novel.

Embassytown by China Miéville

This book was at the top of re-reading wishlist. And this enjoyable reread showed that there is a lot going on in here.

First, a wide variety of subjects and themes populate the novel: main character as a returning, cosmopolitan outsider while simultaneously being an insider; international relations; economics; marital relations; city politics; war and negotiation; famine and plenty; theology. These discussions all center on how we interact with others, with the surrounding world, with ourselves. It’s ambitious, taking on so many themes. But I do think that Mieville has a focus in this novel. To be more specific, the whole book can be summed up in two seemingly different threads: the discussion about Language, and the two worlds in one.

I’m starting to expect two cities as one in Mieville books—in his longer ones at least. Whether it’s the most blatant example of The City and The City, or the more subtle fantasy underworld and mundane overworld of King Rat, Mieville often focuses on people and places trying to survive with two separate, personal sets of priorities occupying their lives. His narratives focus on the friction inherent there. Between existing as a minor Immer celebrity, and as a private individual returning home to see shift parents again. Between being for the people but against the government. Between being two people, and one—either an ambassador or a married couple. Between being an outsider and an insider. But the question I have, that I’m not sure I can answer fully, is what he concludes about these competing ideological frameworks. It seems to me that his conclusion is simply that using all the resources available to you, even ones outside of your comfort zone, is key to success. This requires an open, observant person who knows themselves well. This is a pretty easy moral to swallow, I think.

The second thread is a bit more esoteric. The nature of language, and how it shapes or molds us for better and for worse. I believe he is paraphrasing a wide variety of continental philosophy sources, from Lacan when discussing connotative linguistics, Walter Benjamin in his discussion of language as anything in life that communicates meaning, Hegel and his successors in terms of the other, and the notion of monsters. In a sense, this is a linguistically focused take on colonial narratives, through the lens of continental philosophy.

One. I think the preamble of this thread is simple: a Language exists where the speakers cannot lie because it refers directly, in a specific, one-to-one method. The word equals the thing, is the thing. The symbol is the symbolized.

Two. An ambiguous determiner arises. As summed up nicely in that discussion about that, as a word, as a determiner. To quote,

“The Absurd had invented pointing. With the point they’d conceived a that. They’d given the jag of the body, the out-thrust limb, power to refer. That that was the key. Thatness faces every way: it’s flexible because it’s empty, a universal equivalent.”

Three. Context asserts itself. Inherent in thatness is context.

“That always means, and not that other, too. It was base and present tense. But its initial single word was actually two: that and not-that. And from that tiny and primal vocabulary, the motor of that antithesis spun out other concepts: me, you, others.”

Instead of referring to something, thatness refers to a specific thing and a context of it. Or, as Avice put it, “That means thinking the world differently. Not referring: signifying.”

Four. Signifying language is flexible. As Avice put it, “I don’t want to be a simile anymore, I want to be a metaphor.” In other words, language that merely refers to the thing itself lacks flexibility. The hosts struggle to even define their words because the things themselves are so concrete. They must enact the words before they can speak them. Language that signifies a thing is flexible, varied.

Five. Flexibility and ambiguity equals a lack of truth. Or, as the narrator puts it, “We tell the truth best by becoming lies.” Not by lying, but by becoming a lie. A metaphor. By applying a word or phrase to something it doesn’t literally apply to. I think this is an important distinction here. Stating, “that red rose is blue,” without lying, requires context, ambiguity, signifying instead of referring. Is it blue because you gave it to somebody, they threw it back in your face, and you’re feeling down about it? This is lying of a sort: the rose isn’t literally blue. But it’s a type of lie we have named metaphor. And the person who says it is blue has become the lie—their blueness colors their perception of the rose, regardless of the rose’s color.

Six. The conclusion of the story, The Absurd inventing writing, exposes the lie already inherent in Language. They believed that since their language was true, and they came into the world with it complete, their thinking was Language. By losing Language, they believed themselves blind, unable to communicate, unthinking, animalistic. By noticing that they could communicate without Language, they proved that this unique, truthful Language was actually based entirely on the lie that Language is thought, that reference is necessary in Language. By pointing out this lie, they also realized that they could communicate without rigorous, literal truth. Or perhaps without truth at all.

So, where these two threads seems to be different at the start of the book, I see Mieville tying the back together by the end. The hosts themselves are two groups tied back together: those zombies addicted to language as orgasm and those attempting to free themselves through deafening or changing language. But this relationship between us and language goes deeper throughout, as questions of language come up consistently and the characters realize that who they are is defined by language at least partly. By changing their language, the hosts have changed at the end. By changing the way they speak language, the humans screw everything up. So, I think Mieville’s conclusion, or moral, is that who we are is partly a result of our language, but not wholly. And I think that’s a pretty easy to swallow moral as well.