The Tombs of Atuan

Earthsea, Book 2

Ursula K. Le Guin

★★★★★

The Tombs of Atuan is still my favorite of the Earthsea books. There’s something fascinating about a labyrinth that you must traverse in total darkness, keeping a map and counting turns in your head. It’s actually what got me curious about what was then still a trilogy in the first place.

Ged is still involved, but he’s not the main character this time through. He’s older and wiser, and the viewpoint shifts to Arha, another teenager with a different kind of power. A priestess in a society that abhors magic and writing, whose name has been erased, who instead of sailing the ocean stays in one place, on land, in the middle of a desert, whose domain is the darkness within the earth.

The first half of the book focuses on Arha growing up at the temple complex, dealing with her changing relationship with the other priestesses to other gods as she grows into her role as the sole priestess to the Nameless Ones, and as she discovers (or rediscovers?) their realm in the dark. Petty rivalries, politics between priestesses of different faiths (only some of whom actually believe), friendships that can never truly be equal.

I’ve seen reader reviews complain that “the main character” (meaning Ged) doesn’t show up until halfway through the book, and let me tell you, they really missed the point. The story isn’t about Ged finding the lost half of the Ring of Erreth-Abke. It’s about Arha and what she does when he literally casts a harsh light on her world. It’s about her figuring out what to do about him, and what his presence reveals about the life she’s lived and the powers she’s served up until now.

And it’s about her figuring out who she really is. Is she merely The Eaten One? Is she Tenar? Is she both? If she’s Tenar, who is that, when she hasn’t been Tenar since childhood? It’s a recurring theme in Earthsea: True names matter, but who you are is a deeper question: Ged and his shadow, Arha/Tenar, Arren and his destiny, Tehanu, Dragonfly and so on.

(Spell)Casting

This time through, I realized two things about my mental images of the characters: first, that Tenar has always been Jennifer Connelly in my mind. (What can I say? Labyrinth made an impression!) Second, I have now headcast Sendhil Ramamurthy as Ged/Sparrowhawk (Heroes-era for the later parts of the first book and this one, and his current age for the rest).

My mental image of the place has changed over time as well. Between re-reads I sometimes forget it’s a desert at all. Knowing now that it was inspired by the Oregon High Desert, and remembering that it’s on a river, I see it more as the chaparral of Anza-Borrego rather than the drier, emptier parts of the Mojave.

You Had To Bring Up Reincarnation

Arha’s position at the Tombs is based on the belief that she’s the previous priestess reincarnated. This book doesn’t really consider whether it’s true, only whether it matters. Is she merely the latest in the line of Eaten Ones, or is she herself? It seems to contradict what we see of the land of the dead in the first and third books, but it’s still possible to imagine an exception. I haven’t gotten to The Other Wind yet in my re-read, but the truth of the matter is one of the questions that Le Guin wanted to explore.

But she does come down very strongly on one side of Tenar’s crisis of faith regarding the Nameless Ones. They do exist. They do have power. They do rule the domain she’s lived in all her life. Ged admits all that readily. The question she really needs to answer is whether she should (or even can) continue serving them.