The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

Magic is losing its power throughout Earthsea. Ged, now the Archmage of Roke, decides to investigate and embarks on a fateful voyage which will take him to distant corners of the archipelago. He is accompanied by Arren, Prince of Enlad, a young man who is also seeking his own destiny and fulfilment.

The Farthest Shore (1972) concludes the original Earthsea trilogy, which was never meant to be a trilogy; Le Guin started work soon afterwards on a fourth book, Tehanu, but for various reasons it was delayed and not completed and published until 1990. Still, as a wrapping-up of storylines and character arcs from the three books it does thematically feel like the ending of a series.

At its core, The Farthest Shore is the story of confronting one's own demons and recognising the consequences for poor choices. In this sense the book feels like an echo of A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), the first novel in the series. In that novel Ged unleashes a dark shadow of himself into the world and has to find and confront it, which he eventually does at great cost. In The Farthest Shore the threat is more traditional, with Ged having acquired a nemesis in his adventures who now seeks revenge on Ged and domination over all the lands of Earthsea. In terms of the standard, trope-filled fantasy narrative, The Farthest Shore is the most traditional book in the series, with a callow young youth hero (Arren) learning wisdom from his mentor (Ged), who seeks out the enemy who would become a dark lord.

But this is a crude, reductionist reading of the story. As with the earlier Earthsea books and indeed much of Le Guin's work, the tone is melancholy rather than celebratory. Ged is a much older man than the last time we saw him and any hope that he may have found a life of happiness with Tenar (the protagonist of The Tombs of Atuan) appears to have been dashed. His life has been filled with great accomplishments and deeds, but Ged seems decidedly unhappy and bowed with the weight of responsibility. The decision to leave these behind and strike out himself in search of the answer to the mysteries afflicting the islands is clearly joyous. This novel, then, is the story of Ged resolving the lingering issues of his childhood and trying to find a way of achieving happiness in middle and older age; The Farthest Shore may therefore be the quintessential mid-life crisis novel, but with dragons.

As usual, Le Guin's inventiveness with worldbuilding and striking prose makes for an atmospheric and at times haunting story. Her characters are interesting, complex figures, although Arren occasionally risks blandness compared to Ged, his enemy and the dragons. The Tombs of Atuan was interesting in that it presented Ged solely from Tenar's point of view and gave us the external image of the character we spent all of A Wizard of Earthsea getting to know. The Farthest Shore gives us both, with Arren's view of Ged contrasting with Ged's own, less awe-inspired reflections.

This is therefore a sombre and at times dark book, but also one that is ultimately life-affirming, ending on a note that gives Ged and Earthsea hope for a much better future.

The Farthest Shore (****½) wraps up the opening Earthsea trilogy in fine, if occasionally maudlin, form. It is available now in the UK and USA as part of The Books of Earthsea omnibus edition.