I’ve had a little time this month to get back to reading in between querying agents and trying to put together the next thirty pages of Eastlight. In organizing my library I realized that once again, I’d given away my last copy of A Wizard of Earthsea. If you haven’t read it, I have to highly recommend Le Guin’s essentialist form of writing fantasy. She manages in two hundred pages what so many epic writers can’t: she brings her world alive to you. Ged’s story is still almost crystal clear to me since the first time I read this book nearly ten years ago.
I just started my Hero’s Journey course last night. It’s one more piece in the seemingly endless puzzle of my college education. We have to choose a book for our research paper and despite its small size, I’m going to use A Wizard of Earthsea. If the paper is of any note, I’ll post it but I love it when I get a chance for my personal love of a book to converge with my studies.
Le Guin made me dream in a very real way about writing fantasy. Since then I’ve always wanted to instill and inspire people the way she did me all that time ago.
How about you? What’s your favorite fantasy book of all time? What timeless book did the best job of transporting you out of the real world for a while?