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A masterpiece in fantasy realism.

Tehanu was simply an incredible book. With every book I read by Le Guin, I’m astonished at what she accomplished. When you read fantasy of that era, or even today, you typically find a derivative world with a typical hero’s arc of a young man. What do you get with Tehanu? The main character, Tenar, is a widow likely in her fifties who is raising a young girl disfigured by brutal assault when she was younger. Oh and that prior young, hot mage Ged from the first book? He’s an impotent, sad sack of a guy who just kind of mopes around for ¾ of the book. So, first off, not only do we have a subversion of every fantasy trope in existence but you’ve got a cast of dreary, sad and exhausted characters.

So why did I like this book?

Because Tenar’s first person POV experience as a woman is one of the best I’ve ever read.

A man gives out, dearies. A woman takes in.

Tenar’s journey from a young girl who released Ged from an ancient prison in the Tombs of Atuan to now a widow raising an orphan after her husband passes is as real, mundane and true to life as you can get. This book is about Tenar’s decisions to not pursue the man’s world of sorcery, into which she was once vetted, and chose a more mundane path. This book is about coming full circle to the prior romanticism of the fantasy elements into something much more based in the real world and full of truths about patriarchy.

Ours is only a little power, seems like, next to theirs. But it goes down deep. It’s all roots. And a wizard’s power’s like a fir tree, maybe, great and tall and grand, but it’ll blow right down in a storm.

A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell. It’s hard and strong that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else inside� Who knows where a woman begins and ends? No one knows, no one knows, no one can say what I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman’s power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who’ll ask the dark its name?

The thing about this book is Le Guin shows you this picture of the downtrodden Tenar and her daughter Tehanu and walks you through bits of dialogue and inner monologue about the patriarchal order. You kind of start nodding along about these perceived differences between men and women even knowing full well that the differences are social constructs. But then Le Guin subverts even this when Tenar answers the question “Who’ll ask the dark its name?� with:

I will. I’ve lived long enough in the dark.

Le Guin more than hints at this in her acknowledgement. Tenar embodies questioning and defying the social sex power hierarchy while at the same time portraying a woman who is very much navigating that very real power disparity.

Basically most men in this book are a steaming pile of disappointment, especially Tenar’s son who just shows up at the end, can’t feed himself and insists that he inherits the farm. But then you have the emasculation of Ged, who gave up his power in the book prior, and then becomes a new companion to Tenar. His arc was really phenomenal. The new King, Arren from the prior book, also seems to have his head straight but seems to be scratching that head looking for the new archmage who is supposed to be some woman on Gont. The issue is, none of these men can imagine that a woman is to be the new archmage, only the means to discover the new archmage who must be a man.

’A woman on Gont� can’t become archmage. No woman can be archmage. She’d unmake what she became into becoming it. The Mages of Roke are men—their power is the power of men, their knowledge is the knowledge of men. Both manhood and magery are built on a rock: power belongs to men. If women had power, what would men be but women who can’t bear children? And what would women be but men who can?

And here’s the ultimate subversion. The new archmage they’re looking for is Tenar’s adopted child Tehanu who derives her power directly from the dragons. That is the questioning done in this book. Yes, there is a dichotomy of power hierarchy between the sexes in this book and in real life. But to explain the power differences as such vastly different qualitative sources and means in a way support this patriarchy. What Le Guin is saying with Tehanu (or Therru) is that this young, disfigured and scorned girl is her own power, on its own legs that doesn’t exist within the boundaries and definitions set by the patriarchy. And that is why this book was such a masterpiece for me.

This comes out in Tenar’s words to Tehanu:

You are beautiful. Listen to me, Therru. You have scars, ugly scars, because an ugly, evil thing was done to you. People see those scars. But they see you, too, and you aren’t the scars. You aren’t ugly. You aren’t evil. You are Therru, and beautiful. You are Therru who can work, and walk, and run, and dance, beautifully, in a red dress.�

I'll leave this review with a line that will stay with me forever:

What cannot be healed must be transcended.