The Tao of Ged

Once there was a poor boy who was neglected by his family. Strange things started to happen around him, and he was taken in by a man with affinity with the natural world. His powers earned him a place at a school for wizards, a place of esoteric learning and strange rules, where he was teased and humiliated by a boy from a high born family. The boy was impetuous and hot tempered, and well aware of his poor home life, and as a result of using magic in an unauthorised way, called up a dreadful threat which only he could defeat.

 A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin was first published in the UK by Puffin books in 1971, as the rather psychadelic/ pre Raphaelite cover above suggests. This is the cover I remember as a child (I think this was my Mum's book; at any rate it didn't feature in my bedtime stories from my Dad. Maybe he thought it was too scary- but somehow had no compunction about reading the far more gory Hobbit!) I didn't read this as a child. I first read it a couple of years ago. It is a very different beast from the plot-driven fantasy of much popular modern children/ Young Adult fantasy such as Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl or the Lemony Snickett novels (and I don't mean this dismissively- these are all very enjoyable and often challenging reads). But Le Guin is writing in a different era, from a different stand point.

The novel was first published in 1968. This was an era of race riots, Black Power, Vietnam protests, USSR and China testing nuclear weapons, strikes and riots in Europe, hippies, "free love" and women's liberation. Ursula K Le Guin is a feminist, she is concerned with ecological issues and in Taoist philosophy, and these themes are often explored in her novels. Le Guin has stated that she feels that too often Science Fiction is about white men colonising space; she writes specifically from a feminist perspective in her later novels (see The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu, the fantastically creepy sequels in the Earthsea novels). A huge innovation in her Earthsea novels is the diverse nature of her world; Ged and most other characters are described as having copper skin and black hair (although you wouldn't know it from the cover above or the recent television dramatisation.) Ged's friend Vetch is black. Le Guin drip-feeds this information about her characters throughout the first few chapters; a clever ruse given the year the novel was published in, and clearly sadly the producers of the television series didn't feel that staying true to Le Guin's vision would be popular either with viewers or with advertisers. See Le Guin's comments about this here.

I have stated that this novel is not plot driven, like much modern fantasy. Ged is on a quest, to defeat the evil that he releases due to his vanity and egotism. However, I believe that the novel’s key theme, the necessity for Ged to restore balance to Earthsea and thereby to learn moderation and self-control, are Taoist in origin. His growing maturity is demonstrated in his changing names: he is Duny as a child herding goats, then Sparrowhawk when he is with Ogion before going to school, but his true name is Ged, which must be guarded, for knowing a person’s true name gives the hearer power. (I know very little about American Indian beliefs, but Le Guin’s mother was an anthropologist who wrote a famous book about Ishi, a Yahi  man. I wonder if the idea of the power of names came from her mother’s research.) Ged must learn a dragon’s true name in order to gain power over it, and this section of the novel, where very little action occurs, but a great deal of character progression happens, can be related to the Taoist principle of inaction. Ged must learn to be in harmony with the universe.

A BBC audiodrama was recently repeated on BBC7. It is still available to listen again for a few days, and I strongly recommend it.

Hobo Journeys to Unknown Destinations

On Monday 22nd November, I went to The Guardian bookclub to hear the great Russell Hoban speak about his novel Riddley Walker. He was witty, pithy, interesting and although clearly physically frail (he is hard of hearing and needed some help to get to the stage) he is still inventive and playful with language and still has an urge to write. It was a joy to be there and to meet up with other Hoban enthusiasts, and while it can sometimes be disappointing to hear writers talk about their work, on this occasion it was illuminating.

Re-reading Riddley Walker, I thought about other Hoban novels I have read (or had read to me) over the years. The absolutely delightful Frances books, especially Bread And Jam For Frances, are great fun for adults and children to read together, with rhymes and songs that Frances sings and beautifully observes egoccentrism of small children. But I felt that many of the themes and images in Riddley Walker are preceded in The Mouse And His Child.

The novel was first published in the States in 1967, and in the UK by Faber & Faber in 1969. My Puffin edition was published in 1976. It is the story of a clockwork toy, a mouse holding the hands of a child mouse. When their clockwork is wound up the larger mouse turns in a circle, lifting the smaller mouse up and down. When the novel starts, they are living in a toy shop with other clockwork toys: a rather snooty elephant and a seal. The child longs to live in a very superior dolls house in the shop with the elephant as his mother and the seal as his sister.

The Mouse and Child are bought as a Christmas decoration, and for some years they are packed away for most of the year and come out for Christmas. The children of the house are not allowed to touch the clockwork toys, which begs the question: are they toys if they are not played with? and what is their purpose? However, the toys are broken and thrown away. They are rescued by a tramp, who tries to repair them. He leaves out some cogs and wheels, so the Mouse is now walking forward, pushing the Child backwards in front of him. The Tramp winds them up and sets them off on their journey. On leaving them, he bids them "Be Tramps".

The Mouse and his Child suffer a series of misadventures, including rusting apart, but eventually achieve their heart's desire- to be self winding, and to have a home and a family. Along the way, with their allies, they defeat the tyrannical Manny Rat. At the end of the novel, the Tramp peers at them in their home and bids them to "Be happy".

There are several themes in the Mouse and His Child that I feel are also present in Riddley Walker. Firstly, prophesies. Lorna, the Tel Woman in Riddley Walker, prophesies "the old going out and the new coming in", the moves to reclaim the lost "clevverness" that created the "1 big 1" that lead to the great explosion that destroyed civilisation. The Frog in The Mouse and His Child is in fact a fraud, but he prophesies that "a Rat shall fall and a Dog shall rise", which is how the defeat of Manny Rat comes about.

In both novels, Hoban makes use of rhyme, drama and story. The dramatisation of the Eusa tale in Riddley Walker leads to Riddley leaving his home, and sets him on his way to Cambry. The discovery of the Punch puppet puts him at odds with authority. In the Mouse and His Child, the encounter with the Caws of Art theatre group enables the Mose and His Child to make their first defeat of Manny Rat. Both novels have songs and rhymes running throughout, which both further the narrative and comment upon it.

Finally, both novels have protagonists who are searching for their place in the world. Riddley is a 12 year old boy who loses his father very shortly after his "naming day", which in Riddley's world is an entrance to adulthood. So he is both officially and practically independent, but he is still an adolescent. He is in Hoban's words, "looking for his space in the cosmos". His journey is both a spiritual and a material quest. The Mouse and his Child are similarly escaping from a life of gruelling hardship (they are put to work for Manny Rat in a dump; Riddley works with his father at the diggings, on a treadmill) and are also looking for their place in the world, their own "territory": a home and a family.

Riddley Walker is an incredibly challenging read. Hoban created a new language- a post-apocalyptic English- to write in. But I feel it is well worth the effort, and I recommend reading the novels in tandem.