The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

A young prince joins forces with a master wizard on a journey to discover a cause and remedy for the loss of magic in Earthsea. Darkness Threatens to overtake Earthsea. As the world and its wizards are losing their magic, Ged -- powerful Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord -- embarks on a sailing journey with highborn young prince, Arren. They travel far beyond the realm of death to discover the cause of these evil disturbances and to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it.

3.5 stars
life and death, death and life, beginnings and ends... i didn't love this book as much as i loved the first two, but i appreciated the discussions about life - what it means to die, what it means to live. her books and her prose make me... ponder.

i think what makes me like this book less is that the stakes are too high... i don't know. but i liked how the first two & tehanu are more contained, more... i can't think of the right word. this one feels a little more like a classic hero's journey than the others. i liked it but i didn't love it - i think that's the best way i can express this.

Le Guin's books really come alive when her characters, chiefly Ged, speak openly about different topics and share nuggets of wisdom. The dialogue is wonderfully done in these moments.

I struggled with this book more than the other two. While I enjoyed the two characters, I just found the majority of the journey and story quite boring. I loved the interaction between the wise wizard and the prince, however, things just felt flat in other instances and was just boring to me. I'd be okay with rereading it to see if it is just my current circumstances that caused me to not enjoy this one as much.

Quotes

“No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.”

“You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?”

“But when we crave power over life—endless wealth, unassailable safety, immortality—then desire becomes greed. And if knowledge allies itself to that greed, then comes evil. Then the balance of the world is swayed, and ruin weighs heavy in the scale.”

“Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”