(Other Book Appreciation Posts can be found on The Reading Corner)
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I’m more familiar with Ms. Le Guin’s young adult stories set in the fantastical world of Earthsea. (The complete cycle is on my TBR list, and I hope to check a few of those books off this year.)
The Beginning Place isn’t a children’s / YA fantasy (in my opinion). This is a grounded, gritty story. It has some mature moments that caught me by surprise, but it does dwell on an element of fantasy that draw many readers to the genre (including myself): A desire to travel to a far-off place and to find oneself there. A desire to escape from some aspect of reality. A desire… to go through a doorway into a world of magic and unknown potential and possibility.
There’s no blatant, in-your-face magic to be found in The Beginning Place, but it’s there throughout the pages of this short book, if one knows looks carefully enough and knows to pay attention. It’s a subtler form of magic. A dragon is there too, and other fantasy elements, but things are not always as they seem.
Ms. Le Guin’s mastery of the written word is on full display. Her prose is poetic and stirring. Lyrical. She uses her words, her sentences, and paragraphs to send readers sinking into the very emotions that the characters feel. Because the story is so brief, every moment counts. Nothing is wasted.
At the end, on that final page, the mesmerizing spell woven by the words upon the page is broken, and Ms. Le Guin brings readers and characters alike back into the real world.
In that sense, is that not what stories are supposed to do? They provide a moment or two of rest, give us things to think about, and then gently nudge us back to reality with the promise that we can always come back later if we’d like. Tomorrow.
There’s always another story to read.
Until next time,
Al
