Philip Hart writ: > On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > > > --- Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org> wrote: > > > > > That's the problem. Ged didn't present a new story; LeGuin's > > > guilt did. > > > Are you a telepath? Or did she confess somewhere? > > It seemed clear to me on reading _Tehanu_ that Matthew's view was > correct or that someone else had written the book. Of course such > an opinion can't be proven. Ah, but of course "someone else" wrote the book. That's the point I've made time and again. LeGuin could not help being a different person in the late 80's writing Tehanu than the one who wrote the original trilogy twenty years earlier. Likewise, I was a different reader when I arrived at Tehanu than I was when I first listened to Aunt Ursula weave her tales of a wizard named Sparrowhawk. To expect either of us to remain the same is an exercise in frustration. I think we can agree that the caution Matthew urges with respect to this book should be observed carefully, especially with younger readers, or ones with a strong emotional connection to the Ged, Tenar, & Co. of the original books. I don't think it will be necessary for all such readers, but certainly given the sample at hand, one may not say that there are no readers for whom Tehanu would be disturbing and potentially traumatic. Matthew, is this fair? I don't know about anyone else, but I'd like to put this particular issue to bed. C.