Tombs of Atuan
The 19th of April, 2025
Inside this tomb, the darkness stretches on into eternity. This sacred place, a place where no light had ever been. You’ve woven this darkness into your being, making it your home, your shelter. But perhaps if dawn’s light does break through that eternal gloom, you will behold the tomb anew and in that moment be remade.
I finished the second Earthsea book, Tombs of Atuan! It was really good! Better even than the first, which was good in and of itself. Inspired again to read by Fogweaver, this time the album Labyrinthine, which focuses entirely on the Tombs of Atuan. I also recommend this album; it’s super good! I enjoyed this book so much that I read the entire thing in a single spring day while enjoying some tea. A nice day it was.
My thoughts on the first book can be read here
The Fogweaver album can be found here (now available on cassette too!)
Tombs of Atuan is much darker and slower than the first book in the series. It focuses on an entirely new main character as well, a pretty dramatic change-up from where we left off with the first book. The novel spends a great deal of time in the titular Tombs of Atuan. Don’t worry though, I won’t post any spoilers here; everything I mention in detail is in the first few pages. The new main character is a priestess to some darkened gods known only as the nameless ones. The entire order and her people shun the magical powers seen in the first novel entirely in favor of worshipping these nameless gods. This is very interesting as the first novel talks about the true name of everything, and how all things have names.
The message of the book is one that is very interesting. It’s another coming-of-age story, but this time with a very different feel. It’s a very heavy life lesson to not lose yourself in blind faith to echoes of a thing that once was, while ignoring the progress of the outside world. It’s a warning to the reader not to shun this progress. Not to let faith blind you to the true nature of things. Throughout the book, the main character is exposed to new perspectives that change her worldview drastically, things she’d not even considered as possibilities before. I think this is a reminder to the young readers to always be willing to accept new ideas. This book was written in 1970, but I still feel like it applies very much to a modern reader in 2025, considering the walls we’ve built around our own ideologies and in-groups. A gentle reminder not to spend too long in those tombs where the light of other’s perspectives may not shine.
The best of our days lie in the future; let us not look too deeply into the dark of the past. All that lies there are the dusty tombs of yore.