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Showing posts from October, 2017

A Wizard of Earthsea and CB radio

As I've created accounts on various websites and social media I've avoided using nicknames. (The one exception is eBay, where I feared that a bad sale would mean that someone would track me down, so I hid behind a username based on a work nickname.) However when I was in my early teenage years we were given a CB radio and when I (briefly) took to the airwaves I chose Sparrowhawk as my handle. I'd forgotten why I chose that, but this piece by David Mitchell (the author) on A Wizard of Earthsea reminded me why. At the time I loved that book, and David's article could explain my love of the book: Any reader with experience of adolescence will recognise herself, or himself, in Ged’s portrait, and because we identify with Ged’s failings, we worry for him, can hardly bear to look when disaster hits, and afterwards care deeply about his fate. It may reread it now.