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LeGuin's third book in her Earthsea series is her most ambitious. Her thesis: you can only become whole by facing and accepting death, the darkest shadow. Lifted straight from Jungian psychology, this is the hardest and the important part of being whole. Sparrowhawk knows most of this truth already: remember the climax to Wizard of Earthsea. Arren, the young prince who accompanies Sparrowhawk on the epic voyages of this third book, has not yet learned this harsh lesson.

You don't need to know anything about Carl Jung to read and enjoy this book. At one level, this is a children's tale. But this book has many levels. Consider: the last king, Maharrion, had prophesied that there would be no king to succeed him until one appeared who had crossed the farthest shore. I'm not giving anything away by telling you that the farthest shore is physical - the western shore of the westernmost isle of Earthsea and metaphysical - death. And readers of earlier books know that for the wizards of Earthasea, there is a low stone fence that separates the living from the dead.

There is another wizard - humiliated by a younger Sparrowhawk - who has both great power and a terror of death. And he has worked a spell that will devastate the world, by denying and avoiding death. But by denying death, he has denied life, and magic, song, joy, reason and even life are draining out of the world. That spell must be undone before it is too late. And that task falls to Sparowhawk and Arren.

Arren must learn to understand and accept that death is necessary. Not just in the abstract but personally. He must cross that low stonewall with no hope of returning. He must cross the final shore.

This story has dragons, despair, joy, loss, discovery and marvelous surprises. Like all of the Earthsea books, it is sparely but beautifully told. The deepest of the first three books, it is an absolute joy. And for a thoughtful, reflecting reader, it might be even more. This is a book that can change a reader's life.

I first read this book of the Trilogy (pure chance) and I fell in love with it. After reading the first two books, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, I re-read it and enjoyed even more. The book is about the adventures of the archmage, Ged, and a young prince, Arren, in a boat, Lookfar, throughout the islands of Earthsea, trying to find the magical drain. It is not only the non-ending fight between of good and evil what Leguin is telling, nor Ged's story of saving the world (once again). The book is about dragons, magic, and adventure, as well as people and their love and fear. It is about a boy who matures in a magical boat with a stranger on a strange sea. A strong bond forms between Ged and Arren, despite Arren's suspicions and distrust with his companion. Ged's knowledge and sight and Arren's inexperience, faith and fear leads them to the end of their journey, and at the end, it is Arren who saves Ged's life, and brings him back from death. The story flows with the dialogs (even sometimes one might think Ged is talking too much). I recommend all of my friends this book as a "must be read."

Whilst I read A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA and THE TOMBS OF ATUAN many times as a child and a teenager, I never read THE FARTHEST SHORE, though I suspect I began it and did not finish. This book is heavygoing, both in tone and subject matter, but utterly rewarding for the engaged reader.

The wizard Ged, hero of the earlier novels, but now much wearied by age, accompanies a young prince of Enlad, Arren, in a journey by sea and land into the dark places of Earthsea and the dark places of the soul. Magic and joy in life are being leeched from the land by a malignant being who has found the secret of immortality - at the cost of the denial and ultimate destruction of all life.

This novel is probably more explicit than any of le Guin's other novels in portraying her conviction that all serious fantasy is at heart about the journey through the strange foreign lands of the inner soul. The reader is drawn inexorably with Ged and Arren as they try to save Earthsea by travelling into the dark heart of mankind and grappling with the ultimate challenge to selfhood - acceptance of death. Fantasy, le Guin maintains, is not about escape from the self but escape into the self. This philosophy lays the foundation for her serious, thoughtful fantasy, which may disappoint some readers seeking no more than vicarious thrills through daring adventures.

The serene, Taoist philosophy permeating the essence of this novel probably has more significance for me now at 23 than it could have at 7 or 13. Yet this novel, though difficult, is still accessible to the perservering younger reader. I hope that for all readers THE FARTHEST SHORE can provide as fulfilling a reading experience as it did for me, and I heartily encourage older readers to seek out le Guin's critical writing on fantasy and on Earthsea (such as LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT and EARTHSEA REVISITED), which are an enthralling read in themselves.