Harlan Ellison Reads Earthsea

A review of a review of a terrific audiobook

“Never read anything of his, but one thing I can say is, he is the worst Audiobook narrator in the history of the universe. He nearly ruined A Wizard of Earthsea for me. He needs to stop.” (sic, several times)

— ThePendragon, in the comments section of ReactorMag, ~twelve years ago.

“Have you ever read A Wizard of Earthsea? By Ursula K Le Guin. I’m really enjoying listening to it read by Harlan Ellison, if you can track it down.”

— Me, to a friend via text earlier this month.

ThePendragon goes to France

Dear ThePendragon,

I apologize for the lateness of my reply; I only came across your grave mistake this month. I may be writing in vain. It is likely too late to save you from your stupidity.

When he reads A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K Le Guin’s foundational exploration of Taoism and mythological storytelling disguised as a YA fantasy book, Harlan Ellison isn’t narrating. He’s reading. There’s a difference, and it matters.

Mr Ellison races through climactic moments in flurries, speaks coquettishly when coquettes speak, roars when dragons do, and slowly ponders over moments of respite. He loses his breath. He laughs and chortles and chuckles and reverently reads the text — he reads it. I imagine Homer around a fire telling a story. Telling. Not narrating.

He rolls rs over foreign words like Roke, and pronounces Gont with phlegm.¹ He gives the awesome world of Le Guin’s devising dialect, sound, and vibrancy. I’m disappointed for you that you didn’t like it.

I found your comment because I sought the opposite of what you’d like. I was trying to figure out if the subsequent books in the series were also narrated by Mr Ellison. But sentiments like yours prevailed: Harlan Ellison didn’t get the chance to read the sequels because of dogging from curmudgeonly purists like yourself.

For that’s what you are, isn’t it? A purist? That’s what you think you are. Mr Ellison takes too many liberties with the text for you, like when he says “I— I— I don’t know,” when the text reads, “I don’t know.” And what you’re showing me, through your claim to purity, is that you don’t understand Ursula K Le Guin.

“The sound of the language is where it all begins. The test of a sentence is, Does it sound right? The basic elements of language are physical: the noise words make, the sounds and silences that make the rhythms marking their relationships. Both the meaning and the beauty of the writing depend on these sounds and rhythms.”

That’s from Le Guin’s seminal text on how to write, Steering the Craft.² It’s basically a blessing for Mr Ellison to do what he did: he made the sentences sound right. Who taught you that reading and writing and books had to be pure, to be clean-cut neat packages, that there were rules to follow? They taught you wrong and you need your money back. Mr Ellison is trying to help you unlearn.

Studying and learning daily you grow larger.

Following the Way daily you shrink.

And not only does your disdain for Mr Ellison’s rendering reflect that you don’t understand Ursula K LeGuin, it describes your miscomprehension of the entire book which is, as I said above, fundamentally an exploration in Taoism. That’s from Le Guin’s rendition of the Tao Te Ching, which I can’t in good conscience recommend to you; you wouldn’t like it. Le Guin, like Ellison, takes too many liberties with the source material for you to appreciate.

“This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese,” begins Le Guin’s afterword of the Tao Te Ching.

What you’ve missed so grandly in Mr Ellison’s reading of Earthsea you would miss here: artistry. She spends too much time trying to make the work artful, interesting, meaning-laden, and earnest.

My god, you would hate it. 

What doesn’t make sense to me is that you like Earthsea at all, and you can’t bring yourself to like Mr Ellison’s reading of it. Sooner say you like the Eroica Symphony, but not when its played, only the pretty shapes on the paper. Sooner say you like how O’Keefe’s paintings look on notecards, not how they appear in person. 

You idiot.

Sincerely,

Zach

1. He also pronounces Ogion correctly: O-gee-on, rather than the hideous o-JI-on some audiobook narrators use…

2. An agent of the FTC is holding a gun to my head. He says if I don’t remind you that I get a commission if you buy a book through one of these links he’ll shoot. Also, my local librarian just called; they wanted me to remind you that your library definitely has a copy of these books too and they’re free!