The Left Hand of Darkness

Looks like I finally found a LeGuin's book that's not overrated. About time.

I loved the overall narrative, the richness of the culture Genly is discovering and the slight alienness he experiences because while they are human... they are not quite human like him.

The “aliens” have amorphous gender but they are still people, humans left on icy planet and experimented on long time ago - they cycle through being man and woman once a month like a PMS, the rest of the time they are infertile and something in the middle. It is a fascinating idea and I'm glad the book was written in the 60's because today it would have several dozen preachy passages with LGBT metaphors and “THE MESSAGE” (read the word in Critical Drinker's voice for best effect). This way it was ideologically free and LeGuin simply went discovering what a culture like that would look like, which was, in a way, refreshing.

Two thirds of the book are spent in political match between two nations while Genly is trying to get at least one of them to enter Ekumen union of planets. He knows that if one agrees the rest will soon follow. But they don't believe or don't want to believe him for their own political sake. He came alone and while he looks weird to them and the spaceship is being analyzed he's still struggling against political forces that want to keep the power to themselves and fear joining galactic union would undermine their plans.

This part was good but not as good as the last third where Genly is forced to travel through icy plains with a native companion. I was quite surprised that this was the stuff I enjoyed the most. The bonding between them was the best part of the novel. I wouldn't say that LeGuin is in any way good with writing rich and complex characters but this part made me care about both of them.

I've rated only Wizard of Earthsea this high but this book was slightly better and it's not as highly praised as that one. So far Hainish Cycle was improving with (almost) every book and I hope this keeps going. LeGuin will never be among my favorite authors but at least I'm finally starting to understand why she is for many other people.

P.S.: China Miéville wrote introduction to this and it just solidified my opinion that I wouldn't enjoy his work. He doesn't understand Heinlein's ‘The door dilated' metaphor and misunderstands that LeGuin used masculine language for pregnant ‘king' because we have no other way to address a ruler that is most of the time sexless eunuch and turns into one of the sexes only for a day each month.

extremely dense, very interesting and well read, found it a little difficult to get into. didn't feel as groundbreaking to me as i thought it would going into it, but that very may be because i read it 54 years after its publication. still, what a galaxy brain and very well explored premise.

“свет - рука левая тьмы, тьма - рука левая света....” наверное каждый второй цитирует это в своем отзыве. это потрясающая книга. и своей идеей, этого мира, этой странной физиологией и возможными ее общественно историческими последствиями, а заодно и размышлениями о том как связано наша бинарность с нашим же общественно историческим устройством, и взаимная ксенофобия и возникающие мысли, что в такой вот небинарности может быть спасение от наших местных проблем (войны и пр.), а еще описание этого мира, такого страшного и жестокого. путешествие по леднику и особенно “ белое ничто” меня потрясло. “без тени не найти путь к свету”. а еще местная разновидность религии, только в которой нет бога, что то похожее на йогу или дао, адепты которой, обладая способностью к предсказанию, целью своей видят найти вопросы, на которые не существует ответов, ибо единственное в чем мы все уверены, это смерть, а жизнь это неизвестность и непредсказуемость.
очень очень рекомендую

This book is fascinating. Me Guin tried to tackle many different subjects which are not common in science fiction, and does that tremendously well.

This is my first time ever hearing an audio book, which may diminshed my enjoyment. I may return to it again later in life to fix that.

Everything about this book worked for me. The writing was beautiful. The characters were complex. The world was interesting. It just worked.

This was the first Ursula K. Le Guin that I ever read and it just blew me away. The world building was immaculate and, although the plot of the story was quite simplistic, the development of the characters and the overlaying of the complex social and political issues added layers of depth. Le Guin explores, among other things, how gender dominates and drives so many aspects of our lives and, without degenerating into a soppy love story, how friendship can transcend huge differences. Throw into the mix a little global warming, prison camps, genetics and space travel and you have such a rich novel that it just begs to be read again and again.

As with all the books written long ago that I have read this book was horrible. First of all, it was incredibly boring. I could not finish it. I got halfway through which I think gives me the right to have an opinion. 

The stream-of-consciousness way of writing was horribly boring as well as hard to read. The whole reason I wanted to read this book is because it supposedly was very progressive and totally groundbreaking about gender, which I found to be absurd. How could anyone have ever said that about this book.  It isn't talked about much and never really goes anywhere apart from both sides of the coin talking about how weird and disgusting the other is. If anything the gender roles are even more pronounced in this book than usual. The main character comments on the seeming femininity or feminine characteristics of various people he meets, almost always in a condescending or insulting way.  

The whole political part of this was also terribly boring. In general, I wanted to fall asleep and could not get through this whatsoever. I think I will just stop reading classic for a while because it never ends well for me. 

There are certainly a lot of interesting ideas in this book, however it's of a style that I very much do not connect with. Oftentimes it just feels like textbook excerpts on culture and politics, and I felt myself losing focus and struggling to follow the actual plot or main characters.

Just not for me unfortunately!

Happy to have finally read something by Le Guin. I enjoyed the pseudo-epistolary structure and concept of a fully gender fluid civilization, but the book's age really shows through in the limits of how far this queerness can go (all relationships “become” heterosexual, for instance, because reproduction I guess).

I think I'm missing some important context for when this was written, as it has both a lot of vaguely anti-communist sentiment and also seems to be pulling from Catholic mission trips to East Asian countries, but I can't quite pinpoint a through line. A bubbling pot of challenging political ideas that are not so much unexplored as they are too large for a 300-page scifi novel. Very curious to check out some of Le Guin's later work, but this seems as good a place as any of, like me, you've been meaning to check her out.

Whilte I still prefer the dispossed by far, this is without a doubt thought provoking as well, perhaps not as political as the other one though

This book was dense!

It's so difficult to sum up everything else the story covers. Gender and sexuality is front and center since the Gethenians are a human species that do not have a static sexuality and the author has done an amazing job of building two societies of people that are very different from each other and from us.

On top of gender and sexuality, it also takes place on an ice age planet with a drastically different ecosystem from our own, and the Gethenians have developed some really advanced technologies to cope with their climate, while also ignoring entire fields of study. It gives some really cool alternate history vibes that I really enjoyed reading about.

It's also one of the best examples (that I can think of) of a story where you can read it twice and have two different experiences. Gethenian politics and rhetoric is all about subtly and many of the early conversations will read completely differently after gaining a better understanding of shifgrethor (their honor system).

It's probably not for everyone... it's a slower read and I think very character driven, but if you can get through the earlier parts and get comfortable with the onslaught of new words and concepts it's very rewarding.

I'm really glad I read this book, and it's going to be an excellent source of conversation at book club!

[3.5]

This was an interesting take on gender, especially from 53 years ago. Although I mostly just found it confusing, but it's clear that I'm not the target audience for this novel.

I don't have a ton to say about this except it was a strange omission from my reading history.

★★★★⯨

7/10

At first I was a bit thrown off because it's starts out reading more like anthropology than a narrative work, which isn't really my thing. But it built up so much power as it went on, and left me really moved by the conclusion.

It took a while to get into this probably because I listened to it instead of reading it. I struggle with fiction on audiobook and I'm not sure why. Anyway, it does start a little slow but then I loved it. It was a lot more emotional than I thought it would be. Or at least I got emotional!!

I read the Wizard of Earthsea books a ton as a kid/teen but not much of LeGuin other than some random short stories. This makes me wait to read more!

Incredible. I cried.

This book was excellent, but not my taste.

Very interesting concepts and fascinating political maneuvering, but written in a largely inaccessible style for a significant part of the book. Le Guin introduces Gethenian concepts and doesn't explain them right away, leaving me very confused a lot of the time.

Cool concept, execution wasn't for me.

Plot tl;dr - the main character, Genly, is on a planet where everyone is is neither male or female. It reminds me of the Ancillary Justice series where everyone is referred to as a “she” (although this book came 40 years earlier!)

The book defaults to “he” pronouns for everyone. I wish it used “she” instead, since it becomes very easy when reading to just imagine all the genderless people as men, since Genly does a lot of interacting with people in power who are traditionally men e.g. a prime minister and a king. However this can be explained away by Genly being a male and being biased towards choosing “he”.

A couple of times Genly gender stereotypes (“he was graceful as a girl”) and even right at the end of the book he mentions that a child must be a boy because “no girl could keep a grim a silence as he did”. I guess the author was trying to prove a point by being overtly obvious with the stereotyping but at the same time it's kind of frustrating to read since Genly is a likeable main character otherwise and it's not really pointed out that he's doing it.

I wish we could have seen some more growth from Genly and for him to move away from gender stereotyping as the book progressed.

Still it's a 50 year old book so considering its age, it's pretty good!

Read this as part of a college class with Bloodchild by Octavia Butler. Both of these stories are quite remarkable. This one in particular really challenges and makes you consider real world society in comparison to what we see in the story.

I long expected one of the Earthsea books to be my first Le Guin read (they've been on my want to read list for a long time), but I am glad this one was it in the end.

I kept having to remind myself that this was written in 1968. Has not only not aged but seems more current than ever. If anything frustratingly short

Re-read!

What I expected: Bomb ass classic SF

What I got: Cool alien fantasy treatise on the duality of man, the humanity that lies behind labels, and some badass second-wave feminism.

On paper I should have enjoyed this book more than I did though.

While Le Guin is a master of language, her word choice stunningly perfect, it seems she harbors an intense hatred for beauty in prose. The writing in TLHoD is utilitarian, spartan, and devoid of interesting dialogue or evocative description. The book is a giant exercise in telling and not showing, often completely glossing over potentially interesting scenes and hand waving past important plot points.

For a feminist author she sure loves to refer to (most) masculine traits as intrinsically desirable and (all) feminine traits as repulsive. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that it's because our reader surrogate is male. I would love to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she gives us no reason to. While Ai grows by the end, and sheds some of his intolerance, it's only for the ambisexuals. In fact near the end, after his trials, he complains again about the shrill sound women make when they speak. It feels tone-deaf.

Where she fails at weaving a well-paced cohesive narrative though, she succeeds in being inimitably quotable.

“The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.

The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.”

Wow, this was such a good story. It took me a little while to get into it, I'd say the first 20% was toughest because I had no idea what was happening (I was told I didn't need to read the first 3 books but maybe the world is already built up and you're familiar if you read them?) From then on I enjoyed it but the second half of the book I literally couldn't put it down and read it in an afternoon.

I highly recommend this book if you like Sci-fi, world building, and great journey type of books. This is a very good one!