The Left Hand of Darkness

by

Paperback, 366 pages

English language

Published Sept. 16, 2010 by Ace Books.

ISBN:
978-0-441-47812-5
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OCLC Number:
53345521
ASIN:
B00YBA7PGW
Goodreads:
118028

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(2 reviews)

On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and this is something that humans find incomprehensible.

The Ekumen of Known Worlds has sent an ethnologist to study the Gethenians on their forbidding, ice-bound world. At first he finds his subjects difficult and off-putting, with their elaborate social systems and alien minds. But in the course of a long journey across the ice, he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians — it might even be a kind of love

51 editions

reviewed The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Slow start but a beautiful story

I had to force myself to keep reading this book for a while. The beginning seemed to drag, and I was not really emotionally invested in any of the characters.

However, the last third of the book is an absolute page turner, and I found myself saving quote after quote. I am not a fan of books or movies that have a pervasive sense of doom about them, and this one definitely does. It is, much like life, a lesson in hopefulness in spite of the horrors.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book right now to be honest, having just finished it moments ago. That doesn’t happen often to me, and I think that speaks to the complexity of it. I look forward to mulling it over for the next few days, and also to reading more of this series.

reviewed The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle)

Love this book

I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...

It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").

But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.

Now to …