Reviews with content warning for Incest - The Left Hand of Darkness

The premise of this book is that a man comes from outer-space, to a world different to ours, on a peaceful mission of communication; as is often the case when worlds collide, it's more about the journey than the destination.

As is often the case with hard science fiction, we break into this story feeling like and Alice (in Wonderland). We don't know what half the words mean and we are a little out of our depth, but through the ignorance of the protagonist, we learn our way around by their experiences. Despite having a world with some different names for things, and a slightly different calendar and clock, the new world is fairly easy to understand once you get over the initial shock, and I think that's pretty much the point of it. Our protagonist comes at this new place with curiosity, but with his own preconceptions, some of which slowly grow and change over the course of the book.

The core of this book explores a premise whereby there can be no "battle of the sexes" if there are no distinctly different sexes. This story tells of a people who go through a monthly fertile time, during which they become either male or female depending on the conditions. They have no sexual need outside of that fertile time, and their society is arranged to accommodate it. In coupling either of the partners could be the child-bearer so there is no division of labour as we have in out "bi-sexual" society. I can see how this would be a popular read today, as our society's friction over accepting non-binary gender identities becomes even more prominent.

As an aside, I find it amusing that the people in the new world can't pronounce the protagonist's name properly, and the Audiobook narrator has a tiny lisp. It's barely noticable but, when he has to say a soft "th" sound he uses an "ff" sound.. so death becomes deff, breath becomes breff. Typically this sort of thing annoys me, but I just think it's quite charming in such an alien story. ... aaaanyway.

There is an incisive foreword from the author at the start of the audiobook, where Ursula Le Guin says some valuable things about the roles and lying ways of speculative fiction writers, and how they are not to be trusted, or treated as though they are experts, profits or sages.

Without the relationship building in this story, it might have been quite a dry affair. After helping to introduce the protagonist to those in charge of the land, his main contact is exiled as a traitor, and the two of them are caught in the wheels and machinations of the politics of the place. They undertake a journey to find friends, and need to work together to survive the hostile climate. I was reminded of the film Enemy Mine (1985 w. Louis Gosset Jnr, Dennis Quaid) and I find it hard to imagine that a film like that (based on a 1979 novella by Barry B. Longyear) was made without the influence of this 1969 book.

The story is quite an adventurous tale, one of exploration and survival and understanding. I think the style in which it is written may be an acquired taste, but it's a must-read Classic for any fans of science fiction.

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reebeee's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A tour de force of a novel about gender, sex, religion and mysticism, nationalism, loyalty, and relationships that transcend definitions of "friendship" or "romance." It has its flaws—foremost among them a bioessentialism excellently described by Charlie Jane Anders in the afterword to the 2019 edition, along with a lack of examination of Gethenian ideas about gender separate from sex—but (once again, as Anders points out) these flaws are also strengths, as they teach us to distrust the reliability of Genly's observations and opinions. For a book published in 1969, its thought experiments hold up remarkably well, and it's nuanced enough that a reader can take issue with a facet of the text without having to discard the value of the whole—in short, it deserves to be among the classics. Also it destroyed me, and I mean that as a compliment.

One of the other remarkable things about this book is Le Guin's continuing engagement with and development of the ideas the advances in it (e.g. a later short story about Winter in which she changes the default pronoun from "he" to "she"). I highly recommend reading her essay "Is Gender Necessary? Redux," first written in 1976 discussing her choices in the novel, and then commented upon again by Le Guin in 1987. It's an excellent model of an author who is not afraid to adjust her ideas without erasing her past thoughts. As Le Guin says, "minds that don't change are like clams that don't open."

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fabioca's review

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adventurous reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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annalu's review

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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wormgirl's review

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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bl4m3s's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I have a very complicated relationship with this book. We are thrown straight into the world of Gethen, with it's own language and terms and weather that is only explained as you read. This made the first half of the story difficult to get through and I had to Google the meaning of several words multiple times in order to understand what was actually happening. However, once I became familiar with the language the second half of the novel was much smoother sailing. It's definitely a read that requires your full attention and focus.

Other reviews have mentioned that this is much more of a speculative fiction novel than a science fiction one, and while this is true I don't believe it is a bad thing. The weather, politics and species being something we can relate back to earth and the human race allows greater focus to be placed on what does differentiate humans from gethenians. The societies on Winter are very similar to that on earth: with Orgoreyn having a communist government similar to that of the USSR in the 60s, and Karhide having a government closely resembling a monarchy. The benefits and drawbacks of both nations are discussed throughout the novel, which in term is a criticism of earthly governments.

What I find most interesting is the discussion of gender. Gethenians are androgynous people and only present with male or female genitals for 6 days each month. Anyone can become pregnant and anyone can impregnate - the father of one child can be the mother of another. This then means that all Gethenian societies are not influenced by gender. No one is expected to be the stay at home house wife, and no one is expected to be the breadwinner. Connotations such as "strength, courage, assertiveness = masculinity" and "sensitivity, gentleness, fragility = femininity" simply do not exist on Gethen. Most intriguingly, this has led to a world that has never once experienced war, as there is no pride or greed that is associated with male dominance. Gethenians are also very in touch with their emotions and experience no shame in outwardly expressing grief, anger and joy. It's very entertaining to watch Gently Ai, our male human protagonist, come to terms with and understand Gethenian biology and how he desperately tries to relate each person back to what is traditionally masculine and femine throughout the story.

"My efforts took the form of self-consciously seeing a Gethenian first as a man, then as a woman, forcing him into those categories so irrelevant to his nature and so essential to my own"

These notions are gradually broken down as the story progresses and eventually Ai reaches a point where seeing men and women of his own race is more alien and off-putting than the gethenians - the real aliens to him.

While the writing is strange and the pacing somewhat hard to make sense of, the messages and topics discussed in this novel are compelling and reflective. While there are some parts that have perhaps not aged so well, to say this novel was written in the 60s it is relatively progressive and innovative for its age, and the ideas put forward within it are topics still widely discussed and relevant to this day. I'd absolutely recommend reading this novel, especially as a queer person. Incredibly insightful and has left me with much to think about.

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dawntin's review

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adventurous challenging reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

There’s a lot to unpack in this book. LeGuin tackles politics, discrimination, and the gender binary throughout the novel. All of the alien Gethenians in the book are addressed with he/him pronouns, but I don’t actually see that as a huge issue considering this book was written in 1969. I think if it was published today, the Gethenians would have been referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. It was funny to read “The king was pregnant.” The book is beautifully written and the descriptions of scenery make this fictional world feel real and even cozy at times, but there’s also a lot of other things that are missing. What I found strange was the way families in Gethen were handled. There was not that much about what Gethenian kids are like, and the parents in the only established family in the book were estranged. I also feel like the author threw in

incest as an acceptable part of Gethenian society, even between siblings

for extra squick. It seemed so unnecessary to me. The relationship

between Genly and Estraven was kind of reductive, since Estraven presented as a woman when Genly realized his feelings

but I guess it was a good way to have Genly deal with his biases. I’m still not over that ending.

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potatodel's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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