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abbyeck's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture and Confinement
Moderate: Death
Minor: Suicide
deedireads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-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
5.0
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
I’m really glad I read The Left Hand of Darkness. It wasn’t as accessible as I’d (naively) assumed it would be, but it was certainly thought-provoking and resonant.
For you if: You want to read foundational works of SFF (especially by women) and like books that are or read like “classics.”
FULL REVIEW:
TL;DR REVIEW:
I’m really glad I read The Left Hand of Darkness. It wasn’t as accessible as I’d (naively) assumed it would be, but it was certainly thought-provoking and resonant.
For you if: You want to read foundational works of SFF (especially by women) and like books that are or read like “classics.”
FULL REVIEW:
“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.”
I’ve been meaning to dive deeper into Ursula Le Guin for years now, but I’d only ever read A Wizard of Earthsea (which I loved). And now I’ve finally, *finally* read The Left Hand of Darkness. Those two together are probably the two most famous of her 40ish books, and TLHOD, published in 1969, was one of the first books considered “feminist” sci-fi and is known as THE classic sci-fi novel that explored androgyny and nonbinary characters. It’s a standalone story, but also the fourth book set in her Hainish Cycle universe.
The story is about a man named Ai, who has come to the planet of Gethen as an envoy to try to get them to join a loose non-political association of worlds that facilitates shared knowledge and culture. On Gethen, people have no fixed gender or sex; they’re non-sexual for most of the month, and then enter “kemmer,” assuming either male or female body parts and pairing up until their period of kemmer ends. (Hence one of the book’s most famous lines, “The king was pregnant.”) The book explores themes of duality, gender roles and what the absence of them might look like, the necessity of differences, and the challenges of cultural misunderstandings.
While I liked this book and am really glad I read it, I think because I read Earthsea (which was written for a younger audience) first, I had expected it to be a bit more accessible. It very much reads like a classic, and so I found it helpful to read through a sparknotes-style summary and interpretation after each chapter, just to make sure I grasped the subtext and didn’t miss anything famously important.
That said, there’s no doubt that I’ll think about this book throughout the rest of my life. She raises so many good questions about the possibilities outside our own assumptions, especially as it relates to gender roles. I’m looking forward to reading the other Hainish Cycle novels and beyond.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement and Misogyny
Moderate: Death and Grief
Minor: Incest and Suicide
pastelkerstin's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book took a while to get interesting, but once it did, I found it hard to put down.
At its core there are some pretty good radical ideas in here about favouring community over patriotism. Genly speaks of a world based on cooperation and without law enforcement out among the stars. What a vision.
Gender and sex is also obviously a big topic in this book. I think it shows the arbitrariness of gender roles well, even though Genly and the other Envoys struggle with understanding this, as they come from a binarist society. Genly often makes sexist comments about manly or womanly qualities he sees in the Gethenians, people who are neither men nor women (or who are both, depending how you want to see it). But I don't think that means that the reader is supposed to agree with Genly. Seeing whatever a main character says as correct is a misguided way of reading fiction, in my opinion.
That's also why when Genly's interior monologue says that sexual desire/attraction is people's driving force (a very Freudian idea) and a requirement for being human, and therefore the Gethenians with their sexual cycle seem strange and inhuman to him, I think we're not supposed to think he's right. After all,Genly learns to see Therem fully, as not fitting into Genly's ideas of sexuality and gender, but as a full human being, despite these differences. There is the implication here that asexuality either doesn't exist on the other planets or that Genly isn't aware of it. So I would put an aphobia warning on this just in case, because reading "no sexual attraction = inhuman" stings even if you know that Genly struggles to see past his own experience of the world.
I think Genly and Therem's relationship is the most interesting part of this book. And it feels very queer to me, even thoughthey are never officially together and Gethen doesn't seem to have a concept of queerness (unlike Genly's homeworld).
Overall, I liked this book, even though it has some elements that are a bit squicky or hard to read for me, like the way incest is tolerated on Gethen under certain circumstances and how this is part of one the main characters' backstories, or the aforementioned sexism and (almost certainly unintentional) asexual erasure from Genly.
At its core there are some pretty good radical ideas in here about favouring community over patriotism. Genly speaks of a world based on cooperation and without law enforcement out among the stars. What a vision.
Gender and sex is also obviously a big topic in this book. I think it shows the arbitrariness of gender roles well, even though Genly and the other Envoys struggle with understanding this, as they come from a binarist society. Genly often makes sexist comments about manly or womanly qualities he sees in the Gethenians, people who are neither men nor women (or who are both, depending how you want to see it). But I don't think that means that the reader is supposed to agree with Genly. Seeing whatever a main character says as correct is a misguided way of reading fiction, in my opinion.
That's also why when Genly's interior monologue says that sexual desire/attraction is people's driving force (a very Freudian idea) and a requirement for being human, and therefore the Gethenians with their sexual cycle seem strange and inhuman to him, I think we're not supposed to think he's right. After all,
I think Genly and Therem's relationship is the most interesting part of this book. And it feels very queer to me, even though
Overall, I liked this book, even though it has some elements that are a bit squicky or hard to read for me, like the way incest is tolerated on Gethen under certain circumstances and how this is part of one the main characters' backstories, or the aforementioned sexism and (almost certainly unintentional) asexual erasure from Genly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Death, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Body shaming, Child death, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture
Minor: Infertility, Suicide, Ableism, and Homophobia
qu1nn's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Minor: Suicide
troisha's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement and Death
Moderate: Grief, Gun violence, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Violence, and Xenophobia
Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Pregnancy, and Suicide
junothan's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death, Incest, Pregnancy, and Suicide
Minor: Infertility
fuzzibehr_reads's review
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
This book was a treat. Different from standard science fiction which, even when written by a skilled hand, can be flat and predictable. This book was thoughtful and surprising. Potential readers in 2020 might dismiss the treatment of gender in this book as clumsy and outdated. Read the book. It will not disappoint.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death and Suicide
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