Reviews

The fact that this book was published in 1969 is WILD to me. It feels so ahead of its time - I’m sure it ruffled many feathers when first published (and I’m sure it still does!). I thought it was a really clever way to explore and deconstruct ideas around gender, sex and sexuality. I also appreciated the exploration of in-groups and out-groups, nationalism and xenophobia. The world building is phenomenal.

The plot, for my tastes, felt a little meandering and seemed to exist more as a device to allow us to explore the themes of the book, although I did enjoy the hike across the ice and Genly/Estraven’s growing friendship. Some parts felt a little dry, but then there are also moments of absolutely gorgeous writing and imagery, and casually dropped bangers of life wisdom that stop you in your tracks. The only certain thing is that we shall die and therefore the only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty? I mean, damn. That’s a lot to process on a commuter train on a Tuesday morning.

Sometimes I found it hard to separate what perspectives in this book belong to our main character Genly, and are put forward as something the writer wants us to see as flawed, and what is coming through as an unexamined bias of the writer existing in the 1960s (I think Le Guin for the most part must have been doing the former, but it’s not always 100% clear). For example, he/him is chosen as the pronoun for the genderless/sexless Gethenians, which made the characters automatically pop into my head as men. I had to struggle to consciously edit my own mental images to remind myself they were neither men nor women. I think I read that Le Guin later said she didn’t think her audience would accept a gender neutral pronoun at that point, but that she would have preferred to use one, and she later wrote a short story using she/her. I definitely think a they/them (or an invented pronoun - she gives us brand new days of the week and months after all, why not new pronouns!) would have transformed how I visualised the story, which unfortunately was as a load of guys running around. Female-presenting characters pop up only when someone wants to have sex.

Genly also strongly conflates sex, gender and personality, showing signs of disgust and mistrust for traits he sees as inherently feminine. He also postulates that the reasons why the Gethenians don’t wage war is due to the absence of men, their lack of male genitals somehow rendering them too weak and incompetent to mobilise. He initially reacts to Estraven in a way that reads as homophobic to me, seemingly because he cannot process the idea of Estraven being both/neither genders/sexes. But by the end of the book he grows as a character, partly through his friendship with Estraven, and seems to experience reverse culture shock when reintroduced to people with a fixed sex, seeing them as bizarre. I think it was also interesting to see Genly - as a straight man - experience a degree of discrimination, as his permanent male-ness is interpreted as sexual perversion by the Gethenians around him.

And, as a person who despises the cold, I sure did feel for Genly being bloody freezing the entire book.

I think I’m going to end up thinking back to this book in the future - one of those reads that matures like good cheese in your brain long after - and I may come back for a reread at some point.

One of my favourite book-tubers, Willow Talks Books (who gives insights from an LGBTQ+ perspective), gave a great review of this: https://youtu.be/JGXGIYZdXnc?si=wemdaNt2oDgv-F0E

nlanger7's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Ah god I wanted to like this so much, I sort of did. So many parts are beautifully written. It’s really reflective, not particularly plot or character driven? Really about understanding other peoples and places. I did find the writing a little challenging at times, and found that I read it slower than a lot of other books from rereading pages and trying to understand how it contributed to the greater story.

I didn’t finish the book and I wish I did. Maybe I will try again. One of the biggest reasons, and I HATE that I can’t manage this, but the character and place names are so difficult and hard to keep track of. This is in addition to at times confusing writing. It wasn’t fast paced enough to solidify in my memory who is who with how similar some of them are. I wish this didn’t inhibit me but it genuinely did.

I don’t think this book is for everyone both in style but if you can keep track of who and where they’re talking about maybe you’ll appreciate it more than me

talia012's review against another edition

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4.0

When I first read Left Hand of Darkness many moons ago, it was eye-opening and flooring and awe-inspiring. The book - and the essay in the introduction - have always stayed with me, and were both formative reading in my sci-fi career. I thought it was perfect. Re-reading many years later, I realize the story is not perfect, and the plot much less exciting than I remember. The book was still just as thought-provoking and interesting, but I wasn't drawn into the story this time around. Maybe because seeing the events through the eyes of the Envoy was a different experience as an adult, or maybe because my expectations were so impossibly high that they could never be reached. Or maybe it is because I have read so many groundbreaking SFF works since (many of which owe much to Le Guin), that are able to ask questions and make a point while still having a compelling story. Even so, this book is one of the greats, I will always be grateful to Le Guin and her writing.