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rastephe 's review for:
The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin is a master and this is one of her best. Nearly overwhelming in the scope of themes examined, including politics, dualality, fear, trust, loyalty, honor, treason, sexuality, gender, religion, the other, and patriotism, I found myself most interested in friendship and (mis)communication on this reading.
While the language is sometimes challenging (in one instance I looked up definitions for three words *in a single sentence*), and the style and content requires the reader to pay attention, it is still a very readable book. I was drawn in to the adventure of the second half of the story and it is the *very* rare book I expect I'll read again.
"Praise then darkness and Creation unfinished."
"To oppose something is to maintain it...You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road."
"To be an atheist is to maintain God. His existence or his nonexistence, it amounts to much the same, on the plane of proof...Thus (they)...have chosen not to treat God as a fact, subject either to proof or to disbelief: and they have broken the circle and go free."
"To learn which questions are unanswerable, and *not to answer them*: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness."
"I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry?"
While the language is sometimes challenging (in one instance I looked up definitions for three words *in a single sentence*), and the style and content requires the reader to pay attention, it is still a very readable book. I was drawn in to the adventure of the second half of the story and it is the *very* rare book I expect I'll read again.
"Praise then darkness and Creation unfinished."
"To oppose something is to maintain it...You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road."
"To be an atheist is to maintain God. His existence or his nonexistence, it amounts to much the same, on the plane of proof...Thus (they)...have chosen not to treat God as a fact, subject either to proof or to disbelief: and they have broken the circle and go free."
"To learn which questions are unanswerable, and *not to answer them*: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness."
"I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry?"