The Left Hand of Darkness 126
| The Left Hand of Darkness | |
| author | Ursula K Le Guin |
| pages | 250 |
| publisher | Little, Brown |
| rating | 8 |
| reviewer | Duncan Lawie |
| ISBN | 0441478123 |
| summary | A classic of science fiction's New Wave which stands up to scrutiny 30 years later. |
Ursula K. Le Guin is probably the best known woman in science fiction. She made her reputation in the late 1960s and early 1970s and is certainly one of the few working 30 years ago to still be an active and instantly recognised name today. The Hainish novels she wrote in the late 1960s and early 1970s brought her early renown and awards. The science fiction universe she created is sometimes buried by the success of her Earthsea books and the different directions of her later years but Le Guin has recently revisited and extended this family of books. In the course of her career she has written over 30 novels and short story collections which have, between them, earned her every significant award that SF has to offer, often more than once. Yet, some commentators have become uncomfortable with Le Guin's ideology, allowing their view of her best science fiction to be clouded by her subsequent academic reputation
The Left Hand of Darkness was the first great book written by Le Guin, winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards. It built on her journeyman novels set in the same Hainish universe but they pale beside this book, in which Le Guin fully found both her voice and her subject. The plot is, in barest outline, a standard trope of science fiction -- a visitor from an advanced civilisation brings a message to a non-space-age people. The essential twist seems simple in hindsight but it is an indicator of the new winds blowing through science fiction at the time. The people of the planet Winter are a variant human population, neuter five sixths of the time but who become either male or female when they become sexually active in the remaining part of the month. Every normal adult can -- and most do -- both bear and sire children. The result is a society where sexual inequality is simply impossible. This thought experiment is fascinating reading yet the book does not preach. These people have much in common with the wider community of humanity and the framework of the plot is strong enough for the discursive elements of the text.
Most of the story is told from the perspective of Genly Ai, the solo Earth visitor who holds the role of "First Mobile" to Winter from the League of Worlds. His mission is to bring news of the existence of other inhabited worlds and to encourage Winter's peoples to allow contact. He is, intentionally, a virtually unsupported ambassador, bringing a message of peace and technology; attempting to convince through his words and the presence of his space ship. They seem to find it difficult to believe (or acknowledge) that he is from another planet and consider his fixed sexuality a perversion. Despite his training, it is almost impossible for Ai to understand the personal or political values of the people he deals with. As a result, he is caught up in intrigue within and between governments. The neighbouring nations with which Ai is involved are broadly painted as a stratified, feudal country and a modern but bureaucratised nation. Given the different nature of these humans, the way such societies actually work is interesting through both the similarities and the contrasts with the expectations of first impressions.
Alongside Ai's reminisences, the book includes myths and stories as well as extracts from the journal of one of the inhabitants (which reads very much like an Antarctic sledging diary from a century ago, with its distance travelled and descriptions of ice and weather conditions). These give the book greater depth as an artifact and provide further explanation of the culture without filtering through Ai's understanding. Ai himself undergoes considerable physical and emotional suffering in the course of his mission; the book's ending tells as much about how he has changed as it does of the fate of his mission.
Le Guin's explanation of how Winter and its inhabitants came about is not hard science but the development of her ideas is fascinating. She builds up Winter's human and natural environments without falling into a lecturing style, offering plenty of food for thought by leaving as many questions open as she answers. The book also packs an emotional punch. Throw away any preconceptions and enjoy The Left Hand of Darkness.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. You may also be interested in checking out a Le Guin site that Duncan recommends. Would you like to see you review in this space? Check out our book review submission guidelines first :)
time to revisit an venerable old author (Score:2, Funny)
A brilliant book (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A brilliant book....Sexuality and Race, Too (Score:5, Informative)
remember, the book was written in 1968/1969
here's a pretty good bio/biblio page
http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cg
she was way ahead of her time, as Heinlein was with "I Will Fear No Evil", when Heinlein's protagonist "he" becomes a "she" and has "her" first orgasm, many reviewers had strokes over the "smut"...In LHOD, LeGuin's approaches the subject much more subtlely and makes her points very effectively, just as Varley did with Scirocco Jones in the Demon Trilogy
...
Re:A brilliant book....Sexuality and Race, Too (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably the most influential sf work on gender, just because it came before most everything else and was so uncompromising, was Theodore Sturgeon's VenusPlusX [isbn.nu]. The sad thing is that its peeks into the "real world," the comic and disturbing gender roles of the 1950s, are not dated, fifty years later.
Re:A brilliant book....Sexuality and Race, Too (Score:1)
Good sci-fi that challenges your innate perspectives is very underrated in todays world.
Re:A brilliant book (Score:2)
I read this in a Science Fiction course in my last year of University and I loathed this book. I got about 150 pages into it and I couldn't stand it anymore. I threw the book across the room and it stayed there until I moved 6 months later. I found the writing to be contrived and uninteresting.
I disagree with the non-man bashing part in the parent post. I found it to be very anti-male. At one point when the Narrator discovers the true nature of the race (I forget its name - I'm sure it will come back to me in a horrible flood of memories), she says something like (I wish I had the exact quote, but my copy of TLHOD is in storage somewhere.) this: "Imagine a world where there's no gender roles, no rape and no war. (This was referring to the world where there was no gender)." Give me a break. Lets remove all gender issues and see what happens. To me those words sounded like LaGuin was blaming men for all that troubles our world. Great. There was other stuff in there that I found very offensive, but, that passage really stuck in my mind.
I did enjoy all kinds of the books that I read in that class. We read some Asimov, some Womack. I loved A Clockwork Orange.
Re:A brilliant book (Score:1)
Sequel is not Called the "Right Hand of Light" (Score:2, Informative)
The sequel is "Appendage of Antimatter" and is very hard to find.
Re:Sequel is not Called the "Right Hand of Light" (Score:1)
Re:Sequel is not Called the "Right Hand of Light" (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sequel is not Called the "Right Hand of Light" (Score:1)
I Can Vouch For This Book. (Score:1)
Gender Studies / Bending (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a good choice for anyone doing gender-studies into Science Fiction writing.
Another book that I read at almost the same time I believe was "Half-way Human" that was about a society that included three fixed genders, male, female, and neuter - where the neuters became the servants to the others. Also a brilliant book, but I do not recall the author.
Amerist.
Re:Gender Studies / Bending (Score:2)
Halfway Human [amazon.com] by Carolyn Ives Gilman. Looks like another trip to the used book store, as Amazon says it's out of print...
Left Hand of Darkness is a great book. I first read it in college some years ago. I suprisingly hadn't ready anything by Ursula K. Leguin yet, but I signed up for a comparative literature course solely because it's reading list included a SF title. Well, that and I needed a writing course to graduate...
A brief course in SF gender studies (Score:1)
Theodore Sturgeon - "Venus plus X"
John Varley - lots, try "Barbie Murders" for example
Robert Heinlein - "I Will Fear no Evil", "Time Enough for Love"
Joanna Russ - lots, particularly "Female Man"
Carol Emshwiller - "Sex, and or Mr. Morrison", a short story in Ellison's "Dangerous Visions", there are also a few others in that book
James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) - "Houston, Houston, do you read?" and "The Screwfly Solution" are good short stories.
These are all classics in the field and represent a wide range of authors and periods.
Re:A brief course in SF gender studies (Score:1)
The trilogy is a rather unusual twist on the ancient pulp fiction theme of Aliens Invade The Earth To Have Sex With Our Women.
Re:A brief course in SF gender studies (Score:2)
Even though the gender-bending isn't a big plot point, merely incidental, it's thought provoking. But not in a homework kind of way.
One of my favorite books, actually.
Le Guin rules! (Score:4, Informative)
I find much Le Guin to have a very Taoist philosophy underneath it all. _The Left Hand of Darkness_ is no exception. Read it. Enjoy it.
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:3, Informative)
_The Disposessed_ is an extremely thought-provoking book that probably pisses off virtually everyone who reads it, which is a good thing IMO.
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a really interesting appendix to the reissue -- LeGuin rewrites the first chapter of the book using three different pronouns for the King: male (as it appeared in 1969), female, and a created neuter pronoun. I happen to prefer the male version, but it's a fascinating comparison.
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:2, Informative)
Taoism? (Score:1)
Re:Taoism? (Score:1)
Re:Taoism? (Score:1)
Re:Taoism? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:3, Informative)
This has definitely changed in recent years. In fact, the latest EarthSea novel, _The Other Wind_, in some ways repudiates the Taoist viewpoint of the other novels.
I'd say that where her early novels were often more concerned with the Taoist concept of balance (among opposing forces/ideals/etc) her later novels have become more concerned with justice.
I like them all, myself, though the more recent ones appeal to me more. The idea of balance is something I can appreciate intellectually but justice has more emotional appeal for me.
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm. I don't find that at all. I would also say that if you see a conflict between balance and justice, you are misunderstanding one or the other...
I think it was only three years or so ago that LeGuin's version of the Tao Te Ching was published, so if she's somehow renounced Taoism it would have had to have been extremely recently.
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:2)
Danny.
Re:Le Guin rules! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, does. By the time of the most recent book, The Other Wind, Ged is an old man. (The Other Wind and Tales From Earthsea were just recently published; I stumbled across them at my local megabookseller and almost literally jumped for joy.)
Absolutely! She has written a wonderful interpretation of the Tao Te Ching.Am I the only one... (Score:2, Troll)
____
Flame flame go away, post again some other day...
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:2)
Well, his buisness practices do seem to screw both males and females equally...
Kemmering (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider the complex political situation of Winter. If you read the interactions between politicos, viewing them as female, they appear remarkably petty and intriguant. When presumed to be male, they suddenly seem ruthless strategists.
The opportunity to choose and change the gender of characters at will gave me the opportunity to discover some of my own gender-based prejudices - one's I was not aware I had - and to confront and correct for them.
The book was a real eye-openner for me in this respect.
When read from a different perspective entirely, it is a brilliant treatise on the meaning of "Statesmanship" and "Patriotism". The exploration of what it means to do the right thing for one's people, versus the recognition of this, and the consequences, is something that is as poingiant in today's terrorist age as it was during the times of the Vietnam and Cold Wars.
The World of Winter is a great creation in itself. The detailed and lifelike descriptions of the land, it's people, and their lifestyle and culture, all leave the reader awestruck and familiar with the planet.
The relationship that develops between Genly and his liaison on the glacier, was a remarkably beautiful and touching motif.
The tribal, almost mind-altering Seer experience, simply oozed sexuality, and cleverly melded the pagan "sexual divinity" with LeGuinn's own Taoist leanings.
Definitelly a worthwhile read, especially given how accessible U.K. LeGuinn's writing style is.
Another fine woman sf writer (Score:3, Informative)
... is Connie Willis [amazon.com]. Reputed to have won the greatest number of Nebulas and Hugos, though who knows how one counts these things. Much of the SF is 'soft', but the characters are exceptionally well defined, she knows her history, and she can do tragedy and comedy equally well.
Doomsday Book [amazon.com] is her most famous piece, and deserves its distinction. To Say Nothing of the Dog [amazon.com] is set in the same circumstances, but a comic riff on things Victorian, including Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in A Boat [upenn.edu] .
Re:Another fine woman sf writer (Score:2, Funny)
> Nebulas and Hugos, though who knows how one
> counts these things.
Umm
Count the number of Nebulas she's won. Count the number of Hugos she's won. Repeat for other authors who've won Nebulas or Hugos. Compare the numbers. The person with the highest number is the author who has "won the greatest number of Nebulas and Hugos".
A fine SF writer who is a woman (Score:2, Interesting)
I am a big fan of Connie Willis. She is excellent and writes with good emotion, usually humorous, but sometimes quite grim (The Doomsday Book).
However, there is a not-so-subtle difference. LeGuin is definitely a woman writer, except perhaps for The Lathe of Heaven. Willis is a writer who is a woman.
In the same sense, Woody Allen is a Jewish comedian. Groucho Marx was a comedian who was Jewish. Richard Pryor started off as a Black comedian but later became a comedian who was black. Bill Cosby did it the other way around. Octavia Butler is a Black Woman Writer. Samuel Delaney started off as a writer who was gay and black, became a Gay Writer who was black and then, unfortunately, stopped writing SF right after that cliffhanger in Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand.
Re:A fine SF writer who is a woman (Score:1)
Re:Another fine woman sf writer (Score:2)
Hrmph.
I like some of Willis' more comic shorts, but well, whatever.
Recommended woman sf writers:
In other news... /. reviews The Left Hand of Darkness? What's next, The Time Machine? :)
Connie Wills's Doomsday Book (Score:1)
--LP
Sounds like an interesting book (Score:1)
As an aside, I remember a sci-fi book with a similar theme where a race of people would alternate between male and female until they came of age at which point they would be forced to choose a gender, or they would be thrown out of society. Anybody remember the title of this book?
John Varley (Score:2, Informative)
About half of John Varley's stories contain the idea of safe, reversible sex-change operations. At least three or four contain the idea that this kind of sexual exploration is for the young. I can't narrow it down any more than that, I'm afraid.
His work is very interesting because, while it contains many elements that reflect what feminism should be about, he shows some pretty strong impatience about what feminism is.
Re:John Varley (Score:2)
Now if PBS will just refrain from making any more movies out of his short stories...
Re:John Varley (Score:2)
Now the film version of Millennium, OTOH....
Re:Sounds like an interesting book (Score:3, Informative)
The benefits to the tribe are strong emotional bonds between the men, and a low (or nonexistent) teen pregnancy problem. It also totally freaks out our culture where even "teenage experimentation" is considered codeword for "flaming homosexuals in our midsts!" by a lot of people.
The point to all of this? No matter how weird an alien culture seems, there's probably an analogue somewhere on on Earth. Unfortunately most people dismiss these cultures as "primitive" (and worse), but science fiction settings can remove that stigma. Winter is one of the few exceptions where there is no terrestial analogue.
oral book report (Score:5, Funny)
I just remember this sea of slack-jawed, wide-eyed faces, wondering what planet I'd come from. Here I am, talking about this really great book, throwing out terms like 'latent hermaphrodite'. Is it any wonder I had no real friends there? Or that I didn't have any dates with any of my classmates?
Ahh, high school. Anyone know how to excise 4 years of memories from my brain?
Re:oral book report (Score:1)
He chose the harder road and is probably a much better person today for it. Being a sell-out is easy. Being right when everyone else is wrong isn't.
Re:oral book report (Score:1, Interesting)
I truly believe the boy could have presented the book in such a way that his audience would have been given something new to consider (even if they didn't agree with it). Instead, he presented it in a way that failed completely. Slamming their minds even tighter against the idea.
Take two different approaches to presenting this book.
Do you think using approach #1 would be a sell out? Part of my annoyance (and I tried to make this clear in my original AC post), is with people who absolutely refuse to gauge their audience and present appropriately. These people present their ideas in a blunt-force method that shows total disrespect for their audiences' view. If the speaker doesn't respect the audiences' view, then what chance does he have for altering that view.You don't always lead a person to a new idea in one fell swoop. Does it make me a sell-out to try and change a person's mind in bite-size increments? I don't think so.
Like I said before. There's a lot of whining about not being accepted here on /. (I suppose most of it was after Katz' Hellmouth articles). My peeve is that the whiners often cause their own problem. I didn't say they had to sell out. I'm saying they need to look for different ways to present their ideas.
Re:oral book report (Score:1)
Another fine book by Ursula K. Le Guin (Score:1)
book by her - The Dispossessed.
If you always wanted to know if something else
than captalism could work... Read that book
Re:Another fine book by Ursula K. Le Guin (Score:1)
Redundant (Score:1)
Anyway, my friends usually don't like LeGuin, especially the Earthsea Trilogy (which is another "a trilogy in five parts" now) is bashed all too often. But Dispossesed and Left Hand of Darkness is liked by almost everyone. I strongly suggest these two who have not read any LeGuin yet.
It is also interesting that she can write the most brilliant pieces of science fiction with minimal, almost nonexistant understanding of hard sciences, and without any futuristic stuff.
Another Online Source (Score:1)
An important novel - but under feminist attack (Score:4, Interesting)
I find these criticisms, coming long after "The Left Hand of Darkness" was written, to be a crock. This was an earthquake of a novel. It changed the way many of us viewed gender when we first read it.
I took this novel, along with the later "Dispossessed" to sea with me and it made its way around a good part of the submarine's crew. We argued about it for much of the patrol. It had REAL impact in 1975. It has real impact in 2001.
Just don't let the radical feminists tell you it's a cop-out.
Re:An important novel - but under feminist attack (Score:2, Informative)
A telling detail in Le Guin's bio: she's the daughter of an anthropologist and a writer of children's stories. As I am far from first to point out, the sciences in Le Guin's science fiction are sociology and anthropology.
Of course,the feminists who decry her work after the fact need to be--no, that joke was going to get me into serious trouble. Not that feminists are humorless or anything. I'll just leave quietly now.
Re:An important novel - but under feminist attack (Score:3, Funny)
Q:How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:That's NOT funny!
Thank God for LeGuin, who transcends issues like feminism through the simple expedient of considering herself to be *human.*
KFG
dostoyevsky pun (Score:1)
Le Guin is truly one of the Sci Fi greats (imho) (Score:1, Interesting)
- Naru Sundar
http://asmodean.shayolghul.org
Re:Le Guin is truly one of the Sci Fi greats (imho (Score:1)
Oh I have to disagree there. Dhalgren is a rough, nasty and hard to follow book, but is one of the more interesting sci-fic looks at gender in society (and society in the face of it's own collapse). Yeah, it's not for everyone, tho'.
One funny aside: when I read Dhalgren the first time I didn't know Delany was black, assumed he was white, and dismissed it as "very racist."
Re:Le Guin is truly one of the Sci Fi greats (imho (Score:1)
Isn't a racist thought, idea, or statement "racist" in and of itself?
Nope. There's a great illustration of this in the movie "Down to Earth" with Chris Rock. There's a scene where Rock's soul, in the body of a white man does a routine at a black comedy club. What would be social commentary coming from a black comedian sounds like a racist diatribe coming from a white one. Content is not the absolute of all information. Sometimes the delivery system is important too.
buy it cheaply on Half.com (Score:1)
More LeGuin Reading (Score:2)
Her favorite novel of mine, is of course: The Dispossessed, a distopian sci-fi novel of twin planets with completely opposite societies - the fertile, rich planet believing in stratified, hierarchical society, and the dry, barren planet populated by 12th generation (or so) anarchists. A traveller goes from the latter planet to the former, and what starts out as a fish-out-of-water story turns into a pretty damning political/ethical quandry. Read it!
I'm only a couple hundred yards away (Score:5, Informative)
She's brilliant, and her contribution to science fiction is immeasurable. I'm a man, and I don't want to bash male SF writers unduely, but until LeGuin started writing much SF was pretty dull.
LeGuin herself has said that for years she wrote SF as a man, because she had no idea how a woman would or could write it. Her main characters were male, they did manly things (conquered, explored, solved problems). After she wrote The Dispossessed she realized she was doing a disservice to herself, and to the world, and started to consciously write as she would - not as she thought others wanted her to. Her success is proof that many people agreed with her.
If you want to read more LeGuin, read two essays. A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be is beautiful social criticism, and interesting for other reasons: about half-way through she consulted the I Ching, casting the yarrows asking it to describe for her "a yin utopia." "Yang" being bright, masculine; "yin" being dark, feminine. A "yang utopia" would be, for instance, the highly-mechanized, clean, bright future cities of much of the male-dominated SF of the early century. A "yin utopia" would be, well, read the essay
Also, her introduction to The Norton Book of Science Fiction is a deep and thoughtful introduction to SF. The book is one of the best SF collections ever, and worth it for that essay alone.
(She's also written a beautiful poetic translation of the Tao Te Ching
On another note, for those who don't know, Philip K Dick also used the I Ching extensively when writing The Man in the High Castle. He said he threw the yarrow thousands of times, consulting the book at every plot point and decision. Circularly, the book's characters use it, too.
Re:I'm only a couple hundred yards away (Score:1)
Offtopic, but...I recently discovered powells.com and it it rapidly becoming one of my favorite things in the universe. Great selection of used books at decent prices, a rare/out-of-print book finding service, in adidtion to typical new book service, and free U.S. shipping for orders over $50. And a well-designed website. Yow.
A great alternative for those of us who would rather not deal with certain large patent-abusing book merchants.
Re:I'm only a couple hundred yards away (Score:2)
I'm a little closer than that (Score:2)
Beyond the Si-fi she also has several series of childrens books, including one about flying cats (very cute).
The only political statement I've heard is that she strongly supports copyright laws and is angrily opposed to information trading and "napster" like things.
Re:I'm only a couple hundred yards away (Score:2)
One of the nice things about Ms LeGuin is that she readily makes herself available for readings and booksignings for such events, regardless of whether or not she's got a new book out, is working on a tour with a publisher, etc. In other words she'll do her best to accomodate non-profits in order to help out.
She's very gracious, as well, humble almost to the point of self-deprecation. The first year she read for us I ended up assigned to introduce her, and after her reading she came up to me and thanked me for my somewhat adulatory introduction.
Big-time writers don't have to go out of their way to thank volunteers at fund-raising events they're supporting
She's such a gracious, kind and dignified person that even Harlan Ellison was polite and humble to her when I saw them together on stage to read and discuss SF back in the early 1970s...
And it makes a big difference. When we can advertise that "Ursula will be there, signing and reading!" we draw huge crowds of folks, a wonderful thing. Few authors in Oregon have her popularity (ironically, National Book Award winner Robert Michael Pyle is known to relatively few folks). Another Oregon writer who is exceptionally well-known - Barry Lopez - has refused our invitation every year, so don't imagine that her generousity is universal among well-known writers.
And
What SF is about (Score:3, Funny)
this is what SF is about, or rather, for.
It paints a vivid picture of a world none of us will ever see in the flesh (well
Heh. Where was I? Oh yeah - I liked it and recommend it.
The Lathe of Heaven (Score:1)
I suppose The Left Hand of Darkness is okay, but The Lathe of Heaven [amazon.com] is her best book. I've read it five or six times and am blown away each time.
-- Brian
Re:The Lathe of Heaven (Score:1)
There's lots of cool info on the movie here [thirteen.org].
-- Brian
Glory Season by David Brin (Score:2, Informative)
On this planet, the founders wanted to both eliminate man's violence to women (and everything else in general), and to create a very stable society where change is possible, but frowned on. So they created a society consisting of 95% clones (all female), 4% 'vars', and 1% males. The 'vars' and males are produced by normal sexual means, but only very rarely. The clones are seen as normal, and each clone dynasty provides a specialized product or service to society. The vars are turned out into the world at adolesence to try to find their way, and if successful will create their own clone clan. The men are relegated to sailing ships and other minor tasks, are only used once a year to stimulate the cloning.
The story is about one var's coming of age in this society. And although it is not central to the story line, this planet has also been recently rediscovered by the main stellar society, which has sent a lone ambassador to attempt to initiate relations with the outside world.
Brin makes it plausible, and the storyline keeps the pages turning. I know most s.f. readers probably know him by his Uplift universe series, but this one is also a keeper.
Re:Glory Season by David Brin (Score:1)
The similarity between the two are rather superficial as "glory season" fails to explore prejudices (spelling?) of society and sexual identity matters in any depth. Sure, the conflict is there, but how does brin explore it? Well main characters have to struggle, that is basically it. Poor little swan, but my mom already told me that story when I was 4, sorry Brin.
I'm not much of a fan of Brin, I have to admit. I really love Earth, and most of his short fiction is good. IMHO both uplift series and glory season are overly long, medicore pieces of sci-fi. (yeah, I hate robert jordan too. If your ideas can fill 100 pages, I think 101 pages is much too much.We are lucky that PKD, Heinlein, LeGuin etc. were born long before word processors were invented.)
does that make the right hand... (Score:2, Funny)
LHoD versus other gender science fiction (Score:4, Interesting)
In both these novels, gender difference is seen as the central problem in society. In The Handmaid's Tale, rigidly-defined gender roles form the basis of everyone's oppression. The utopia of Woman on the Edge of Time depends on the complete eradication of gender roles, even using technology to allow men to breast-feed.
In LeGuin's fictional world, however, genderless societies prove to be just as oppressive and intolerant as the real world. Militarism dominates one society, political repression the other, and in both, deviating from sexual and gender norms makes you a pervert.
The Left Hand of Darkness is more of a thought experiment on the subject of gender than it is a political argument. It achieves a sophistication lacking in the other two novels. Both The Handmaid's Tale and Woman on the Edge of Time based their fictional societies on contemporary feminist political theory. Piercy gives us an unintentionally insufferable utopia dominated by feminized (not necessarily feminist) forms of social interaction and 1970s commune culture. Atwood creates a cartoonish distopia dominated by masculine militarism and 1980s conservative ideology. LeGuin's fictional world is equally rooted in the political context of its times; its cold war themes make it read, in parts, like a John LeCarre spy novel. However, The Left Hand of Darkness seems more plausible and less dated than the other two novels because it draws on a broad view of society rather than one focused on gender as a single issue.
Re:LHoD versus other gender science fiction (Score:1)
I first read it when I was in 7th grade and didn't understand it. I forgot to return it to the library (gulp...they don't check paperbacks so they still don't know...yes I feel bad about it)and when I read it again in college, it just blew me away. It's such an amazing work because she doesn't really cram down her personal ideologies as much as she encourages the readers to ask "what if" as well.
Really good book. By the way, my friend who doesn't read SF at all, loves the Handmaid's Tale exactly because of those reasons.
I hated it (Score:1)
Searching online useless (Score:1)
Just wanted to point out the irony!
TLHOD is good, but she's got better books (Score:2, Interesting)
Of LeGuin's sci-fi, nothing compares to "The Lathe of Heaven", which stands as a true classic. I would suggest that anyone thinking of reading LeGuin for the first time read this book first.
If you're more into fantasy, her "Wizard of Earthsea" trilogy (which is now up to 6 books
I recently met LeGuin at a book reading, which was, for me, almost like meeting Tolkien. (Not quite on the same scale, of course, more like meeting a demigod.) When asked about what inspired her to write the Earthsea books, she said her publisher asked her to write a fantasy book. Lord of the Rings had just become very popular about that time in the 60's, and her publisher wanted to capitalize on the Tolkien fans' hunger. She said she always wondered what Gandalf must have been like when he was a boy (though us diehard LOTR fans know he never actually was a boy), so she created Ged, the main character in the Earthsea novels, as her interpretation of a young Gandalf.
In the end, I think Ged ends up being quite different from Gandalf, which is probably for the better because the books don't feel like LOTR rehashed. They are quite creative and original, with an amazing quality all their own.
Re:TLHOD is good, but she's got better books (Score:1)
The Lathe of Heaven movie that was made for public TV back in the 70s is now, finally, available on video and DVD. I actually saw the movie when it was first shown (and only discovered the book later). The movie then disappeared for years, apparently over some kind of dispute over the rights.
Even though I looked for the movie for years, I'm now afraid to rent it. One of the employees in Seattle's Scarecrow Video store warned me that it's pretty dated and a bit disappointing.
Another 'Really Good' Depressing as Hell book. (Score:2, Interesting)
Is Left Hand, by any chance, part of the highschool curriculum in anybody's neck of the woods?
Wouldn't surprise me.
One of my long fostered conspiracy theories is that they give kids lame & dull books to read in school just to discourage their further intellectual growth by making reading seem like a soul draining pile of hard work which is best avoided. (See kids? Drinking is much more fun! Don't think. Thinking is bad. Let us think for you. Buy our hamburgers, electric garage door openers and DVD players. What? You want to read? Fuck you! Here. Read, Moby Dick, and the Scarlet Letter, you little puke! What? You want more? Have some Bronte Sisters, you little shit! Now, stop thinking, damn it!)
I'm not saying that every book should spark the spirit to life. --And not just because most of the stories out there which try to be uplifting fail miserably because they're also insipidly stupid, surface-only, retarded crap, (Shrek. Charlie's Angels. Jay & Silent Bob. Monster's Inc. Etc.), but I am saying that while I give LeGuin a nod for her intellectual prowess, I nonetheless thought Left Hand of Darkness was needlessly cold. Somebody as together as her should know better!
Smart writing doesn't have to be depressing writing. I don't get why so many people buy into that concept.
-Fantastic Lad
Re:Another 'Really Good' Depressing as Hell book. (Score:1)
-- Brian
Re:Another 'Really Good' Depressing as Hell book. (Score:1)
Yup. I had to read it in my senior highschool English class. I found it every bit as dull as you did too.
After reading through everyone else's comments, I'm beginning to think that was just because I was so young and unsullied. Back then the world had yet to get its natsy hands on my soul, and I truly *believed* men and women were just alike. Now that I'm older and jaded, perhaps it would be a better book. What an unpleasent thought.
You may be onto something there. But it could also be that anything you are reading because you *have* to read it is naturally going to be less enjoyable. I think the most reading I ever did in school was back in 3'rd grade when we could read any book we wanted from a huge list (but we had a quota to fill). I still remember some of those books fondly. I can't say that for anything I read in school since, with the sole exception of Candide. (Yes, its depressing too, but its so damn funny you don't care. It reads just like a HitchHiker's Guide book).
If its malice or incompetence, it certianly works to discourage reading though. I read way *more* in 3'rd grade than I did until after I graduated.
Re:Moby Dick (Score:2)
I must agree. Read everything for yourself before rendering judgement.
But I read that fish story and boy! I felt really gyped. I'd been looking forward to reading that book for a couple of years, (it wasn't part of my highschool curriculum), and when I finally got through my enormous In-Pile, I cracked the spine on Melville's work, it took me several chapters before I could believe my eyes.
While I don't subscribe to many 'rules' of writing, there are certain things which do irritate me.
Aside from the fact that it's a boring, bleak and grey story. . .
I can't STAND works filled with laborious, thudding metaphor, ESPECIALLY laborious, thudding, religious metaphor. (Particularly, when it was used, as it seemed in Moby Dick, to trick people into thinking that Melville was deep and thoughtful when really he was just as, if not more confused than his readership concerning life the universe and everything.) The characters were dull, the setting moody, the ultimate purpose behind this tragedy of a book was barely even there. ("Don't Obsess".)
Thanks, Melville! "Don't Obsess" Yeah, I'll make a note of that. --In fact, next time I'm writing a massive technical manual about the whaling industry, I'll think, "Oh yeah! I shouldn't obsess over obscure details the reader didn't sign up for and which could be found in a reference guide if they really wanted to know all this crap, and I'll get back to the actual story I set out to write, which only I can write, and which can't be found in a reference manual."
Moron.
The fact of the matter is that when the American government was charged with coming up with an education curriculum, they had to look around and find some out-standing American writers to pump at their children. And unlike the Europeans, (with their centuries of published writers), America was a young nation with very little literature to choose from.
Melville had, up until that time, been popular for writing pulpy high-seas adventure stories, (entirely unlike his whale bullshit). Then, at the height of his fame, he changed his tack and wrote his 'Oscar' nomination; His let's-get-serious-now "Schindler's-List" book, and everybody who read the damned thing, (and everybody DID read it, because that's what they did back before T.V.), had to turn in his or her best, 'seriously now', manner to his or her neighbor and say, "Yes, Yes. Brilliant work. Quite." --Compound that reaction with the heavy religious metaphoric overtones, (popular at the time for some stupid reason, and which you couldn't easily question because it made you not-a-good-Christian). . .
With all those bullshit, "See! I'm a smart, deep writer," buttons being pushed shamelessly, the wool was predictably pulled, and the damned book has until this day remained on a ridiculous pedestal.
What a joke!
Of course, this is just my opinion. I know some people like writing of H.M.'s style, and more power to them. I don't like to read goth fiction either, and that doesn't make people who wear black any less valid in their search for truth.
And I'm not being facetious
-Fantastic Lad
My favorite novel (Score:1)
ugh. (Score:1)
The interesting thing is that I sincerely enjoyed the Earthsea series, the first one most of all. Perhaps I simply don't enjoy the "gender" topics.
At any rate, I'd recommend this for people who enjoy the intersection of gender & science fiction topics in literature, because I'm probably the anomaly.
gender changing.. (Score:1)
Personally my fave LeGuin is ROCANNAN'S WORLD, one of the saddest books I've ever read. And I did like all her early stuff. OTOH I've found her more-recent stuff (mid-Earthsea and later) overly philosophical at the expense of both characters and plot. I can do without plot if the characters are good, but when they only exist to put forth a philosophy, that's not good fiction, no matter how stylish the writing.
I'll probably get modded down for stating an honest opinion about the pretentiousness of "art", but there it is.
I've never had the courage (Score:2)
Danny.
Strong Tao Influences (Score:1)
"Light is the left hand of darkness", (Left Hand of Darkness) and "to cast a light is also to create a shadow" (Wizard of Earthsea) are examples of LeGuin's extensive immersion of Taoist beliefs (Yin-Yang) into her work. LeGuin spent several years studying Taoism, and making it into her personal belief system.
On the side, I highly recommend the Earthsea Trilogy. It's well written, easy to read, and is quite enjoyable (especially in all this hub-bub about Harry Potter).
Re:title (Score:2)
Re:title (Score:1)