The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Review and a little of analysis by me, Ela)
First of all, this is fourth novel of the Hainish Cycle/Ekumen series, and yeah, I should’ve started for the beginning, but guess what, I tried. And that was immensely boring.
This book has infinite covers versions, so I chose the most representative for what I got from it. (but I didn’t read this edition, I read the Spanish one lol)
A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters…
That (↑) was the reason why I kept on reading the book, because it was almost as boring as first Ekumen book. I’ve gotten a little bit of angry about the different synopsis I’ve found of TLHD (that’s how I’m going to call the book in question, has a really long name), 'cause characters here don’t change gender, they don’t have genders, they change sex, and most of the time neither have a sex at all.
About this matter, I felt really disappointed of Ai’s (main character’s) prejudice on femininity even after a year and so on Winter. And, suddenly, he understood that all Guethenians was female, male, androgynous and something out of those gender at the same time. Maybe it was that suddenly, bit I felt it like that.
Moreover, I almost didn’t feel anything with this book, not even that horrible cold so described.
I understand that Ursula didn’t have any internet resources of writing tips, but I’m done with info dumping. She was not as bad as Tolkien, but I didn’t need those descriptions of coasts, peaks and snowing, parallels, latitude... It’d be better to know more about Karhidish words for weather than the weather itself.
The thing I’ve found about authors pre-twenty-one century, is that they never show, just tell what’s happening. Is the character sad? They say they’re sad. Are they cold? They say there’s no blankets and they’re cold. It’s pretty boring, at least I can jump some paragraphs without feeling guilty.
I think I must say something good about TLHD. I mean, I rated it with three stars on Goodreads, didn’t I?
Well, Therem Harth rem ir Estraven (their name in Spanish was translated to 'Derem', and I think that version first them better), our co-star, was one of the principal reasons. Estraven was referred on the book with he/him pronouns as all of the characters (just two completely irrelevant exceptions for the plot), but I’m going to use they/them to all Guethenians because that was how Ursula had to do it to denote the lack of gender in this world and Ai’s comprehension of duality at the same time. Btw, I think ‘duality’ was a euphemism of what we call ‘binarism’.
Le Guin’s changes of narrator was interesting too, but I didn’t get too much the legends and myths part. I think they could have had more relevance and influence in following chapters and character’s decision-making. I’m glad we had some chapters from Estraven’s POV.
I must admit that I started to ship Estraven with Ai, they had a great connection and understanding that almost made Ai a less flat character. But… of course there’s a ‘but’:
“In a 1986 essay, Le Guin acknowledged and apologized for the fact that Left Hand had presented heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen”, says Wikipedia.
Thank you, Darling, you murdered a lovely character, didn’t let them even hold hands, and defended incestuous relationships over one of a non-gendered character and a masc human, but you said sorry. Thank u very much <3
How can you make a whole word lacking of gender, and ambisexual, and still make it heteronormative?!!!!!!! For God’s sake.
Not to mention the idealization of sexual abstinence. Something that I HAVE to mention is YOU CANNOT OVERLOOK THAT WHEN ESTRAVEN WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED THEY WERE TAKING A FEMALE FORM.
Every single time that a character was taking a position of weakness or a bothering attitude, they were related to femininity. Even after Ai’s ‘big realization’.
Goodness, I almost didn’t finish this book.
To get a breath of fresh air, have you thought about the name of the book? Sounds a little bit strange, but actually means “light”.
“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.” -Le Guin, 1969
Let’s talk about some politics. I didn’t get it. That’s all. I think that was a lot of worldbuilding to not to achieve anything. Yeah, they ended up with Ekumen, but not thanks to that bureaucracy nor (completely good-for-nothing) monarchy.
