Primary thoughts on The Left Hand of Darkness
I've just finished Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which if you haven't read, I believe a spoiler alert is in order for this post.
After reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and subsequently devouring the Earthsea Cycle, I have become an avid fan of Le Guin's work, both in fantasy and science fiction. Though I can't help but feel as if I am somehow late to the party in that regard.
This is not to be a full review of The Left Hand of Darkness, as I do believe in letting a book percolate on the brain before passing judgment; however, I do want to share some immediate thoughts.
By God, she can paint a whole society in few strokes. Both Karhide and Orgoreyn are as vivid to me as Venice or Austria (places I have yet to see, but have been related to me by friends and/or acquaintances). Grand cities, quiet villages, and the icy cold of the Gobrin Glacier are impressed upon the reader with the lightest of touches, never breaking the illusion and serving the characters as vivid backgrounds.
I found chapters 15-19 of particular interest. The rythym of the story seemed to change here, and Le Guin takes her time letting Estraven and Genly Ai crawl towards Karhide across the bitter wilderness. The time stretches for the reader as well as the characters, some scenes being repeated from both perspectives.
I believe in these chapters we are more dialed in to the characters' thoughts and feelings, peering closer and closer into the nature of their relationship during their journey. They formed a habit, a routine, monotonous and yet comforting in the simplicity of their mission.
Genly Ai describes how he feels about that time in this passage from the beginning of chapter 18:
"We are inside, the two of us, in shelter, at rest, at the center of all things. Outside, as always, lies the great darkness, the cold, death's solitude. In such fortunate moments as I fall asleep I know beyond doubt what the real center of my own life is, that time which is past and lost and yet is permanent, the enduring moment, the heart of warmth. I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, an often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy."
Joy. Despite the pain, cold, and weariness Genly Ai describes a feeling of joy. What is the source of this joy? He doesn't exactly say. He deems this period in his life as the center, a theme that comes up in earlier chapters dealing with Gethenian mythos. The center of ones life, the center of time, etc.
Just before being rescued by Estraven he is trapped in a work/death camp in Orgoreyn, which he will surely remember as the worst time of his life, the most miserable. That is not deemed the center, or the most important. It's the warmth of the tent, the seclusion on the ice, and the forging of the companion-bond between he and his companion that Genly Ai cites as the center. A bond that is quickly (spoiler) broken when Estraven dies.
They are not romantically involved, nor sexually. They just work together, they survive together.
I think that extreme of a situation is not one that is easily come by for any reader. However, at least for myself there are a few memories that I could deem the "center" of my life as it stands today. These memories somewhat echo the experiences of Genly Ai and Estraven. One in particular was an afternoon spent alone with a friend before we parted after graduating from university. We cried, and lay in the sun in my empty dorm room until the sun drifted towards the horizon. I felt an intense bond to this person, and even today can picture that tiny room, the sunlight through the window, and the color of their eyes. I felt (at the time) that I was in the center of time. The center of my life.
In some later passages Genly Ai recalls specific details about Estraven's hair, or the smell of the tent that feel oddly familiar to how I experience memories that I've carried with me. Maybe I don't recall the conversations, but I'll remember certain details forever.
I'm not exactly sure how the comments/messages works on Tumblr.com yet, but please let me know your thoughts if you have any differing opinions or notes. I would love to discuss this book! Again, it's quite fresh to me so I am still settling on my opinions etc.
