The Left Hand of Darkness

This is the first novel I read from Ursula K. Le Guin, and it did not dissapoint.

Published in 1969, it was one of the first works of fiction to meaningfully attempt to tackle society’s gender norms, showing us an alien world where the definition of male or female is not in the equation of how things work.

Gethen—also known as Winter—is a world stuck on an Ice Age, with a rather unique civilization. Our main protagonist is Genly Ai—a human embassador from “Terra” who wants Gethen to join a confederation of planets known as the Ekumen—to share knowledge and exchange ideas.

Unfortunately, the cultural difference proves a big challenge. The Gethenians are ambisexual and androgynous, which is a huge barrier for mutual understanding as this affects every layer of their culture. Genly is a rather flawed protagonist, unable to cope with this reality and constatly letting his preconceptions gain the better of him.

He is aided by Estraven, a Gethenian politician who seems to be the only person in the planet that can see the benefits of establishing a relationship with the Ekumen. However, there is still distrust and many things that he’ll have to deal with in order to help Ai on his missio, such as the political schemes from the nations in power, the conflicts between them, and of course, Ai’s unwillingness to trust him.

The novel is written in a very interesting style. It is more of a report or documentary from the embassador, with additional notes sharing Estraven’s journal and perspective, as well as short stories and tales from Gethenian folklore or scientific investigations that are sometimes unrelated to the main plot.

Everything kind of starts from the middle of things, we don’t get to learn much along our protagonist—we are mostly playing catch up as the plot moves forward. As such, the first half can be very confusing, full of terminology that we can’t quite grasp yet, sudden changes in perspective or switching to random information dumps. I had a rough time getting through some of it, but the chapters were short and I quickly learned to simply accept that I won’t know everything on a first read, and take what happens at face value.

The second half of the novel is much more focused, we get more of the lingo and the perspectives make more sense now that we are familiar with things. The story becomes much more personal and it’s easier to relate to it. The challenges our protagonist face and the way they ought to work together to move forward hooked me all the way to the end of the novel.

Gethen has a very interesting culture, and the queerness of it goes beyond the biology of the Gethenians. The psychology, the nations and how they have developed, the politics of it all, the cold, deadly climate. The world manages to feel grandiose and alive despite the short lenght of this work. I really enjoyed learning about the myths and legends of this place, as well as the perspectives from investigators that came before Ai to this planet.

Some of the concepts here seem to be common in Le Guin’s works, such as the ansible, an instant communication device which is how the planets that are part of the Ekumen stay in contact, or the balance between light and darkness.

Even though this work was pretty progressive for late 60s, it’s important to know it’s still a product of its time. It’s not a book about how society should be, I think it’s better to just see it as the different planet with some things in common and some things very different.

The main character has ideas that are misogynist or ignorant in nature. I think this can lead to some uncomfortable dialogue that is, nonetheless, how some people thought at the time (and even today).

In Gethen, sex is biologically defined and every Gethenian is referred to as he/him. There are similar aspects that aren’t quite what a modern audience would expect, so just be ready for that stuff. It was easy for me to shove aside since the story and main ideas are just great and well, it’s an alien world. Maybe the Gethenian language is like that, or it’s lost in translation, or it just doesn’t matter that much?

I was able to just take things as they are and enjoy the huge effort put into this nivel. Ursula had a background in anthropology and the way even the simplest things said so much was kinda awesome. It was definitely worth the read. It holds up well despite it all—as long as you give it time to cook!

This is day 63 of #100DaysToOffload