Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published Sept. 19, 2018 by Orion Publishing Co.
Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969)
One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of the things I like about it is how clearly it demonstrates that science fiction can have not only the usual virtues and pleasures of the novel, but also the startling and transformative power of the thought experiment.
In this case, the thought experiment is quickly revealed: "The king was pregnant," the book tells us early on, and after that we learn more and more about this planet named Winter, stuck in an ice age, where the humans are most of the …
Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969)
One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of the things I like about it is how clearly it demonstrates that science fiction can have not only the usual virtues and pleasures of the novel, but also the startling and transformative power of the thought experiment.
In this case, the thought experiment is quickly revealed: "The king was pregnant," the book tells us early on, and after that we learn more and more about this planet named Winter, stuck in an ice age, where the humans are most of the time neither male nor female, but with the potential to become either. The man from Earth investigating this situation has a lot to learn, and so do we; and we learn it in the course of a thrilling adventure story, including a great "crossing of the ice". Le Guin's language is clear and clean, and has within it both the anthropological mindset of her father Alfred Kroeber, and the poetry of stories as magical things that her mother Theodora Kroeber found in native American tales. This worldly wisdom applied to the romance of other planets, and to human nature at its deepest, is Le Guin's particular gift to us, and something science fiction will always be proud of. Try it and see – you will never think about people in quite the same way again.
It's a classic for a reason. It's not an easy read, but it's one of the most thought-provoking pieces of SF I've read. Ideas and scenes that will occupy my mind for a long time.
Una reflexión sobre las relaciones humanas, el género, el poder, el nacionalismo, la guerra y la política dentro de un marco de ciencia ficción, en un planeta inhóspito y frío, que invita al recogimiento. Los mensajes que deja el libro son como el frío de Invierno, se filtran hasta los huesos. Una vez lo empecé no pude parar. Cualquiera diría que es de 1969, con cuestionamientos y reflexiones muy actuales.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the author's notes at the beginning act as an apology for the book to follow. There are a number of Le Guin's books that focus on exploring diametrically opposite viewpoints - The Dispossessed reached from ordered societies through to Anarchy, and The Left Hand of Darkness looks from traditional sexuality to bi-sexuality (as in the ownership of both sexes, rather than neither). A great idea for a novel, that's unfortunately bogged down with 1960s misogyny that constantly paints "female" qualities as distinctly inferior to their male counterpart, whether physio- or psychologically. Which is a shame, as the story is an excellent driver, exploring the efforts of one off-worlder to open up a new world to extra-planetary trade.
The short story "The Coming of Age In Karhide", which is added on to this edition, makes for a much more balanced view of gender, and a more enjoyable …
Hindsight is 20/20, and the author's notes at the beginning act as an apology for the book to follow. There are a number of Le Guin's books that focus on exploring diametrically opposite viewpoints - The Dispossessed reached from ordered societies through to Anarchy, and The Left Hand of Darkness looks from traditional sexuality to bi-sexuality (as in the ownership of both sexes, rather than neither). A great idea for a novel, that's unfortunately bogged down with 1960s misogyny that constantly paints "female" qualities as distinctly inferior to their male counterpart, whether physio- or psychologically. Which is a shame, as the story is an excellent driver, exploring the efforts of one off-worlder to open up a new world to extra-planetary trade.
The short story "The Coming of Age In Karhide", which is added on to this edition, makes for a much more balanced view of gender, and a more enjoyable read. This story explores a teen coming in to kemmer (fertility) for the first time and is an excellent exploration of teen anxiety in an excellent analogue to puberty. This was written in 1995 and makes me wonder what further work done in this universe today could also bring.
That said, I did enjoy the novel. Novels of this period need to be read with an understanding of the context in which they were written, as Le Guin reminisces at the beginning of the novel. She read as much as she could on gender before starting writing the novel, and admits her own shortcomings. It's worth reading, since the ideas are interesting, but the unintentional misogyny sticks out like a pair of tits on a female in kemmer.
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