SFF180 Classics 🚀 ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin ★★★★★

I said this a while back, but what impresses me about Le Guin is her almost natural ability to make such thematic and complex subjects into an easily accessible and digestable style without getting shallow.

I just finished my first read of this novel, last week, because of your praise. It left me shattered... and I am grateful for that. Thank you, Thomas.

Great review - I wanted to give you a note regarding the idea that Gethenians strictly have heterosexual sex while in Karhide. This was something that Le Guin... Well, you could say she applied "retroactive continuity" (retcon) to this with the short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", which is unrelated to Genly Ai's story and is about a young Gethenian going through adolescence and entering kemmer, and it's a much needed story in my opinion if only for the retconning it does; I'm not sure that the story itself is all that great, but it's definitely quite good (like everything she writes) and is especially intriguing and fun for a Le Guin fanboy like myself. As Le Guin puts it, it is "high time we got inside a real 'Kemmerhouse'", a Kemmerhouse being a sort of communal place where Gethenians can go to be as hedonistic and indulgent as they please, and couple at will. In 'Left Hand', it was largely left to our imagination. Le Guin says this (and the lack of Gethenian homosexuality) had more to do with shyness and feeling like she was already pushing enough buttons already with the book, I can imagine. But when Le Guin wrote "Coming of Age in Karhide", it was 1998 - not 1969. In the 1998 short story, as Le Guin puts it, "both my world and the world of Gethen had opened up enough where these things could be discussed and written about", which totally makes sense. In the short story, it is made clear that gender during kemmer is decided very quickly, by some initial hormonal response instigated by touching someone else in kemmer - it does not necessarily mean those people will have sex, it's more like one's gender is determined by the first individual who hits on you at a bar. If he acts direct and masculine it sets of hormones that cause you to demur and to start entering kemmer as a female. If you're hit on by a girl, the opposite occurs. Doesn't necessarily mean the two will get it on right then and there. So anyway, as she describes the Kemmerhouse in the 1998 short story it's a pretty hedonistic, 'anything goes' kind of scene. So there is in fact a great deal of recreational sex that occurs among Gethenians, as I've been implying. People pair up with one another and (as one would imagine in a society where everyone is neuter 4/5s of the time) gender makes absolutely no difference and is entirely secondary to the pure sexual drive. The sum of it all is that Gethenian society is actively bisexual as BOTH genders by default - in the same sense that human society is actively heterosexual by default. And Le Guin implies that obviously certain preferences can be developed but it's largely always a case of cosmic chance, one's gender in a given month plus whomever else happens to be in kemmer at the same time and in the same place. I also always found it fascinating that no Gethenian generally has two parents - unless the male in question happens to have "vowed kemmering", which is analogous to marriage; even then the contact is rather formal and rare, as children are raised in the hearth of the parent who gave birth to them. My point in talking about this is because we are given a very subtle but extremely significant aspect of Estraven's character. He mentions at one point early on that he was "writing a letter to my son", and he indirectly reveals at some ,point in his journal that he is writing it specifically "for Sorve", but laments that it will be of little use to him. Now, Estraven (we'll call him Therem from now on the avoid confusion) has two other children that he sired with Ashe Foreth, his kemmering after his exile from Estre. But of course those are Ashe's children, and are raised in the hearth where Ashe is from, far from Estre. The point I'm trying to make with all of this is that it seems like Sorve is actually the child of Therem's flesh - meaning he gave birth to him and was his true parent), and Arek was the one who sired him. Given the hints and myths we read and the path the story takes, we know that Therem and Arek had some insanely deep and significant love for one another that was strong enough to surpass all the Gethenian taboos. Based on the myths and the hints we get, we can also surmise that Arek killed himself sometime around Sorve's birth, knowing they could not be together. Or it may have been Therem who left in self-imposed exile (we know his exile from Estre was voluntary) and that prompted Arek's suicide. Whatever. I had never read it closely to fullly grasp all this..

The Yin-Yang theme in the book becomes much less trite when you contrast her mythical stories with the Daoist classics, like the Zhuangzi or the Liezi. Le Guin herself was a Daoist. She knew her stuff.

Great review - the book is such a powerful, emotive experience and Le Guin uses the plot to explore love in a very beautiful, subtle way. Totally blew me away and got me more into Ursula K Le Guin - i've read 5 of her books now and have become a huge fan. Thanks for posting this review.

Lord I forgot to remark on not only is the novel fantastic but the Introduction that she wrote is one of the best intros for a sci fi novel.

I do also agree that the central "love/friendship" relationship between Genly Ai and Estraven is absolutely the core of the novel, its heart and soul. That journey, the way she tells that story is just EPIC. When reading for the first time, I always tell people that they should just plow through the first two thirds of the book, and not get too hung up on understanding EVERYTHING that's going on. You can even scan and skip over entire chapters on your first read-through, if you want - the ones dealing with the myths and stories; they are important but not essential and can be an unfortunate hurdle to getting to The Real Story , which really does begin two thirds into the book, and is the story of Genly and Estraven on the ice - and how they got to be there and what happened after. That's why you are reading the book, you just have to push through some of the heavy stuff - don't worry, if the story captures you as it did me you'll be able to re-read the book at least half a dozen times and learn and find out new things every single time. There are nigh-endless things to analyze here, though - it's overwhelming. I'm still utterly fascinated by 'the art of foretelling' in the novel which seems driven by taking sexual torment and pathos combined with schizophrenic perceptions and outbursts and creating order out of that chaos, uh maybe. Also the entire concept of The Commensality versus the commensality and the nature of life and culture there. If you look, Le Guin tells you all sorts of amazing things Also, Ursula Le Guin has an amazing talent for brevity that I clearly lack; yet she can make an entire scene out of one sentence. For instance, I had always remembered the "scene" where Genly wakes up and finds one of eyes to be numb, frostbitten, and dysfunctional. Le Guin describes Estraven thawing out and bringing Genly's eye back to life "with breath and tongue", which I always thought was one of those bizarrely intimate moment you find in these sorts of stories... I had always remembered as this SCENE, you know? Like a page or at least a long paragraph. I was amazed to find that this entire "scene" took place in BARELY 2 sentences - more like one and a half sentences. That is the sort of thing that amazes me about her writing... The images were so vivid, the characters so well-developed

The Left Hand of Darkness has been on my TBR for the last 10 years... Thanks for the reminder that I really need to do something about that!

I just reread this and thought about you and this review. This is one of my all time favorite books! Have a great day!

Great video! Now I definitely want to read this. Instant subscription.

Incredible review! I was hooked the whole time

Thanks for a great review looking forward to reading the left hand of darkness.

Great review! Noticed that your left and right hands were very demonstrative as well as your voice. Thanks for this...makes me want to reread the novel again.

good review. I read this in 1987, now I want to read it again as I have forgotten most of it.

Amazing review! Your analysis of the themes is very good. Bravo!

Fantastic summary. Thank you.

Another great review! I haven't read The Left Hand of Darkness since I was 19 in the 1980's. This review has inspired me to re-read it again. Keep up the great work!

On the other hand.... Just kidding, wonderful review Thomas, excellent commentary on the themes of the book. Can't wait to finish reading it. What a monumental work.

Thanks for the detailed review! I find classic scifi so overwhelming so this helps me find a starting point.

Ok, I bought this book last April and so far it had a label "I know I'll love it so keep it for later". I think the time has come to actually reading it, not to mention all the snow and ice outside