The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Posted by: Redhead on: July 9, 2017

• In: Ursula K Leguin
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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

published in 1969

where I got it: purchased new

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I was intimidated to read this book. I doubted my ability to “get it”. What if I read and said “ok, that’s nice”? What if I didn’t understand the author’s intent? Endless doubts and what if’s. At my local book club a few months ago, instead of having us all read the same book, the club organizer put a stack of Hugo winners on the table and told us all to pick one.  I grabbed The Left Hand of Darkness off the table.  Doubt can go screw itself.

 

The big idea in The Left Hand of Darkness is how would culture and society be different if there was no gender? Unique among the planets that support human life, the people of Gethen have no fixed gender – they are neither male nor female, and have the ability to both father a child and give birth to a child. These people have never heard the phrase “traditional gender roles” and sexism and gender bias don’t exist in their culture. In their language, the pronouns “he” and “his”, simply mean “person”, and titles and offices that sound male to our ears are inclusive. This book is full of “he” and “his”, but there is only one male character in this book.

 

Genly Ai, Envoy of the Ekumen, has travelled to Gethen to invite the planet to become a part of the Ekumen, which is an interstellar trade federation of sorts.  He has now been residing in the kingdom of Karhide for over a year, and he will stay until the planetary leaders voice their wish to join the Ekumen, or until they tell him to go away (them killing him might also happen). Genly is in some ways incredibly patient, but in other ways impatient.  Not only does he not in anyway understand the local politics, but he also struggles with the idea that his hosts are not men and not women, but potentially either, and always showing traits of both femininity and masculinity, often at the same time.  In return, they view him as a sexual deviant, a genetic freak.

 

Gethen isn’t just a planet of no fixed gender, it’s also a planet that is actively trying to kill you.  Nicknamed “Winter”,  this is a place of never ending ice and snow, with a narrow band near the equator that can support life. No large mammals, no birds, no apex predators.  LeGuin does magic with how the planet shapes the society and culture of the Gethenians – no birds to be curious about means no interest in airplanes,  no large animals to eat means many meals and snacks during the day and strict rules of socializing that revolve around eating. On a planet where frostbite can kill, hospitality towards the stranger is the norm. On a planet where the populace appears to have no fear or distrust of the “other”, there are plenty of arguments, but there has never been an all out war between Karhide and their bureaucratic neighboring country Orgoreyn. Sprinkled through the novel are interim short chapters that include both local folklore and  helpful commentary from anthropologists who visited before Genly.

The way the story is paced was intriguing to me because the pace of the story matches the pace of life on Gethen, as in, very slow.  Most vehicles trundle along at 25 miles an hour, snow sledges are pulled by hand, the easiest way to get from city to another is to walk. No one is ever in a hurry. Maybe because hurrying requires more calories than can easily or politely be obtained?  The second half of the novel is a slow-motion trek across the glaciers. I say slow motion, because they are travelling between 8 and twenty miles per day, pulling and pushing their sledge along. No dog teams, just human strength and skis on ice.  For moving slow and taking over two months with each day being much like the one before, those pages are so full of tension that you are dying to know what happens the next day. This is a land that will happily kill you, and these characters are travelling across it with hardly any resources. One wrong move, and one or both of them will be dead.  Did the Gethenian culture evolve to match their natural surroundings of snow and glaciers? Never in a hurry, cautious as if every decision is a bottomless crevasse that must be crossed?

 

I was most fascinated by two things in The Left Hand of Darkness, the first one presented rather obviously, and the second quite obliquely.

 

The first is one of the religions practiced on Gethen. Practitioners of the Handdara faith who choose to live for a time of contemplation at a Fastness take no vows, have no priest, follow no creed, and have no hierarchy.  When a particular group of Handdarata has formed, foretelling is possible. For a fee, the foretellers will answer just about any question brought to them.  Non-Handdara of course, are willing to pay through the nose to know their future!  Will next year’s crops be good? Will Gethen join the Ekumen?  When will I die? How many children will I have? Are my parents still alive? But to the Handdarata themselves, who are constantly being steeped in the answers, not know the answers and not knowing what will come next in their life is the most valuable thing in their lives. Within their fastnesses, ignorance is highly prized.  Genly visited the foretellers and was becalmed by the answer they provided. Did Estraven also visit the foretellers? And if he did, was he provided with an answer that brought him a kind of peace?

 

The second thing that still has me thinking deeper thoughts than I expected and is never mentioned in the novel, is what happens after the people of Gethen join the Ekumen and start talking with humans on other planets who have a fixed gender?  What will happen to the Gethenian culture after they are exposed to gender bias and gender roles? Will they treat their pregnant citizens differently? Will sex and nudity become more taboo? Will communication with “normal” humans be detrimental to their unique culture? Has the Ekumen even thought of any of that???  Maybe the King of Karhide wasn’t so crazy after all, maybe his paralyzing fear of interstellar communication wasn’t so irrational after all.

 

You’ll notice I didn’t talk much the plot of The Left Hand of Darkness in this review. The plot was compelling, it kept my attention, it did everything it was supposed to do. But it was everything else about this book – the world, the no-gender thing, the politics, how Genly is treated and how he treats the people he meets,  all of that was far more compelling, thought provoking,  and beautifully communicated than what actually happens. LeGuin presents it all simply and rather straight forward, making this kind of mastery of the writing craft look easy.  Instead of having a population, and a culture, and a planet, and a story that function separately, she’s so perfectly blended everything together into a complete whole. No yin and yang,  but a fully encompassing all.

 

An absolutely beautiful and fascinating book, I’ve made up for having never read this book until now by reading it twice in the last six weeks.

Tags: Culture, future, gender, science fiction, society