RIP Ursula Le Guin

• Author: Ursula Le Guin
  
• Title:  The Left Hand of Darkness
  
• Published: 1969
• Genre:  SF novel
• Trivia: List of Challenges 2018

Place:  planet Gethen is also called ‘Winter” (experiencing an ice age.)…in country of Karhide.

Main Characters:  

1. Genly Ai:
2. Young man from Terra, or Earth who has been in Karhide for 2 years.
3. He is an envoy from the Ekumen organization of more than eighty worlds.
4. He must convince the Gethenias to join
5. …the alliance to improve trade and communication.
6. King Argavan XV: 
7. King in the country of  Karhide (planet Gethen) who is
8. reluctant to acknowledge Genly Ai.
9. Argavan does not want to discuss his diplomatic mission because
10. admitting the existence of beings who have mastered travel and communications
11. would diminish the king’s importance.
12. Estraven:
13. Ai is indebted to Estraven (PM in Karhide)  for having arranged an audience with the king.
14. Estraven as being cold and aloof, and Ai   feels that, as Prime Minister, he should
15. have done more to make the audience go more smoothly.

Important part of the narrative:

1. The citizens of Karhide are  androgynes.
2. People are neither “he” nor “she” until they enter kemmer, a state of fertility,
3. lasting a few days a month, analogous to a woman’s cycle.
4. Then, depending on the chemistry between partners….
5. one will develop as a male, the other as a female.
6. The same person can be a child-bearing mother to some children
7. …and a father to others.
8. No wonder Ai is confused…as I was.

Conclusion:

1. This book is considered a SF classic
2. Le Guin was one of the first female writers who
3. questioned gender roles in SF.
4. The book combines political complexity and
5. …groundbreaking approach to gender:
6. people in society had no gender
7. ….or  both genders!
8. The book was good.
9. …but I found  Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven and
10. her novella Vaster Than Empires and More Slow.…better.
11. It’s just my personal preference.
12. The Left had of Darkness  is well worth your reading time.
13. It was awarded the Nebula Award AND the Hugo Award in 1970