Ursula K. Le Guin

'Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new' Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place. As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.

The Left Hand of Darkness

On behalf of his government, an earthling travels to an alien, backward world whose inhabitants are all ambisexual

Madi Van Houten

I talk about the gods; I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.

Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. 

'A rich and complex story of friendship and love' GUARDIAN 'It's a giant thought experiment that's also a cracking good read about gender' Neil Gaiman 'Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new' Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place. As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.

reminds me of her quote "converse if you care"

nikki

“Though Argaven might be neither sane nor shrewd, he had had long practice in the evasions and challenges and rhetorical subtleties used in conversation by those whose main aim in life was the achievement and maintenance of the shifgrethor relationship on a high level. Whole areas of that relationship were still blank to me, but I knew something about the competitive, prestige-seeking aspect of it, and about the perpetual conversational duel which can result from it. 

That I was not dueling with Argaven, but trying to communicate with him, was itself an incommunicable fact."

“...And the Commensals of Orgoreyn are mostly sane men, if unintelligent, while the king of Karhide is not only insane but rather stupid.”

It was clear that Estraven had no loyalties at all. I said in faint disgust, “It must be difficult to serve him, if that’s the case.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever served the king,” said the king’s prime minister.”

"truth is a matter of imagination" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my first full length ursula k le guin novel. i want to devour this.

I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.

Logan Stone

I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy.

Jiji

Hate Orgoreyn? No, how should I? How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession. . . . Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope."

„I’m not sure I've ever served the king,“ said the king's prime minister. „Or ever intended to. I'm not anyone's servant, A man must cast his own shadow. . . .“

Alec Karlen

I had not had in mind when I spoke the contemptibility of suicide to these people. It is not to them, as to us, an option. It is the abdication from option, the act of betrayal itself. To a Karhider reading our canons, the crime of Judas lies not in his betrayal of Christ but in the act that, sealing despair, denies the chance of forgiveness, change, life: his suicide.

Hate Orgoreyn? No. How should I? How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession…

anita🌼

The  left hand of darkness

Elke Maasbommel

里森

Varun Jayaraman

Interesting and soulful, just not my cup of tea. 

Michael Springer

This is the first "soft SF" book I've read, and perhaps the softer side is what I prefer. One of my chief complaints about "hard" science fiction is the lack of character development, and the intense focus on . . . well. . . the science of it. Frankly, I've always been more interested in characters. This book is about characters.

The story follows an ambassador to the planet Winter. The ambassador is human, but the people of Winter are androgynous- they are neither male nor female until Kemmer, a few days each month, wherein they become briefly either male or female. Only during this time do the people of Winter have sex, and the rest of the time, they're devoid of the urge. 

Our main character, Ai, is a man's man. He often refers to things as "womanly" and struggles with coming to terms with the sexlessness of those around him. His mind is continually trying to classify those he meets as one sex or the other, and so do I as a reader. The way people act towards other people is, in so many ways, determined by one's own sex and the sex of the other. As Ai says at one point, the biggest determiner of our course in life is whether we're born a man or a woman. (This isn't a real quote, but the idea is essentially the same as Ai's statement. As usual, I'm too lazy to give you a direct quotation.)

I don't want to ruin the storyline, but I will say that the politics on Winter are very reminiscent of Earthly politics, even though the concept of war doesn't exist. Apparently the people of Winter don't have the necessary testosterone to get into wars. Assassinations, political betrayals, and other unsavory things happen in abundance, though. 

(SPOILER ALERT: Mild spoils ahead) 
This book is definitely worth multiple reads. It wrestles with Big Ideas like duality (between man & woman, man & nature) and sexuality. Ai has some moments of sexual tension with "women," but the fact that they could just as easily have become men hovers over these experiences, and the book ends without him getting any poontang. Perhaps a modern book would've wrestled even more with the sexual ambiguity Ai faced in his time on the planet. But, this was written in the sixties, during the time when Le Guin was still writing as "an honorary man, and not as a woman" (almost a direct quote), so she probably didn't want to delve too deep into an aspect of the book that might become too weird for many of her readers. 

Anyway, I loved this book, and I expect I'll be reading a lot more of Le Guin's work in the future. A lot of science fiction revels in the foreign-ness of other planets and other life forms; in The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin revels in the same-ness of this other planets experience of living. I recommend this book very highly.

Bouke van der Bijl

Unfortunately I cut my losses and stopped reading this book. I just couldn’t keep up with all the different places and characters that were introduced, and that all had inscrutable names. Maybe I will give t another shot down the line

Prashanth Srivatsa

An excellent exploration of gender roles in society, of the pleasure of travel and discovery and of how - as a nation evolves to resist its traditional, climatic enemies, it begins to birth more contemporary, human ones. I went back several times to read Estraven's thoughts on civilization and patriotism. They are constantly struggling to understand the 'human' alien. Or at least to reconcile the misunderstandings between them. The eventual suppression of shifgrethor (the culture's heightened quest for prestige) occurs in a moving sequence.

Beneath the political struggles, the quest for humanity and the great glacial journey towards the end, there's a simmering experience of loyalty, love and what it means to be ignorant of knowledge. There's a beauty in observing the slow progress of the Gethenian culture, a gradual acceptance of their biology and laws. Ultimately, my deepest satisfaction derives from learning how a culture so vastly different from ours can be so alluring, so... natural in aspects that our own society would strive to dismiss.

An absolute masterpiece.

Shona Tiger

4.5

Unexpected. A bit more like fantasy than sci-fi (I guess that's why it's speculative fiction!). Tremendous world-building, and a beautiful relationship in the centre of it.

Longer review: 

I'm a big reader, but haven't read many of the classics of the Western canon. This was one, on my TBR for many years; and I'm glad to have finally have got round to it.

I felt that this was more fantasy than sci-fi; I imagine that's one of the reasons it's properly termed speculative fiction, and possibly one reason sci-fi and fantasy are always grouped together. With not very much science in it, it's a novel about an intense relationship, well-described, in a beautifully built world. Genly Ai is a stranger in a strange land, and his otherness (and the otherness of the others) is well-explored. He's also quite typical of the male of the species :) which was also nicely done, in the ways he felt confronted by the non-duality of Gethenian gender (--he called everyone he, which was a little disconcerting, considering). In his defense, I, too, was a little challenged, a little stretched, by Estraven's backstory, alluded to early, and confirmed at the end; and I was intrigued and also mind-boggled by the implications of kemmer.

I've never been anywhere really cold, so normally my imagination falters (Johannesburg winters and Grahamstown rain notwithstanding); but I promise you, I was completely immersed in the weather of Winter. Le Guin is brilliant at creating atmosphere, and the epic journey described in the book is writing of the highest quality. Character development is also stellar; as I began to see the coming wrinkle, near the end, I was gutted.

This is a deserved classic, a brilliantly-written story. Highly recommend it for fans of story, whether you normally read sci-fi or not. It took me a while to get into because I've been reading entirely too much for "work" lately; but I feel sure I'll re-read it in the future, and will be on the lookout for Le Guin's other works (although I'm given to understand this was the peak).

Rated: 9/10.

This was a challenging read - the new terms made it difficult to immerse myself in Gently Ai's journey. That said, it was a great way of thinking about gender and androgyny in a new light, and to realise just how much it underscores the world we live in.

g.m.

Eva Decker

andrea

i'm not smart enough to explain why this is definitely A Book

Such a stellar book! This is how I trick myself into enjoying books again because the reading is so easy but the story goes soooo wide. Shifrethgor is very cool and I love imaging how we would deal with speech-intrigue, and end up knowing how poor I would do in a world like that. Le Guin is the best Portland will ever have to offer but I think it’s ok to know we’ve peaked.

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Alyse Lui

I enjoyed this book in a similar way that I enjoyed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

It was stark, in many ways. It was poignant in its way too. 

I was really hoping for more regarding the species ability to change sexes, as that concept was a huge draw for me to the book. I think perhaps the time period this book was written in stymied Le Guin's reach. It felt like she was deliberately holding back in this area, like she felt even having the story involve androgynous hermaphrodites was radical enough and she didn't want to rock the boat more by elaborating further on a society in which gender and sex are fluid things and literally all people are equal. Some of the concepts regarding gender roles are telling of the time period this book was written in too. I wonder how different this book would have been if it had been written now. 

As far as characters went, they drive the story but are difficult to become attached to. They are not characters you fall in love with, nor is the world the story takes place in. Still a great book though.

juno

a beautiful exploration of companionship and love for the other, for country and for humanity

Kelsey Lynn

(16/63+) In my Hugo Read-Through
 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin won the Hugo Award for best novel in 1970. I'm super excited about entering a new decade of the Hugos, the sixties were a tad rocky so bring it on seventies. Ursula Le Guin is one of those authors that if you're a fan of fantasy or science fiction, you've heard of, even if you haven't read her, you've heard of her. I recognize the titles of most of her books, and have heard of Tales of Earthsea so much growing up I forget I haven't read it. This is my first Le Guin book, and I was pretty excited. I read it rather quickly, and then, that was that. It took me so long to write this review (and then I forgot to post it!) because I didn't know how I felt, what I was missing. I was ashamed for not closing it and being awed by it, enamored by it's word and walking away enlightened in some way like other reviews claimed to be. I worried I missed something, something important and over-arcing that makes this book so amazing. I mean, I see it, I get it, at least I think I do, but it's execution didn't work for me. I worried I wasn't smart enough for this book. I even searched the internet to see if what I was right in what I thought the point was, if I at least understood what the importance was, and I can't figure out what I missed.

There is no question that this book is gorgeously written. Le Guin has this amazing, seamingly effortless writing style that allows her to create a living, breathing world in such a small book. She throws you blind into a world and lets you figure them out yourself as if you were just a visitor there. It's done perfectly, I felt like I was part of it, it's customs, it's ecosystems and politics. She guides the reader from feeling lost to fully submerged and then connected to this world she's created.

The story follows an Envoy from a galactic federation who has come to the planet "Winter" (Geth as it's called by it's natives) to invite them to join them. He comes alone and the Gethen people have never encountered and alien race before. . The federation he comes from has a goal of rejoining all the lost and scattered colonies of man. Man left Earth and proceeded to colonize all over the galaxy and beyond, and now in it's future the connection has been lost and they are trying to bring them all together. So while the Envoy is an alien of the planet Geth, the Gethen's are human, or at least directly related to them. They are in appearance, completely human and the same as the envoy except varying in skin tones and size, and for one minor detail, the Geth are all androgynous. They only have a defined gender when mating, which only happens when in "heat" otherwise they are gender-less and without a sex drive. It becomes apparent quickly just how different a culture and world are when not ruled by sex and gender. So while the envoy is taller and has darker skin than the Gethen's rather than assuming he's an alien, they assume he's a pervert always in his sexualized form. He works a long side the Prime Minister of one of the nations of Geth to gain an audience with the king, however the Prime Minister suddenly withdraws his support of the Envoy and is banished for unknown reasons. This leaves the Envoy with his minimal understanding of the Gethen people to attempt to convince the leaders of Winter to join this Federation. The results of this leads the Envoy on a journey to survive in Winter's environment and amongst it's people, all while losing enough of himself to understand the Gethen people. 
 
I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that. The first half of this book is primarily world building, people building and politics. One very important aspect of this book is how we interact with other people. Especially people with customs different from our own. The Envoy must come to terms not only with social communications but realize that gender has major influence on how we interact with each other and he must overcome this gap in his understanding. Similar to the previous Hugo winner "They'd Rather be Right" it delves in to the prejudices or expectations that are so ingrained in us we don't even realize we have them. The Envoy isn't even aware he has this lack of understanding, or even realize that it's an issue. He never really trusted or understood them because he treated them like other humans, he was unknowingly close minded and unable to comprehend and process a society like theirs. It isn't until the last third of the book, when forced into a survival situation with a Gethen for a long period of time that he's able to see what he lacked in understanding before. 
 
It's a great story, it really is. When I dissect the bits I think of all of them fondly. But as a whole I just didn't connect with it as much as I thought I would, or hoped I would. I'm still not sure why, it was a surface of an interesting story, beautifully written and well thought out, but for me, it never broke that surface. It never got deeper for me, it felt like the same level of emotion for the whole story, no build or lull or anything. Because of that I felt like not much happened. Two thirds of the book went by and was great world building, which is fine but that length of world building I guess I just expected a an equally as long story. Because I feel like I just skimmed the surface of something huge, I didn't connect to the characters or the drama the way I think I was meant to. 

So I feel weird. It's a great book, no one can argue that (some will try). But it felt like something was missing, Le Guin created such a beautiful, and believable world. One that I can imagine in a history book. But I always felt like I was on the outside of it all, and not part of it. But Le Guin did explore gender in a way not previously done, and explored just how much sex and gender affect interactions. This something that is extremely relevant in 2016, she was able to believably express something that is still somewhat hard for everyone to comprehend. We still have never experienced a truly gender-less species (at least one that we can interact with on an intelligent level and communicate with). We underestimate how much sex and gender drive our society, how much it defines us. We can think we get it, but it's literally something we've not been able to experience, not truly. She does and amazing job at that concept, and I'm certain that's what got her the Hugo win.

In Conclusion.
This is a good book, a beautifully written and very relevant book. I personally didn't connect with it and felt left out. It was like watching a party I really wanted to attend through a window.
“A man wants his virility regarded. A woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. [Here] one is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”

jess

I really wanted to enjoy this because Ursula K. LeGuin seems like an amazing person and the premise was so cool but it was also really slow, confusing, and I didn’t really like Genly all that much.

Ursula K. Le Guin has a very unique voice that brings you into the story but can leave you feeling more like an observer than a part of or invested in the narrative. I don’t think this is an outright negative but it can be jarring at times. I loved the premise of the book and I thought it was well executed. I’d recommend to sci-fi and sociology nerds

i doubt i will surprise anyone by saying that this is a very dense novel - it is clear that le guin had concepts and ideas she sought to inquire - but i would not say it is a difficult novel. it demands your attention, truly, and it requires time to be digested, simply because there is so much to unpick. it is worth spending time with and sitting on it, mediating on it, for a while.

Mia Kern

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” p.70 

 The Left Hand of Darkness  is consistently listed by the internets as one of the best science fiction books and I can certainly see why. Contrary to many modern sci-fis, which are action-packed to the brim, this book is much more introspective. It moves at a slower pace, but never so slow that it became uninteresting. Admittedly, it took me a little bit to get into. As with any other fantasy or sci-fi book, there's a great deal of worldbuilding to do (and here in just about 300 pages), and it can be hard to follow a plot as you're trying to understand new terms like  shifgrethor  or  kemmering . But for me, personally, the early discussions of politics and gender held my interest until the plot picked up.

I thought it was interesting for much of the story to be told from Genly Ai's perspective, a human not unlike us who's still adjusting to the world of Gethen. And in more ways than one, he certainly struggles with their sexual fluidity, but also with their customs and norms. (And also with the casual -40 degree temperatures, oof). What Le Guin did really well was create not one new world, but multiple, and made clear distinctions between the ways of Karhide and the ways of Orgoreyn. 

But let me get into the discussion of gender, because that was the book's primary purpose. Honestly, coming into this book, I expected this discussion to be more heavy-handed. There are certainly a few times where Le Guin takes the time to write out how lack of sexuality (and therefore gender norms and expectations) distinguishes Gethen/Winter from Terran/Earth ( chapter 7, if you're curious ). However, a lot more of her commentary came from Genly Ai's often frustrating point-of-view, such as when he wonders whether his companion's precise rationing of food should be interpreted as "house-wifely or scientific" p. 242. Like Ai, it was difficult for me to keep in mind that, while there is sexuality during kemmer, there is no gender on Gethen, despite the use of the male pronouns to describe everyone he encountered. We see this lack of gender play out in some very subtle ways, which I won't get into in order to avoid spoiling anything of the book.

Tl;dr, sex and gender are different and this book is a great exploration/explanation of that.

Update: I'm taking this down to four stars because of some really insightful discussion in my book club. It was written in the 1970s, so some of its discussion of gender is certainly outdated. I'm not faulting Le Guin for that, but I do think it's important to recognize that this book really focuses on traditional male and female gender norms and doesn't really touch on other aspects of gender identity. I can see why this book isn't for everyone, namely because Ai is just not a fun character to read from, I maintain that this was an intentional strategy by Le Guin to demonstrate some really harmful misogynistic mindsets that are engrained in our society, in the 1970s and today as well.

vins

I feel like this book is a technical achievement that other writers scarcely can achieve... the storytelling is quite sparse at times, too much dawdling for my taste; not slow-pacing, just barely anything happening to keep me in thrall—and yet Le Guin's brilliant proses powered me through. They're a lot to chew, but Le Guin has so much control over her words it allows me time to do just that. It can be exhausting tho... at some points I was like my god perhaps I'm just too stupid for this. I could read and read and feel like I've covered a vast span of the book (sometimes a satisfying journey, other times, albeit fewer in frequency, tasking), when in reality only 30 minutes had passed. Which I guess is a time-bending quality a good fiction seeks—just the opposite of what I'd find pleasant?

That is not to say this is not a good book. It's a laconic epic that paints a world so vivid, I understand why it's a classic for sci-fi/fantasy readers. Some parts, especially the ones that read like a travelogue, are so damn gorgeous I could feel the Winter world before me. I came out of this book knowing at least three dozen different ways to describe winter glaciers and icefields, which in itself is quite a feat. The outdated politics on gender essentialism doesn't bother me as much, as this was quite old, and I learned Le Guin also retconned some of the stuff with a couple of short stories further down the line. But anyway I need to revisit this book sometime in the future, once I can get my hands on a proper copy instead of an ebook with jumbled letters and inadequate formatting.

30/12/21 edit: bumped it another star since this book has hardly left my mind ever since I've finished it, and I guess that's a feat only 5-star books would achieve. I might have not enjoyed the entire experience but I sure went through a journey... just like... Ai and Shevek............. u got me there Le Guin

jiaqi kang

Ben Burns

Great concept, I can see why it's a classic. Unbelievable that this was written in the 60s - aside from the constant use of the 'he' pronoun for people in a one-gender society, it could have been written yesterday. 

The story weakened a bit near the end when it became all about glacier hiking; I wish that time was spent exploring the consequences of a one-gender society a little more. But otherwise it was enthralling, and I hope the other books based in this universe explore the most tantalizing hints from this one - the timeline of humanity, how the interstellar civilization came to be, and where the mystical abilities of the protagonist and the Gethenians fit in.

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose—and change—their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

The Left Hand Of Darkness

Orla Kilroy

Allison King

concept and world were definitely very absorbing- maybe that's why I wasn't completely satisfied with the character relationships? I suppose I just wanted more!

Simon Elliott Stegall

Mediocre. I'm becoming less impressed with Le Guin as I go on. She starts with good Sci-Fi premises, but there is not much content or quality supporting them. Much preferred her fantasy stuff.

Rocio Rivas

Con este libro me aseguré completamente de que Ursula Le Guin no es para mí. El principio me costó muchísimo, con el exceso apabullante de términos propios del world building que yo todavía no conocía, pero que me estaba presentando como si lo hiciese. También tuve problemas con la construcción de género de la sociedad retratada, revolucionaria en algunos aspectos, pero aún machista en otros. Todas las personas son de genero fluido, bien, pero la manifestación de lo femenino aparece exclusivamente para la reproducción, mal. El resto del tiempo, el 95% de la historia, uno realmente está leyendo a un elenco totalmente conformado por personajes que se leen como hombres. Nunca más me meto en un libro así.
Me incomoda un poco la forma de Ursula de escribir sobre mujeres, por el simple hecho de que a veces no me queda muy claro si ella comparte las opiniones de sus personajes que las menosprecian o no. Sé que quizás es un sacrilegio verlo así, pero sinceramente no podía evitarlo. Así de raro se sintió leer ciertos pasajes, o estar en perpetua disconformidad con la pésima representación femenina en el libro. No estoy diciendo que siempre tenga que existir, pero viniendo de una autora que siempre me dejó muchísimo que desear en ese aspecto, decido que no es alguien que volveré a leer. 

El final está bien, pero para ese punto el libro me había perdido completamente y lo estaba leyendo rápido para que se termine de una vez por todas.

The Left Hand of Darkness

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