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Publicerades 18 april 2019
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 …
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.
this is the first le guin I've finished. damn!! it's good!!
this is the first le guin I've finished. damn!! it's good!!
I had to force myself to keep reading this book for a while. The beginning seemed to drag, and I was not really emotionally invested in any of the characters.
However, the last third of the book is an absolute page turner, and I found myself saving quote after quote. I am not a fan of books or movies that have a pervasive sense of doom about them, and this one definitely does. It is, much like life, a lesson in hopefulness in spite of the horrors.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book right now to be honest, having just finished it moments ago. That doesn’t happen often to me, and I think that speaks to the complexity of it. I look forward to mulling it over for the next few days, and also to reading more of this series.
I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...
It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").
But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.
Now to …
I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...
It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").
But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.
Now to go discuss at book club #wsf
After an unassuming and somewhat slow start, Le Guin's story and prose builds to a crescendo that includes what must be among the most beautiful portrayals of platonic love in literature.
Thought-provoking and unpredictable from start to finish, The Left Hand of Darkness seems as fresh and relevant today as it did when it was published. The only aspect that seems dated at all is Le Guin's periodic descriptions of masculine and feminine behaviours, pigeonholing that would've gone unremarked in the 70s but which jars today.
After an unassuming and somewhat slow start, Le Guin's story and prose builds to a crescendo that includes what must be among the most beautiful portrayals of platonic love in literature.
Thought-provoking and unpredictable from start to finish, The Left Hand of Darkness seems as fresh and relevant today as it did when it was published. The only aspect that seems dated at all is Le Guin's periodic descriptions of masculine and feminine behaviours, pigeonholing that would've gone unremarked in the 70s but which jars today.
I stopped reading it.
Detta är den fjärde boken i Le Guins s.k. Hain-cykel jag läst. Det är inte en serie där berättelserna följer på varandra, utan cykeln med bland annat Hain som företeelse hänger mer ihop med vissa gemensamma drag och kan nog läsas i vilken ordning som helst.
The Left Hand of Darkness är i mitt tycke inte riktigt lika fängslande som hennes tidigare skrivna verk. Inte desto mindre en mycket stark trea. Planeten Gethen (eller Winter som folk från andra planeter inom Ekumen kallar den) beskrivs väl i sin, vädret och känslan av snö och is. Man kan känna att det är kallt. Lite väl långa resor på planeten. Som i de tidigare utgivna Hain-böckerna är sådant som främlingskap, möten, missförstånd och förståelse bärande teman.
En oftast uppmärksammad del i berättelsen handlar om genus och kön. Och det är helt klart trevligt att det handlar om en, trots allt i relation …
Detta är den fjärde boken i Le Guins s.k. Hain-cykel jag läst. Det är inte en serie där berättelserna följer på varandra, utan cykeln med bland annat Hain som företeelse hänger mer ihop med vissa gemensamma drag och kan nog läsas i vilken ordning som helst.
The Left Hand of Darkness är i mitt tycke inte riktigt lika fängslande som hennes tidigare skrivna verk. Inte desto mindre en mycket stark trea. Planeten Gethen (eller Winter som folk från andra planeter inom Ekumen kallar den) beskrivs väl i sin, vädret och känslan av snö och is. Man kan känna att det är kallt. Lite väl långa resor på planeten. Som i de tidigare utgivna Hain-böckerna är sådant som främlingskap, möten, missförstånd och förståelse bärande teman.
En oftast uppmärksammad del i berättelsen handlar om genus och kön. Och det är helt klart trevligt att det handlar om en, trots allt i relation till historia och samhällsutveckling, ganska tidigt utgiven bok som utmanar vissa förlegade föreställningar om manligt och kvinnligt. Som sådant är det fint. Bra. Det gör däremellan inte berättelsen, i sig, så väldigt mycket bättre eller sämre i mitt tycke. Hennes allra först utgivna bok, Rocannon's World, innehåller inte sådant, men är likväl ännu mer spännande än denna.
Hursomhelst är det en bra berättelse, helt klart läsvärd och kan rekommenderas.
