This is a beautifully written book, although not exactly a page turner and sometimes depressing. When the book opens up, Envoy Genly Ai, a human ambassador for the Ekumen (a U.N. for the galaxy, if you will), has been living for two years on the planet Gethen, with the intention of trying to convince the rulers of its various countries to join the Ekumen. Gethen, also called Winter by outsiders because of its extreme cold, is also populated by humans with one important distinction – for the majority of the time, these people are neither female nor male. During their reproductive years, Gethenians go into “kemmer” once a month at which point they become either male or female based on the hormones released at that time. Therefore, someone who is female one month and becomes pregnant can at a later time in their life become male and father a child. Mr. Ai, who is considered a pervert because he is always in kemmer, is used as a political tool by two of Gethen’s largest countries, Karhide and Orgoreyn. Things become even more complicated when Estraven, a high-ranking Karhidish politician, is banished from Karhide for trying to help Genly. An unlikely friendship develops between Genly and Estraven as they both work in their own way to bring Gethen into the Ekumen. The book is told mostly in the first person, sometimes from Genly’s point of view and sometimes from Estraven’s point of view. However, interspersed here and there are also mythical, religious, and historical texts from Gethenian countries. ( )

This is primarily a novel about friendship -- one that crosses barriers of race and stars as Genly Ai, in the process of observing the people of the planet Gethen, a world perpetually in Winter, and encountering their sexual andogyny, is drawn into a relationship with this strange world and some of the people in that world. The story is moving, no less because it is beautifully written by an author who would win awards for her writing no matter in what genre she wrote. One of my favorite of the truly great science fiction novels of the twentieth century. ( )

A human amassador named Genly Ai comes to the planet of Winter, where gender is nonexistent.

I want to start off by saying that I’m glad I read this book. I got a lot out of it, and I found Le Guin’s writing as lovely as always. However, the book made me think rather than feel, so I fear my review may seem rather critical. I don't intend to nitpick; this is just me engaging with the text.

THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS isn't really about the plot or the characters; rather, Le Guin takes an idea and runs with it. She uses the entire book to explore notions of gender as a social construct, and I don’t think she does a bad job of it. I did, however, find her conception of gender a bit dated. The Gethenians are supposedly both male and female, with no predisposition towards behaviors we consider either masculine or feminine, but Le Guin still treats male as the default. Everyone is ‘he.’ There are Lords and Kings and brothers and sons. Furthermore, Ai attributes stereotypically masculine behaviors to almost everyone he comes across. When he does recognize stereotypical femininity in his acquaintances, he treats it as a negative because he views these people as male, above all else.

I was willing to overlook this, given that Ai is a foreigner who comes from a culture that holds particular views on masculinity and femininity. He can’t help but impose his own worldview on everything he encounters, and his views do evolve as the book progresses. The terminology is all in translation, too, within the context of the novel; Ai may say King and son and he, but those are just his (loaded) translations of the terms the Gethenians use.

But a couple of chapters in in, Le Guin begins showing us events from a local's perspective… and ‘he’ seems to hold similar views. Estraven (the local) is certainly not as extreme as Ai, but ‘he’ still displays many of the same attitudes. ‘He’ attributes many stereotypically masculine behaviors to ‘his’ fellows, and ‘he’ describes them using the same masculine terminology (which we’ve already established is in translation, if still heavily loaded towards the masculine norm).

Hmmm.

Now, I’ve only read this book once, and I don't hold it near and dear to my heart. I know many of you do. That said, my one-timer’s opinion is that THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS isn’t so much about a society divorced from gender-based behavioral patterns as it is about a society in which male individuals are in no way penalized or looked down upon for embracing female sexuality.

It does make for some interesting reading, and Le Guin’s writing is just beautiful. But, as is almost always the case with her work, I felt too distanced from it to really commit to the ideas. I rarely feel strongly about books where the characters are just a vehicle for a concept. I want to believe in these people. I want to get caught up in their struggles. I want to bawl my eyes out when things go badly for them.

I couldn’t do so here. I didn’t really care about either Ai or Estraven. The ideas in play are interesting, yes. I got a lot out of them, and out of this book. I enjoyed it. But I was never really engaged; I never felt the story.

I’m glad I read this, but I don't think I'll feel the need to revisit it.

(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). ( )

One-sentence plot summary: a human emissary arrives on the ice planet Gethen, populated by a people who are neither male, nor female, but both, and neither.I struggled through the beginning. Le Guin gets so enthralled with her own world-building that she neglects to provide her audience with a primer... the result is that the first few chapters read like Science Fiction Mad Libs, for example: "He {verb?}ed across {place?} in {month? continent? weather? vehicle?}. After I reached the end, I re-read some earlier passages and found them much easier -- like sledging during kroxet in Thern.Ultimately, what I found most interesting wasn't the ambisexual nature of Gethenians, but the contrast between the two primary states: Karhide and Orgoreyn. The former is "not a nation, but a family quarrel," while the latter is most definitely a nation, with all its attendant bureaucracy and xenophobia. As the primary narrator, the human Envoy, says: "I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of... and how so real a love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where does it go wrong?" ( )

The role of great science fiction is to tell us about ourselves--not to make predictions about what may come, but to draw illustrating contrasts to what is, and thereby show us something new about ourselves. _The Left Hand of Darkness_ explores gender and sexuality, but not only those; those are a backdrop to the main thread of the story. There are also political structure and struggle on the grand scale, and a very human-scale journey through interdependence and the formation of friendships. ( )