The Left Hand of Darkness

Since I read this one back in February (appropriate, as the east coast was under a foot of snow all through February, and this book takes place on a frigid planet), I originally grouped it with several other books from late winter/early spring. As I started writing it, though, I realized that my thoughts on it couldn't be condensed into 250 words, and the post needed to include at least one Keanu Reeves meme. So, uh, here it is. The post, not the Keanu Reeves meme. It's a couple paragraphs down.

I like my sci-fi like I like my coffee: in abundance. Sometimes I like it dark and rich, sometimes I like it full of foamy sweet stuff. This was the former. Ursula K. Le Guin, a pioneer for female sci-fi writers, is one of my literary heroes; I have always sort-of thought of her as the Gloria Steinem of nerdy feminists, always willing to make us question conventions of the sci-fi and fantasy genres and our society at large (who says fantasy heroes have to be broadsword-wielding, Viking-white medieval dudes? Not Ursula K. Le Guin).

The Left Hand of Darkness drew me in with the social implications of its world building: it is set on Winter, a world populated by humans who are without a fixed gender. They are androgynous 90% of the time, and are only "male" or "female" (as we understand gender) during the peak of their mating cycle. Even more interesting: they don't always assume the same gender during a cycle. Sometimes, you're the female, sometimes, they're the male - it is entirely possible for any given person to carry their first child and father their second. This is how I reacted to that concept:

Winter is not perfect - there are still wars, marginalized groups, corrupt governments, and all of the other depressing things that mar even the most seemingly utopian societies. What there aren't, though, are strict gender roles - because Winter does not divide people into women and men. They're just humans. Everybody has to take care of children. Everybody has to learn to defend their families. Everybody should know how to cook. Everybody has to help build a house. Nobody feels the need to put rubber testicles on their pickup's trailer hitch to demonstrate their masculinity (oh, how I wish Truck Nutz was a made-up thing).

Our narrator is Genly Ai, an envoy from Earth whose permanent maleness freaks the people of Winter out. As he learns about Winter's culture, he slowly but surely falls into a kind of love with Estraven, an androgynous native of Winter who also ends up a hunted political exile. Part of me wishes they would have fallen into a full-blown romance; it would have been interesting to see which gender Estraven would have assumed in taking Ai as a lover - that would have opened up a whole other can of worms, which I would have happily sorted through. As is, though, the speculation of what could have happened is almost as much fun.

The Left Hand of Darkness, interestingly, is both timeless AND obviously a product of its time: it has early women's lib movement written all over it. Part of me wishes Le Guin would write a sequel that focuses on Winter's outliers - the marginalized populace who don't conform to the norms of Winter's sexual pattern. I mentioned before that it would have been interesting to note the outcome of a romance between Ai and Estraven, although that would have redirected the focus from gender roles to sexuality. That being said, the gender roles that this book challenges are still (sadly) incredibly relevant, and I relished viewing them through the Winter citizen's lens.