About

Saturday, June 27, 2020

The Left Hand of Darkness

By Ursula K. Le Guine

Read in 3 session on June 20, 25, & 27, 2020. Recommended.  4.5 stars rounded down.

Charlie Jane Anders’ Afterword comments on the Left Hand of Darkness immediately brings to my mind, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.

The one thing I remember so vividly about Gulliver’s Travels is that in addition to it being a travelogue, it was even more a handbook on Governments and political etiquette. 

In so many ways, The Left Hand of Darkness is Gulliver’s Travels... aka "Genly’s Travels."

I think many folks were moved by Le Guin’s “Abisexual” alien humans.  It might have impacted me more had I not been so impacted by Octavia Butler’s “Dawn” decades ago.  That book literally haunted me for decades.  Still does.