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. 
Few books stick with me long, Butler’s “Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago” were the first that every struck me on the realm of sexuality.  Comparatively, Le Guin’s Ambisexual “What-if” novel was mildly entertaining as a thought experiment, sexually.  Set that aside and it isn’t as imaginative as a government or political primer compared to Gulliver’s Travels.

Where Left Hand of Darkness exceeds, likely making it forever historical in the annals of Science Fiction is in highlighting the struggle in communication.  I think more folks focus on the sexuality and miss the subtle commentary on interpersonal communication.

As I grew older I learned more and more that effective communication was essential to any kind of relationship. In Left Hand of Darkness, particularly between Genly and Estraven, communication is examined in ways I would hope every soul could contemplate.  

The challenges we face between man and woman, between races and religions are faced in this novel when alien cultures, each with their own sets of communication “rules” end up making life infinitely more difficult that it ought to be between honest folks with good will towards one another.  

But enough philosophy.

This novel is fundamental a Star Trek Federation first contact protocol in plot and content with some novel protocol ideas. I think it is done wisely. In fact, I hope if aliens ever land on Earth, or Human’s on some other sentient world, that they have read this book first. The approach and ideas were novel to me and deeply appreciated. Any time a person can learn a concept they had yet to consider, it’s a good day.

I recommend Left Hand of Darkness . While it is obviously a multi-award winning novel, it failed to move me like some Hugo nominees I’ve only recently read, or even one I mistook at a nominee. (The Nothing Within by Andy Giesler). Hugo nominated Middlegame by Seanan McGuire|2860219] was excellent and, oddly, the author of the Afterword of Left Hand of Darkness, Charlie Jane Anders, wrote an excellent Hugo Nominated book “The City in the Middle of the Night” that I read this year.

I disagree with Charlie Jane Ander’s labeling of Genly in her afterword on this book... particularly in the rhetoric that today is, in my opinion, a blight on society. And why not? I was perpetually confused about every character’s gender in her “The City in The Middle of the Night”... Thankfully that didn’t stop my enjoyment of her book. But the visions of who and what people are, observed by Charlie in the Afterward, appears to be where the 2020 elites would like to take Western Culture.

I don't see any connection to our current revolutions (2020) to this decades old novel (1969). Then again, who am I to know? Maybe Ursula's novel is the architectural spark of today's hallucinations & sexual chaos that has resulted in, "I am what I say I am -- don't misgender me with your misogynistic pronouns", biological standards.

No doubt that Ursula Le Guin was revolutionary in challenging some 1960's culture she faced growing up. Much of what was ridiculous when this novel was published (1969) has been discarded by most of Western culture (2020) in favor of Fantasy over Science Fiction.

Octavia Butler shocked me into "forever gender bewilderment" in "Dawn", so I supposed I’m prepared for anything alien introduced into Western culture.

I think I rounded down to 4 stars primarily because I had heard for decades how extraordinary this book is... While it is a great book, it didn’t live up to decades of hype I had heard. That's not fair to the book, really, but no one will ever suggest The Left Hand of Darkness should not be read..., more than once. I suspect the hype came largely from the open discussion of sexuality and communication so appreciated by folks who routinely fail at both, usually for reasons beyond their control.

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