Ursula le Guin's Sci Fi classic includes a gruelling journey over the frozen planet of Gethen
The Tyneside Book Club started 2019 on another planet - and an icy and very odd one at that.
Ursula le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness is based on Gethen - a largely icy planet populated by a race of apparently androgynous humans. They only take on a specific gender when in "Kemmer" and even then their gender is fluid and can take either a male or female form.
Our guide to this world for the most part is Genly Ai, who hails from Earth. He arrives to persuade Gethenians to join a federation of worlds. But there is also a Gethenian perspective from Estraven, who becomes Ai's ally.
The club had a largely positive reaction to The Left Hand of Darkness, seeing it not only as full of fascinating ideas, but also well-written and conceived. Members appreciated the skill involved in creating a world that was different to ours, but also with a culture that you could understand.
Some found the novel initially hard to get into, with Le Guin determined not to reveal or explain too much. But many also liked that approach, as it avoided lots of plodding exposition, and they felt it added to the mystery of the alien world.
All appreciated the ideas being wrestled with, particularly the implications of a world without gender. For some that led it to being very much ahead of its time, and with relevance still today. Others though did think it bore the stamp of its origins in the late 1960s, with much that would have been viewed as strange and original then, seeming more commonplace in the more gender-fluid 21st Century.
For some the book only really gripped them in the latter half when Ai and Estraven trek thousands of miles across ice and snow. The adventure, and the growing relationship between the pair struck a chord with members. Some saw real beauty both in the descriptions of the planet, but also in the bond between two people from different worlds and cultures. Others appreciated bursts of humour such as the "mad King", and the fact that it was Ai who was the alien.
There were some members though who did find the book more of a slog, and struggled to complete it. Some also felt there was more that could have been explored, possibly even in a sequence of novels.
Le Guin's writing though was almost universally praised, and for some this was a first chance to appreciate why she is seen as one of the foremost in her field, but also why many non-SF authors rate her so highly.
February sees the club come right back to earth as members discuss J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country.
RSS Feed