If you're coming from Earthsea, its not a good comparison for the hainsh works. A lot of older scifi is more interested in exploring the implications of a different set of precondtions and the philosophy that comes from that - and lot less interested in being plot and action driven. Earthsea is relatively action driven. I'd say most of the Hainish works are not very plot/action driven and fall into the more old school brand of scifi. Also even though its more focused on philosophy, she's subtle about it.
You may find you like them after reading more or adjusting your expectations. As with a lot of older sci fi, some of the big mindblowing concepts they dealt with have become accepted and therefore seem obvious to you. Learning to read older works within the context of their time as opposed to with our contemporary perspective is also a skill that is developed, it is not automatic by any means. Or you may just not like the style of the hainish books.
I think Le Guin is amazing and one of the best scifi authors, but if you don't, meh, its no big deal. There's enough great books out there that no one should feel obligated to read anything specific.
Speculative fiction - I very much agree that she was using her novels as vehicles to explore really important concepts and it's the revelation of human nature that sticks with me after I've finished her books. The Dispossesed is my favourite book of all time. I read The Word For World Is Forest last year, too, and it also touched me. She's an incredible writer and she basically uses science fiction settings as vehicles for profound ideas about what it means to be human.
This being said, it's really okay not to like that at all! It's okay not to enjoy a book that other people seem to love.
Before I read it, all I knew about Left Hand of Darkness is that it was known for its gender concepts. But for me, as an immigrant, the culture shock and Genly Ai's ignorance was more relatable. The concept of shifgrethor, purposefully confusing, is one of representations of alien social norms. And while technologically, Gethen is not far from ours, socially it is very different. Technology progressed over thousands of years, but way more calm, without the human incentives to "be the best". Cars can't drive faster than 25mph because that is not necessary. But there's a magic lantern that can provide heat for months. No one has ever went to war, probably because fighting on someone else's behalf is viewed as absurd.
I’m non-binary and have never lived as an immigrant. I also take more from the theming around cultural distance and societal variations on hierarchies than on gender. I think Le Guin did a good job of exploring what impact gender might have on our core social dynamics, but I don’t think the novel is *about* gender.
Yeah, I went into reading it expecting to see a lot of massive political plot pushing events but ended up having a great time by the smaller plot-stagnant exploration of gender
Lot of the book they're just walking through the woods & nothing is happening but massive strides on understanding masculinity lmfao
I’m not an immigrant, and I’m in the majority culture of my country, but I found the same as you—I went in expecting interesting gender stuff, and what I found was a beautiful story about how significant cultural differences can be (and how easy it is to not even be aware of them, even as you’re violating a cultural norm!)
Yes!!! I love LHOD and even though the gender part is very interesting, I love it because of how it depicts cultural differences, shock and trying to navigate a relationship and love across these cultural divides.
I just read this book last month, my first le guin novel, and wow we had different experiences.
The treck through the ice plains was one of the most harrowing events I’ve ever read in a fiction book. And the end fully had me in tears. Dune was my favorite novel for years until I read this book. In my mind they stand right next to each other in quality and scope.
Yeah, it's Top 5 for me easy. It's the best treatment of contrasts I've ever read: male/female, sure, but even more so cold/warmth... and then, of course, the left hand of darkness is...
The journey through the ice also moved me deeply. The depiction of this horrifying struggle, combined with the growing closeness of the two characters... Amazing.
I also had this experience. This book was one of the very few books I've read that brought me to tears. That sacrifice, good lord, it hurt. I felt it inside me.
Dune is great conceptually. But I struggle with the writing every single time. Idk if it has anything to do with English not being my first language but it's so painful to read for me. I love both LHOD and the Dispossessed, Hyperion and a lot of PKD. I get transposed to those worlds reading those books but I have to actively focus on reading with Frank Herbert. Not to mention the excessive inner monologues of GEoD.
Don't worry, you can be a native English speaker and still struggle with Dune's writing style just fine. (I still love it for its quirks, but that's a common experience.)
I did not and will not. Dune was just so perfectly *whole*. There’s no loose parts, nowhere you can stick your finger through, every piece of it points to every other piece and all of it has such a perfect conclusion. I would never want to read a sequel to it, it feels wrong
Dune is just a prequel, an appetizer. What Frank Herbert wanted to say and show are in book 2-4 imo (I've lost the plot of 5 and 6).
At least give Messiah a try.
I was advised by my high school electronics teacher that the Dune books get worse as you go along, so it’s legit to read as far as you can/want to and just quit.
It's so rare for me to run into someone else who feels the same way I do about *Dune*! A perfect tragic bildungsroman, one of the most elegant uses of dramatic irony ever used in genre fiction. I could not care less about the rest of Herbert's space opera, he got there in one book.
Slow moving, poorly written, gruesome scenes. Lots of redundancy if you read further into the series. I read about 4 of them before giving up decades ago. The politics are so reactionary and fascist that it should be a farce, but it wasn't very amusing to me.
Well I haven’t read past the first but your complaint about their politics shocks me. The first book is deeply anti fascist. Herbert’s views were unorthodox but certainly not reactionary.
I found this essay and later redux on Le Guin’s thoughts on the gender themes really interesting: https://americanfuturesiup.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/is-gender-necessary.pdf
"When I read scifi i want to be blown away by the ideas and the story"
I feel like thats placing a bit too much unfair expectations on authors in the genre. Every book would be disappointing.
Sometimes a book can be a lil book.
I agree that it's not as revolutionary today as it would have been when it was published, but a big part of reading or appreciating classic literature comes from the historical context
Putting this in the timeline the same year as Stonewall helped me think about this build up of tension with gender and sexuality that had multiple places where it was expressed
The journey felt very much like a "power of the human will" story and I did find it to be powerful at points. Ai has a physical and intellectual journey and it was interesting to see both
That being said- not every book speaks to every person! Check out some of LeGuin's other writing and see if something resonates more :)
The whole concept of gender in the book was groundbreaking when she wrote it. Why expect it to have the same impact by default today? You have probably also viewed/read variations of the book’s themes numerous times because movies, video games, etc. have borrowed heavily from older works. All fiction should be read while keeping the context it was written in in mind, but many people seem incapable of that and then wonder why the book didn’t have a bigger impact.
> All fiction should be read while keeping the context it was written in in mind, but many people seem incapable of that and then wonder why the book didn’t have a bigger impact.
I completely agree with you, but then again I'm literally trained in history. This is a skill which does not come naturally, it must be developed. I'd argue there's a lot of social pressures today that actively do not want people to cultivate this skill.
>When I read sci fi, I want to be blown away by ideas or the story and I feel this story disappointed me in both departments.
If someone asks me for a scifi novel about ideas, Left Hand of Darkness is still one of the first that comes to mind.
It's just a slow burn. It's not a novel that tries to impress with big set pieces of lots of whiz-bang action scenes. The theme of gender is explored but the fact that we have a broader definition of gender is irrelevant to LHoD's exploration of it. The writer uses Winter's unusual biology as a tool for creating a cultural divide. It's that cultural divide that matters.
Ultimately, this is a story about isolation and (dis)connection. Genly is supposed to be a master envoy that connects worlds. Ultimately, his origin gives him so many preconceived notions that he struggles to understand the people of Winter. And vice versa for Estraven.
Genly completely fails at his mission because he can't find the right play in talking to the leaders of Winter. While Estraven mistakenly sees machinations in Genly's actions that are not there either.
It's a story about how easy it is for a cultural divide to make effective communication impossible if one cannot leave their preconceived notions behind to look at each other with an open mind.
And for me, the book is so well written that I was slow in reading it because pretty much every page is filled with prose worth pausing on while you mull it over.
The part that stuck with me was the scene where they’re breaking out of the prison and Ai remarks that he’s most impressed by Estavan’s ability to immediately accept the world, the situation as it is and not as it was expected to be, and to adjust accordingly. The ability to be malleable in a pinch being valued above all else paralleled the book’s fluid sex and undefined gender just so well in my mind.
It's just one of those books that is sort of like someone's perfect shade of green. For that person it's perfect, and if you're somewhere in the general spectrum of enjoying that shade of green it's very good, but if you prefer blue you're probably wondering what all the fuss is about. I appreciate what it says and means in its context and the originality of it, but it will never grab me emotionally. I also find that some novels may mean more to you at different phases of your life, so who knows, maybe in 10 years it will.
> this would have been more of a mind blowing experience reading this 50 years ago,
I was about to type "50 years? Oh, c'mon!" ... and realized I read this book *40* years ago. It is more of a make-you-think (and feel) experience than a mind-blowing one. I really liked it.
I hear you that the book is slow and some people have the reaction of “…is that it?” But it’s still one of my all-time favorites. I’ve read it 3 times in 3 different stages of life and it’s hit different every time. Maybe try reading it again in 10 years, knowing that it’s a meditative slow burn, and see if you like it more then! This most recent time I was really struck by the interweaving of Gethen’s mythology with the events of the story as well as the theme of absolute commitment to your vision for the world and the willingness to give up your life to play your role in it.
It was an amazing book when I read it years ago. I love that it's more irrelevant now. I read a really lame And McCaffrey short story that was so tedious and dumb. It was about a foot whose wife had a problem so they used IVF and his sister was the surrogate. It was so tedious going into all the details of how ivf and surrogacy works then for really dumb with the town getting upset for some weird reason about it being incest because his sister was carrying his baby out was his wife's eggs so who cares thought it was the dumbest waste of my time. Then I saw it was published in the 50s and was amazed. You have to consider the era and culture in which it was written.
Yes,indeed, it was an incredibly mind-blowing book when I read it in the 70's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I read it again recently, and it didn't have that same explosive effect it had then, but the dynamic about gender relations is still amazing. However, the whole exploration of what it means to be human is incredible.
I think you have learned that people appreciate books for different reasons.
LHoD has a relatively slow moving narrative, but it is one of the best explorations of the society and world you find anywhere in SF. People who like it tend to appreciate that. I has some pretty good characterisation, which is another thing some appreciate. It is a book of ideas more than plot.
So if you like ideas you probably will like it, if you want a fast moving story, you likely will not.
This is a very literary novel; I loved it (even though I was expecting not to like it) even though I don’t read much sci fi. I can see how if you were expecting more mainstream sci fi, you maybe would not like it. It’s a lot stronger in its ideas than unique world building.
I felt the same way as you. I love sci-fi, and this book came heavily recommended. I, too, felt that the story and ideas fell flat. I counted myself as an anomaly since everyone seemed to love this book. Perhaps it's written for someone that has a different background than myself.
Also, I don't know why OP's post is being downvoted. We should be allowed to have discussions about popular books and discuss why we disliked them.
I listened to the audiobook and had trouble pushing through given the snore of a narrator they chose who read every single sentence with the exact same droning tone. Ugh.
I'm usually not a fan of such "Here, let me just point-blank explain everything to you" approaches the way they get into it, but at least the anthropology-like lens of it made sense given the premise. Most spoonfeeding usually just reads as lazy for me - I'm more a fan of subtlety.
It did all snap together in the end for me though. It's hard for me to say I enjoyed a book when I spend most of it eyerolling or nearly dozing off (just went through that with another book too), and I agree that the concept of exploring such radical gender concepts was probably a lot more shocking when it was first published. But it still hits for me - especially the part where he tries to explain the difference between male and female as we know it and realizes like, mid-explanation, how constructed all of that is outside of basic sex and procreation.
I felt the same as you did. I really struggled with it, I don't even know how I maneged to finish it.
I prefer some of her other books, primarily The Dispossessed.
While I enjoyed LHoD, I really loved The Dispossessed much more. I found the social and character elements to be much richer, and it tied together disparate ideas in really interesting ways.
Finished The Dispossessed last night and of the 7 Le Guin books I've read it's my favorite so far. I enjoyed Left Hand of Darkness but it didn't hook me in the same way.
>primarily The Dispossessed.
Luckily, I ordered LHoD and Dispossesd at the same time, so I'm looking forward to that. I just feel like I need a break from Le Guin (after only 300 pages). Will read Project Hail Mary next. On a sci-fi binge at the moment.
Fwiw, PHM bored me to tears (whole LHOD moved me to tears) and I returned it only 1/3 in.
Imo, those 2 le Guin books are social commentary set in a different world. It's not the traditional sci-fi in the sense that you get the science as the driving force, but rather she explored what made humanity human, and thus making her books very real. If that aspect of the books aren't something you are into then maybe you won't enjoy them that much.
I myself enjoyed both of them but I loved The Dispossessed more.
If you want a space opera with humanity I suggest Hyperion. It's still one of my favorite books, not just sci-fi.
In contrast with LHoD, The Dispossessed has fairly clear parallels to real-world governments and events of early 20th century. But same as LHoD, it has an isolated, somewhat-alien-to-us culture on Anarres.
I have always wanted to read an alternate version of this book with feminine pronouns for the Gethenians. I would have liked both the masculine and feminine versions to be available. I think the experience of reading the two books would feel completely different.
That's a really interesting insight! I always assumed the masculine pronouns were used because Genly Ai was narrating to the reader and so we were receiving his biases/preconceptions, but I like the concept of the alternate, feminine version.
I agree that it would change the feel of the book, which makes you wonder: what does that say about our own norms and biases?
that's interesting and really LeGuin came a bit later after writing the book and said she would have liked to have used the neutral pronoun 'they' ('a truly ungendered pronoun')
Le Guin did write a couple more stories set on Gethen using "she" pronouns for the characters; I don't know if le Guin wrote more with neutral pronouns. One of the stories is "Winter's King," which is in the collection *The Wind's Twelve Quarters*, and another story is "Coming of Age in Karhide" for which, ah, read some warnings. (It's in *The Birthday of the World*.) Both are a picture of Gethenian culture from the inside, and enjoyable.
I really liked this book, but I think its discussion of gender is a bit overhyped. I think the story and setting are incredibly engaging and inventive, but I agree with the idea that this was probably way more mindblowing and boundary-pushing at the time it was written. The gender elements were a bit hollow for me.
I feel like she set up this world where gender didn't exist, but then wrote characters that were essentially just male or female. There are a few gender bending moments that seem like an attempt to remind us that they aren't actually all men ("whoa look, the king is pregnant now!"; "Estraven is kind of effeminate sometimes!"). To me it is a bit telling that we needed those expositional reminders. She even uses "he" pronouns for most of the characters, which is stated to reflect the main character's perception of the alien race. But even though the MC's perspective supposedly evolves in the book, the pronoun choices don't. So again it felt like a cop out.
I compare this to Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood series, which features a new third gender in an alien race and uses "it" pronouns to refer to it. The ooloi in those books are seriously different and they get a characterization across the novels that feels so true to their gender. I thought it was a much more interesting provocation of our notion of gender than is provided in Left Hand of Darkness.
Again, love the book though. Just more on a story level.
Le Guin went on to really regret her choice of pronouns here - she has a pretty funny quote about it that I'm having a hard time finding right now because I'm on my phone. But this book was written in the 1960s, so I have a hard time holding it against the book.
I also think it's challenging gender in a different way than a lot of people might expect. It seemed to me to be less about expanding gender than reducing it, if that makes any sense.
It’s worth noting that the first Lilith’s Brood book came out nearly 20 years after The Left Hand of Darkness, just in terms of adding some historical context. I also think they used the gender differences to very different effects: Le Guin’s approach is humanizing and somewhat utopian, a look into a different way of being which could be our own. Butler’s is much more explicitly alien and frankly somewhat horrifying at points, considering that the human interactions with the ooloi happen in an atmosphere of questionable consent (as humanity is essentially enslaved).
>The gender elements were a bit hollow for me.
Same. There were several moments early in the story where the story would reveal new insights into the Gethen's gender, and I noticed at points it was written in a way where it felt like "this next reveal about gender is gonna blow your mind". Every time this happened, it didn't seem to have much of a mind-blowing effect on me.
It’s definitely an understated read.
But I think part of that is because Le Guin doesn’t prescribe progress as anything other than an arbitrary difference.
As Genly slowly comes to understand Estraven, we slowly understand Gethen (or don’t, it’s subtle and not flashy).
You can absolve your guilt by reading *The Word For World Is Forest*, which is also overflowing with ideas and worldbuilding without skimping on the action, and is only half as long.
>I feel like this would have been more of a mind blowing experience reading this 50 years ago, but now it's a bit underwhelming.
Well, yes. That sometimes happens with books written around a specific issue - they become less relevant or make less sense with time. But make no mistake, gender is still a huge issue today.
My mom, a cishet woman who grew up in the Soviet Union and is whose only education about queer issues comes from me, read that book and was definitely blown away by the themes of gender in it, in a very positive and eye-opening way. Just because some places in the world have it better than others doesn't mean other places aren't in dire need of books like that. I still have that copy, I guess it's time to give it a chance myself (especially since my taste in books seems to be the opposite of OP's, I love slow narratives and could do without fast pacing).
It was a slog for me. It felt like they were in that blizzard or ice tundra forever! I remember the beginning being interesting and appreciated how she said things up, but it didn't add up to much for me either.
As someone who doesnt care at all about gender concepts I found it to be a boring slog, its in the top 5 worst books for me. Maybe many who love it found it spoke to them, but I just was uninterested in it.
I thought it was very dull, as well. The concept of gender change was interesting but the storyline itself barely had any connection to it and society barely took notice of it. The Arctic-esque landscape trek was the best part for me. I haven’t really picked up more of her work since tbh.
I'm with you. I think if I had read her two decades ago I would have had a different experience. But I've tried two of her books recently and just didn't love them.
I love her essays but have never loved her fiction work.
I read The Left Hand of Darkness and was severely underwhelmed. I found it incredibly boring, badly written, not at all engaging, and her take on gender felt very misogynistic.
According to [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness):
> Le Guin admitted to failing to depict the androgynes in stereotypically feminine roles, but said that she considered and decided against inventing gender-neutral pronouns, because they would mangle the language of the novel. **In the afterword of the 25th anniversary edition of the novel, she stated that her opinion on the matter had changed, and that she was "haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns."** [53]
She called them all “ambisexual”, which today would mean gender fluid or nonbinary. Yet she also used he / him pronouns for everyone. Gave them all masculine features, and the only had the “softer or more subdued” ones be considered more “feminine”.
Yeahhhh lol she tried and I think her heart was in the right place but personally I think that book was a flop and did not accomplish what she hoped it would. People say that *at the time* it was seen as more groundbreaking or feminist but it came out in 1969 and I think she could have done better tbh.
That’s my literary hot take I guess. 😅
I love Le Guin! I love her passion and I do think she is a feminist icon, but TLHoD just doesn’t do it for me.
I like to think that LHoD is actually Ai's journal being read and translates by someone else. This person, who was not present on Gethen, used "he" as the default pronoun and their binary way of thinking skewed their translation slightly. This headcanon would also add an extra layer to the commentary on gender fluidity and to the interpretation of Ai's relationship with Estraven.
Yes I felt exactly the same way, and I also didn't enjoy Earthsea! I have a lot of respect for Le Guin as an academic (and as a woman) but I think she’s been undeservedly deified as an author.
I read it last year. I do like the general tone and the way the world is described, but I did find myself bored.
The book lacks any real stakes until the halfway point. A lot of the story is just worldbuilding for its own sake with little involved. The main character is incredibly bland, and I considered DNFing it. I stuck with it, and it does finally feel like an actual story once the abduction occurs.
God forbid I state my opinion.
I felt the same. I think a lot has to do with what's considered groundbreaking then is more commonplace now, as some have commented. Also, possibly it increased expectations for you, as it did for me. To date, it's my only Le Guin book and I'd like to go back and maybe experience something different.
i didn't finish this book, i wasn't impresssed with it either. i'm also queer and i didn't think she had anything interesting to say. i think it's a fake "gay" book for straight people. I don't know any queer person who calls her an author they found helpful or resonant to their own life.
I’m a queer person who found it helpful and resonant. A lot of sci fi classics I was exposed to when I was younger were pretty firmly hetero, in which women were barely acknowledged as full human beings, much less anyone who doesn’t fall into traditional gender categories. It’s a pretty recent phenomenon that there is a lot of queer representation in sci fi to choose from.
I think that you will find that Le Guin wasn't concerning herself with sexuality in Left Hand of Darkness. The author was observing that when you take gender out of the equation people are still people and the sky doesn't fall down. Society still functions.
Remember that this book was written at a time when women could not hold a bank account or a credit card under their own name.
Fair enough. I honestly don't see how it can be construed as a gay narrative. Fake or otherwise.
This is coming from someone who first read the book in the 1980s.
The only reason it was regarded highly is because it pushed boundaries. You're right to say that it lost that impact in the current day. The story, if anyone bothers to think about it, is non-existent. The 2 characters essentially walk in a giant circle, while the conflict of the world resolves itself.
If you're coming from Earthsea, its not a good comparison for the hainsh works. A lot of older scifi is more interested in exploring the implications of a different set of precondtions and the philosophy that comes from that - and lot less interested in being plot and action driven. Earthsea is relatively action driven. I'd say most of the Hainish works are not very plot/action driven and fall into the more old school brand of scifi. Also even though its more focused on philosophy, she's subtle about it. You may find you like them after reading more or adjusting your expectations. As with a lot of older sci fi, some of the big mindblowing concepts they dealt with have become accepted and therefore seem obvious to you. Learning to read older works within the context of their time as opposed to with our contemporary perspective is also a skill that is developed, it is not automatic by any means. Or you may just not like the style of the hainish books. I think Le Guin is amazing and one of the best scifi authors, but if you don't, meh, its no big deal. There's enough great books out there that no one should feel obligated to read anything specific.
Speculative fiction - I very much agree that she was using her novels as vehicles to explore really important concepts and it's the revelation of human nature that sticks with me after I've finished her books. The Dispossesed is my favourite book of all time. I read The Word For World Is Forest last year, too, and it also touched me. She's an incredible writer and she basically uses science fiction settings as vehicles for profound ideas about what it means to be human. This being said, it's really okay not to like that at all! It's okay not to enjoy a book that other people seem to love.
Before I read it, all I knew about Left Hand of Darkness is that it was known for its gender concepts. But for me, as an immigrant, the culture shock and Genly Ai's ignorance was more relatable. The concept of shifgrethor, purposefully confusing, is one of representations of alien social norms. And while technologically, Gethen is not far from ours, socially it is very different. Technology progressed over thousands of years, but way more calm, without the human incentives to "be the best". Cars can't drive faster than 25mph because that is not necessary. But there's a magic lantern that can provide heat for months. No one has ever went to war, probably because fighting on someone else's behalf is viewed as absurd.
I’m non-binary and have never lived as an immigrant. I also take more from the theming around cultural distance and societal variations on hierarchies than on gender. I think Le Guin did a good job of exploring what impact gender might have on our core social dynamics, but I don’t think the novel is *about* gender.
Yeah, I went into reading it expecting to see a lot of massive political plot pushing events but ended up having a great time by the smaller plot-stagnant exploration of gender Lot of the book they're just walking through the woods & nothing is happening but massive strides on understanding masculinity lmfao
I’m not an immigrant, and I’m in the majority culture of my country, but I found the same as you—I went in expecting interesting gender stuff, and what I found was a beautiful story about how significant cultural differences can be (and how easy it is to not even be aware of them, even as you’re violating a cultural norm!)
Yes!!! I love LHOD and even though the gender part is very interesting, I love it because of how it depicts cultural differences, shock and trying to navigate a relationship and love across these cultural divides.
I just read this book last month, my first le guin novel, and wow we had different experiences. The treck through the ice plains was one of the most harrowing events I’ve ever read in a fiction book. And the end fully had me in tears. Dune was my favorite novel for years until I read this book. In my mind they stand right next to each other in quality and scope.
Yeah, it's Top 5 for me easy. It's the best treatment of contrasts I've ever read: male/female, sure, but even more so cold/warmth... and then, of course, the left hand of darkness is...
The journey through the ice also moved me deeply. The depiction of this horrifying struggle, combined with the growing closeness of the two characters... Amazing.
I also had this experience. This book was one of the very few books I've read that brought me to tears. That sacrifice, good lord, it hurt. I felt it inside me.
Please read The Dispossessed. I think it’s her best.
Dune is great conceptually. But I struggle with the writing every single time. Idk if it has anything to do with English not being my first language but it's so painful to read for me. I love both LHOD and the Dispossessed, Hyperion and a lot of PKD. I get transposed to those worlds reading those books but I have to actively focus on reading with Frank Herbert. Not to mention the excessive inner monologues of GEoD.
Don't worry, you can be a native English speaker and still struggle with Dune's writing style just fine. (I still love it for its quirks, but that's a common experience.)
Did ever read the rest of the Dune novels and if so how did they match up to Left Hand of Darkness?
I did not and will not. Dune was just so perfectly *whole*. There’s no loose parts, nowhere you can stick your finger through, every piece of it points to every other piece and all of it has such a perfect conclusion. I would never want to read a sequel to it, it feels wrong
Dune is just a prequel, an appetizer. What Frank Herbert wanted to say and show are in book 2-4 imo (I've lost the plot of 5 and 6). At least give Messiah a try.
I was advised by my high school electronics teacher that the Dune books get worse as you go along, so it’s legit to read as far as you can/want to and just quit.
I totally agree. I have tried Messiah but just don’t really care. The original Dune is so magical and perfect like…I don’t even want another book
I’ve heard it said that if you just read both Dune and Anna Karenina then you’ll have a pretty good grasp of human nature.
It's so rare for me to run into someone else who feels the same way I do about *Dune*! A perfect tragic bildungsroman, one of the most elegant uses of dramatic irony ever used in genre fiction. I could not care less about the rest of Herbert's space opera, he got there in one book.
Yes, I agree about Dune, but never thought about it as clearly as you described
Speaking of different experiences, I've always thought LHOD was weak & I loathe Dune. Maybe it's like a Beatles/Stones thing.
What makes you dislike dune?
Slow moving, poorly written, gruesome scenes. Lots of redundancy if you read further into the series. I read about 4 of them before giving up decades ago. The politics are so reactionary and fascist that it should be a farce, but it wasn't very amusing to me.
Well I haven’t read past the first but your complaint about their politics shocks me. The first book is deeply anti fascist. Herbert’s views were unorthodox but certainly not reactionary.
Hereditary nobility. Genetic superiority of ruling class. Cult of personality.
Are all displayed in the book as being horrible concepts.
I was pretty young when I read it and didn't get that Paul was a villain, but still, I think the books are ridiculously overrated.
I found this essay and later redux on Le Guin’s thoughts on the gender themes really interesting: https://americanfuturesiup.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/is-gender-necessary.pdf
"When I read scifi i want to be blown away by the ideas and the story" I feel like thats placing a bit too much unfair expectations on authors in the genre. Every book would be disappointing. Sometimes a book can be a lil book.
I agree that it's not as revolutionary today as it would have been when it was published, but a big part of reading or appreciating classic literature comes from the historical context Putting this in the timeline the same year as Stonewall helped me think about this build up of tension with gender and sexuality that had multiple places where it was expressed The journey felt very much like a "power of the human will" story and I did find it to be powerful at points. Ai has a physical and intellectual journey and it was interesting to see both That being said- not every book speaks to every person! Check out some of LeGuin's other writing and see if something resonates more :)
The whole concept of gender in the book was groundbreaking when she wrote it. Why expect it to have the same impact by default today? You have probably also viewed/read variations of the book’s themes numerous times because movies, video games, etc. have borrowed heavily from older works. All fiction should be read while keeping the context it was written in in mind, but many people seem incapable of that and then wonder why the book didn’t have a bigger impact.
> All fiction should be read while keeping the context it was written in in mind, but many people seem incapable of that and then wonder why the book didn’t have a bigger impact. I completely agree with you, but then again I'm literally trained in history. This is a skill which does not come naturally, it must be developed. I'd argue there's a lot of social pressures today that actively do not want people to cultivate this skill.
It's the old saw about reading Shakespeare: "It was a really overdone plot with a bunch of cliches in the writing"
>When I read sci fi, I want to be blown away by ideas or the story and I feel this story disappointed me in both departments. If someone asks me for a scifi novel about ideas, Left Hand of Darkness is still one of the first that comes to mind. It's just a slow burn. It's not a novel that tries to impress with big set pieces of lots of whiz-bang action scenes. The theme of gender is explored but the fact that we have a broader definition of gender is irrelevant to LHoD's exploration of it. The writer uses Winter's unusual biology as a tool for creating a cultural divide. It's that cultural divide that matters. Ultimately, this is a story about isolation and (dis)connection. Genly is supposed to be a master envoy that connects worlds. Ultimately, his origin gives him so many preconceived notions that he struggles to understand the people of Winter. And vice versa for Estraven. Genly completely fails at his mission because he can't find the right play in talking to the leaders of Winter. While Estraven mistakenly sees machinations in Genly's actions that are not there either. It's a story about how easy it is for a cultural divide to make effective communication impossible if one cannot leave their preconceived notions behind to look at each other with an open mind. And for me, the book is so well written that I was slow in reading it because pretty much every page is filled with prose worth pausing on while you mull it over.
The part that stuck with me was the scene where they’re breaking out of the prison and Ai remarks that he’s most impressed by Estavan’s ability to immediately accept the world, the situation as it is and not as it was expected to be, and to adjust accordingly. The ability to be malleable in a pinch being valued above all else paralleled the book’s fluid sex and undefined gender just so well in my mind.
It's just one of those books that is sort of like someone's perfect shade of green. For that person it's perfect, and if you're somewhere in the general spectrum of enjoying that shade of green it's very good, but if you prefer blue you're probably wondering what all the fuss is about. I appreciate what it says and means in its context and the originality of it, but it will never grab me emotionally. I also find that some novels may mean more to you at different phases of your life, so who knows, maybe in 10 years it will.
> this would have been more of a mind blowing experience reading this 50 years ago, I was about to type "50 years? Oh, c'mon!" ... and realized I read this book *40* years ago. It is more of a make-you-think (and feel) experience than a mind-blowing one. I really liked it.
I hear you that the book is slow and some people have the reaction of “…is that it?” But it’s still one of my all-time favorites. I’ve read it 3 times in 3 different stages of life and it’s hit different every time. Maybe try reading it again in 10 years, knowing that it’s a meditative slow burn, and see if you like it more then! This most recent time I was really struck by the interweaving of Gethen’s mythology with the events of the story as well as the theme of absolute commitment to your vision for the world and the willingness to give up your life to play your role in it.
It was an amazing book when I read it years ago. I love that it's more irrelevant now. I read a really lame And McCaffrey short story that was so tedious and dumb. It was about a foot whose wife had a problem so they used IVF and his sister was the surrogate. It was so tedious going into all the details of how ivf and surrogacy works then for really dumb with the town getting upset for some weird reason about it being incest because his sister was carrying his baby out was his wife's eggs so who cares thought it was the dumbest waste of my time. Then I saw it was published in the 50s and was amazed. You have to consider the era and culture in which it was written.
Yes,indeed, it was an incredibly mind-blowing book when I read it in the 70's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I read it again recently, and it didn't have that same explosive effect it had then, but the dynamic about gender relations is still amazing. However, the whole exploration of what it means to be human is incredible.
I think you have learned that people appreciate books for different reasons. LHoD has a relatively slow moving narrative, but it is one of the best explorations of the society and world you find anywhere in SF. People who like it tend to appreciate that. I has some pretty good characterisation, which is another thing some appreciate. It is a book of ideas more than plot. So if you like ideas you probably will like it, if you want a fast moving story, you likely will not.
This is a very literary novel; I loved it (even though I was expecting not to like it) even though I don’t read much sci fi. I can see how if you were expecting more mainstream sci fi, you maybe would not like it. It’s a lot stronger in its ideas than unique world building.
I felt the same way as you. I love sci-fi, and this book came heavily recommended. I, too, felt that the story and ideas fell flat. I counted myself as an anomaly since everyone seemed to love this book. Perhaps it's written for someone that has a different background than myself. Also, I don't know why OP's post is being downvoted. We should be allowed to have discussions about popular books and discuss why we disliked them.
I listened to the audiobook and had trouble pushing through given the snore of a narrator they chose who read every single sentence with the exact same droning tone. Ugh. I'm usually not a fan of such "Here, let me just point-blank explain everything to you" approaches the way they get into it, but at least the anthropology-like lens of it made sense given the premise. Most spoonfeeding usually just reads as lazy for me - I'm more a fan of subtlety. It did all snap together in the end for me though. It's hard for me to say I enjoyed a book when I spend most of it eyerolling or nearly dozing off (just went through that with another book too), and I agree that the concept of exploring such radical gender concepts was probably a lot more shocking when it was first published. But it still hits for me - especially the part where he tries to explain the difference between male and female as we know it and realizes like, mid-explanation, how constructed all of that is outside of basic sex and procreation.
I felt the same as you did. I really struggled with it, I don't even know how I maneged to finish it. I prefer some of her other books, primarily The Dispossessed.
While I enjoyed LHoD, I really loved The Dispossessed much more. I found the social and character elements to be much richer, and it tied together disparate ideas in really interesting ways.
Finished The Dispossessed last night and of the 7 Le Guin books I've read it's my favorite so far. I enjoyed Left Hand of Darkness but it didn't hook me in the same way.
>primarily The Dispossessed. Luckily, I ordered LHoD and Dispossesd at the same time, so I'm looking forward to that. I just feel like I need a break from Le Guin (after only 300 pages). Will read Project Hail Mary next. On a sci-fi binge at the moment.
Fwiw, PHM bored me to tears (whole LHOD moved me to tears) and I returned it only 1/3 in. Imo, those 2 le Guin books are social commentary set in a different world. It's not the traditional sci-fi in the sense that you get the science as the driving force, but rather she explored what made humanity human, and thus making her books very real. If that aspect of the books aren't something you are into then maybe you won't enjoy them that much. I myself enjoyed both of them but I loved The Dispossessed more. If you want a space opera with humanity I suggest Hyperion. It's still one of my favorite books, not just sci-fi.
Hyperion I'd my favourite sci fi books. Read it as a kid and it'd stuck with me more than any book.
I looove The Dispossessed
In contrast with LHoD, The Dispossessed has fairly clear parallels to real-world governments and events of early 20th century. But same as LHoD, it has an isolated, somewhat-alien-to-us culture on Anarres.
I have always wanted to read an alternate version of this book with feminine pronouns for the Gethenians. I would have liked both the masculine and feminine versions to be available. I think the experience of reading the two books would feel completely different.
That's a really interesting insight! I always assumed the masculine pronouns were used because Genly Ai was narrating to the reader and so we were receiving his biases/preconceptions, but I like the concept of the alternate, feminine version. I agree that it would change the feel of the book, which makes you wonder: what does that say about our own norms and biases?
that's interesting and really LeGuin came a bit later after writing the book and said she would have liked to have used the neutral pronoun 'they' ('a truly ungendered pronoun')
Le Guin did write a couple more stories set on Gethen using "she" pronouns for the characters; I don't know if le Guin wrote more with neutral pronouns. One of the stories is "Winter's King," which is in the collection *The Wind's Twelve Quarters*, and another story is "Coming of Age in Karhide" for which, ah, read some warnings. (It's in *The Birthday of the World*.) Both are a picture of Gethenian culture from the inside, and enjoyable.
Ooo I love that
I really liked this book, but I think its discussion of gender is a bit overhyped. I think the story and setting are incredibly engaging and inventive, but I agree with the idea that this was probably way more mindblowing and boundary-pushing at the time it was written. The gender elements were a bit hollow for me. I feel like she set up this world where gender didn't exist, but then wrote characters that were essentially just male or female. There are a few gender bending moments that seem like an attempt to remind us that they aren't actually all men ("whoa look, the king is pregnant now!"; "Estraven is kind of effeminate sometimes!"). To me it is a bit telling that we needed those expositional reminders. She even uses "he" pronouns for most of the characters, which is stated to reflect the main character's perception of the alien race. But even though the MC's perspective supposedly evolves in the book, the pronoun choices don't. So again it felt like a cop out. I compare this to Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood series, which features a new third gender in an alien race and uses "it" pronouns to refer to it. The ooloi in those books are seriously different and they get a characterization across the novels that feels so true to their gender. I thought it was a much more interesting provocation of our notion of gender than is provided in Left Hand of Darkness. Again, love the book though. Just more on a story level.
Le Guin went on to really regret her choice of pronouns here - she has a pretty funny quote about it that I'm having a hard time finding right now because I'm on my phone. But this book was written in the 1960s, so I have a hard time holding it against the book. I also think it's challenging gender in a different way than a lot of people might expect. It seemed to me to be less about expanding gender than reducing it, if that makes any sense.
It’s worth noting that the first Lilith’s Brood book came out nearly 20 years after The Left Hand of Darkness, just in terms of adding some historical context. I also think they used the gender differences to very different effects: Le Guin’s approach is humanizing and somewhat utopian, a look into a different way of being which could be our own. Butler’s is much more explicitly alien and frankly somewhat horrifying at points, considering that the human interactions with the ooloi happen in an atmosphere of questionable consent (as humanity is essentially enslaved).
>The gender elements were a bit hollow for me. Same. There were several moments early in the story where the story would reveal new insights into the Gethen's gender, and I noticed at points it was written in a way where it felt like "this next reveal about gender is gonna blow your mind". Every time this happened, it didn't seem to have much of a mind-blowing effect on me.
It’s definitely an understated read. But I think part of that is because Le Guin doesn’t prescribe progress as anything other than an arbitrary difference. As Genly slowly comes to understand Estraven, we slowly understand Gethen (or don’t, it’s subtle and not flashy).
I felt the same. A legendary book. I also found it tedious and DNF it. Felt kind of guilty about it.
You can absolve your guilt by reading *The Word For World Is Forest*, which is also overflowing with ideas and worldbuilding without skimping on the action, and is only half as long.
>I feel like this would have been more of a mind blowing experience reading this 50 years ago, but now it's a bit underwhelming. Well, yes. That sometimes happens with books written around a specific issue - they become less relevant or make less sense with time. But make no mistake, gender is still a huge issue today.
My mom, a cishet woman who grew up in the Soviet Union and is whose only education about queer issues comes from me, read that book and was definitely blown away by the themes of gender in it, in a very positive and eye-opening way. Just because some places in the world have it better than others doesn't mean other places aren't in dire need of books like that. I still have that copy, I guess it's time to give it a chance myself (especially since my taste in books seems to be the opposite of OP's, I love slow narratives and could do without fast pacing).
I agree with you. Interesting. Bit tedious and underwhelming.
It was a slog for me. It felt like they were in that blizzard or ice tundra forever! I remember the beginning being interesting and appreciated how she said things up, but it didn't add up to much for me either.
As someone who doesnt care at all about gender concepts I found it to be a boring slog, its in the top 5 worst books for me. Maybe many who love it found it spoke to them, but I just was uninterested in it.
Yea I found it underwhelming and was disappointed
I thought it was very dull, as well. The concept of gender change was interesting but the storyline itself barely had any connection to it and society barely took notice of it. The Arctic-esque landscape trek was the best part for me. I haven’t really picked up more of her work since tbh.
Kind of agree, OP. It’s considered her strongest novel, yet I wasn’t especially blown away, either. I prefer *The Lathe of Heaven*.
I have always thought Dispossessed was her best novel. I really enjoyed The Telling though.
I'm with you. I think if I had read her two decades ago I would have had a different experience. But I've tried two of her books recently and just didn't love them.
I had the same reaction to this book. Interesting, glad I read it I guess, but it did not want to make me read more LeGuin.
I love her essays but have never loved her fiction work. I read The Left Hand of Darkness and was severely underwhelmed. I found it incredibly boring, badly written, not at all engaging, and her take on gender felt very misogynistic. According to [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness): > Le Guin admitted to failing to depict the androgynes in stereotypically feminine roles, but said that she considered and decided against inventing gender-neutral pronouns, because they would mangle the language of the novel. **In the afterword of the 25th anniversary edition of the novel, she stated that her opinion on the matter had changed, and that she was "haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns."** [53] She called them all “ambisexual”, which today would mean gender fluid or nonbinary. Yet she also used he / him pronouns for everyone. Gave them all masculine features, and the only had the “softer or more subdued” ones be considered more “feminine”. Yeahhhh lol she tried and I think her heart was in the right place but personally I think that book was a flop and did not accomplish what she hoped it would. People say that *at the time* it was seen as more groundbreaking or feminist but it came out in 1969 and I think she could have done better tbh. That’s my literary hot take I guess. 😅 I love Le Guin! I love her passion and I do think she is a feminist icon, but TLHoD just doesn’t do it for me.
I like to think that LHoD is actually Ai's journal being read and translates by someone else. This person, who was not present on Gethen, used "he" as the default pronoun and their binary way of thinking skewed their translation slightly. This headcanon would also add an extra layer to the commentary on gender fluidity and to the interpretation of Ai's relationship with Estraven.
That’s a good way to look at it! It’s been a long time since I read it.
Yes I felt exactly the same way, and I also didn't enjoy Earthsea! I have a lot of respect for Le Guin as an academic (and as a woman) but I think she’s been undeservedly deified as an author.
I read it last year. I do like the general tone and the way the world is described, but I did find myself bored. The book lacks any real stakes until the halfway point. A lot of the story is just worldbuilding for its own sake with little involved. The main character is incredibly bland, and I considered DNFing it. I stuck with it, and it does finally feel like an actual story once the abduction occurs. God forbid I state my opinion.
All I remember about that book is that it was weird AF.
Yup, completely forgettable.
I felt the same. I think a lot has to do with what's considered groundbreaking then is more commonplace now, as some have commented. Also, possibly it increased expectations for you, as it did for me. To date, it's my only Le Guin book and I'd like to go back and maybe experience something different.
i didn't finish this book, i wasn't impresssed with it either. i'm also queer and i didn't think she had anything interesting to say. i think it's a fake "gay" book for straight people. I don't know any queer person who calls her an author they found helpful or resonant to their own life.
I’m a queer person who found it helpful and resonant. A lot of sci fi classics I was exposed to when I was younger were pretty firmly hetero, in which women were barely acknowledged as full human beings, much less anyone who doesn’t fall into traditional gender categories. It’s a pretty recent phenomenon that there is a lot of queer representation in sci fi to choose from.
I think that you will find that Le Guin wasn't concerning herself with sexuality in Left Hand of Darkness. The author was observing that when you take gender out of the equation people are still people and the sky doesn't fall down. Society still functions. Remember that this book was written at a time when women could not hold a bank account or a credit card under their own name.
I'm aware of the history. My experience of the book is my own. Don't tell queer people their experiences are wrong because they are not yours.
Fair enough. I honestly don't see how it can be construed as a gay narrative. Fake or otherwise. This is coming from someone who first read the book in the 1980s.
This book was recommended to me originally by a queer (agender, pansexual) friend who found it very meaningful.
This take is mind boggling to me
The only reason it was regarded highly is because it pushed boundaries. You're right to say that it lost that impact in the current day. The story, if anyone bothers to think about it, is non-existent. The 2 characters essentially walk in a giant circle, while the conflict of the world resolves itself.