This book initially threw me. I hadn’t read the summary on the back of the book, and it took me a little while to realise that it was a story set on a world in which there is only one gender. If that isn’t difficult enough, it’s a planet in the grip of an ice age. Tough place to land if you’re an alien envoy trying to bring the inhabitants into the fold of interplanetary civilisation.
The main character is Genly Ai, a human sent to treat with the natives of Winter. The novel begins with him in the nation of ‘Karhide’, and Genly is attempting to gain acceptance that the nation is open to the idea of trading with the wider ranks of humanity off-planet. However, the politics of the place are complex, and his mission is imperiled almost immediately.
I enjoyed The Left Hand of Winter, but wasn’t as fascinated as I was with other Le Guin novels. The plot in this work was relatively simple, Genly is unsuccessful in Karhide, so travels to the nation’s neighbour Orgoreyn, where things really go awry. Behind the scenes one Lord Estraven is doing his utmost to bring about the new world Genly represents, at the cost of his own position and prestige.
The interesting thing about The Left Hand is the attempt by Le Guin to remove gender politics from political equations. The entire population of Winter are androgynes, and periodically enter ‘kemmer’ a state in which they begin to adopt either masculine or feminine features. Consequently any individual can be either the father or mother of children. It’s an interesting idea, one that immediately challenges the reader to consider their own gendered stereotypes, and I got the feeling it was the main purpose for the book. Certainly, the Karhide and Orgoreyn nations are supposed to represent the politics of the USA and USSR respectively, but this difference is not the main drive behind the plot and are instead vehicles.
The androgynous nature of Winter’s humanity, and the way it impacts on social interaction, as perceived by Genly or Estraven is the core of the story, as is the eventual close friendship between the two protagonists.
A good novel, and a good recommendation, but not an earth-mover for me.
28 September, 2007 at 2:48 am
I agree, Le Guin is a good author but she doesn’t really reach me emotionally. I once wrote a review of his oeuvre that had a terrific line that went something like: “Her work is as tricky as Dick, as brainy as Delaney”. Give her novel LATHE OF HEAVEN a shot or some of her Orsinian tales.
29 September, 2007 at 12:40 am
Have you read the companion novella, “Coming of age in Karhide”? If not, it’s probably worth checking out.
Unfortunately I think its only available in various Year’s Best collections and the Greg Bear-edited New Legends.
1 October, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Yes, well, hmmm, maybe. I love Le Guin, I think because she is so meditative. Her Hainish novels are relationship driven, and explorations of character, so not a lot happens, except to the relationships between her characters. (I would find some apt quote from The Left Hand of Darkness to illustrate this, but we have lent our copy to a friend.)
So… do you think of the people of Winter as male, or female? Which gender do you automatically regard as the norm?
A loaded question, and an unfair one, given that Le Guin uses he / him. But that scene in the tent, when Estraven enters kemmer, jolted me. I hadn’t managed to think of the people of Winter being female until then.
1 October, 2007 at 7:46 pm
well, this is the thing. i didn’t think of the people of winter as either sex, i automatically thought of them as androgyns. the transformation under kemmer becomes a exception to the “normal” interaction between characters.
2 October, 2007 at 5:55 am
I found that I just couldn’t pull off that particular mental trick. I’m not sure that I thought of them as chest-beating, beer swilling, macho posturing, ‘extreme male’ men, anymore than I thought of Estraven as lipstick wearing, high heeled giggling, delicate ‘extreme female’ when he entered kemmer. But I certainly had a male image in mind, rather than a female one.
2 October, 2007 at 9:18 am
indeed, they were characteristically ‘male” for the majority of the novel. but. there were a number of scenes that foreshadowed his transformation.
i was more shocked by the journey in the truck where the “small girl” was looking for confort from genly. the tensions there were far greater. when estraven finally enters kemmer it is kind of par for the course.
24 October, 2007 at 7:13 pm
FINALLY found it.
I/S – I thought coming of Age in Karhide was in “Four Ways to Forgiveness” (I was wrong). But I just located it – it’s the lead story in “The Birthday of the World: and other Stories” (Orion: 2002).
So come up and see us sometime Che, and you can borrow it if you are interested.
12 June, 2009 at 11:12 am
This book is hot on the heels of the whole pop fiction scene. It is a reaction against that and so is going to be pretty different from the usual page turner stuff around today.