Review: The Left Hand of Darkness: Gender Studies

As I mentioned in my earlier post, LHoD left me with several thoughts/musings. The one that really stuck with me was how she treated gender.

"My landlady, a voluble man..." (pg. 38) starts chapter 4 of LHoD. Even before we've gotten that far, Le Guin has used an overabundance of man pronouns, despite her narrator's hesitance to do so. As a reader, I then become prone to thinking about all of the characters I meet as males, not the strange combination of hermaphrodite and androgen that the citizens of Gethen are. (Note: apparently, in one of Le Guin's short stories about the Gethenians, she changed all of the pronouns to "she." I think it would be really interesting to read that story and see how my reactions are different.) Whenever Le Guin brings out the "feminine" side of her characters, I find myself questioning about whether or not what they just did was enough to classify them as female, instead of male.

I guess what I'm really objecting to is Genly's classification of "male" actions and "female" actions. Betrayal is not a female-exclusive thing, in my mind, and neither is non-violence. Hm.

It would be very interesting to ask Le Guin what exactly she was trying to get across with the gender-ambiguity of LHoD. Are the views that Genly express ones that Le Guin hold herself, or just something she was just using? She doesn't explore gender differences very deeply, given the fact that the entire book is about a population where gender doesn't truly exist.

Now, that's an interesting idea. In Gethenian culture, does gender not exist, or are both genders represented in everyone? My personal opinions tend more towards the latter.

All in all, I loved Genly's reaction when his compatriots finally arrive on Gethen. Just another example of Le Guin's writing prowess. And I really want to read the short stories she's written about other Gethenians. My favourite parts of the book were the little snippets told from other people's point of view or taken from mythology.

-J

Review: The Left Hand of Darkness: Introduction

Second semester senior year, I studied The Left Hand of Darkness (LHoD) by Ursula K. Le Guin in my English class (Huzzah for being able to study Science Fiction!). I highly enjoyed the book, though I do have several things I objected to/want to muse on some more. However, tonight, I shall not focus on the actual book, but on something I enjoyed even more - the introduction.

I have this (bad) habit of reading ahead in books that I study in my classes, and of course, LHoD was no exception. To try and thwart this habit at the beginning of the semester (because having people throw things at you when you accidently spill something that the remainder of the class hasn't gotten to yet is never fun), I attempted to appease myself by reading the introduction and be satisfied with just that, despite the fact that I rarely read introductions.

I am so very glad that I did.

Le Guin's introduction was mind-blowing. While it was centred around LHoD and SF in general, she made some very interesting statements about books, reading, and being a writer. Fortunately for me, I found all of those subjects to be quite interesting.

"In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane - bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.
Is it any wonder that no truly respectable society has ever trusted its artists?" (pg xiv, Ace Book 1969 edition)

Reading this, it truly struck home with me. The number of times when I've been reading something so intensely that I become involved with what I'm reading is far too high for me to count. A truly good author can make me hear their voice and the voices of their characters. ringing in my head while I am reading. Being able to completely submerge myself in a completely different world is one of the many reasons why I love to read. Le Guin phrases these feelings about reading perfectly. She is so matter-of-fact about the insanity that is reading, completely legitimizing the feeling that anyone else might be ashamed to admit or shy away from. Her sassy comments actually made me laugh out loud, though every word that she wrote was obviously chosen with a specific intent in mind. Le Guin knows how to make her point and makes them well. I highly enjoyed the way that she touched on the societal view of artists. While her question may have been phrased in a very cavalier way, it lingers with you, as many rhetorical questions do. How many societies do honour their artists? Not ours, given the number of "drop-out-of-school-and-be-a-starving-artist" jokes I've heard. Hmm. It's also interesting to see how disparaging she appears to be to artists, being one herself.

"The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.
The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words." (pg xvi)

Wow. Just... wow. This should be every fiction writer's inspiration. Le Guin is once again hitting the nail smack down on the head. In just three sentences (or if you really need to cut it down, just one), she has managed to encapsulate an artist's (and specifically, an novelist's) entire purpose, and why what they do is so difficult, yet important. This is one of the main reasons why I've struggled with writing fiction. I will often have ideas that I want to convey in my writing, yet am unable to do so without them being far too obvious or completely ambigious. But it is also why I will write.

All in all, I really loved Le Guin's introduction.
-J