Ebook The Left Hand Of Darkness Azw3 Tác Giả Ursula K. Le Guin

Introduction of the ebook: The Left Hand of Darkness

Đánh giá : 4.09 /5 (sao)

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose – and change – their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimila A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose – and change – their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction. …more

Review ebook The Left Hand of Darkness

2021: At this point it’s hard for me to even imagine that just a decade ago I was reading Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time. This book overwhelmed me with how good it was, and how different it ended up from what I expected. Le Guin’s measured and contemplative anthropological science fiction was so incredibly memorable in how it presents the world, challenges the assumptions and reaffirms essential humanity of all of us that it touched my very soul and probably changed something in me forever 2021: At this point it’s hard for me to even imagine that just a decade ago I was reading Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time. This book overwhelmed me with how good it was, and how different it ended up from what I expected. Le Guin’s measured and contemplative anthropological science fiction was so incredibly memorable in how it presents the world, challenges the assumptions and reaffirms essential humanity of all of us that it touched my very soul and probably changed something in me forever.

This book needs to be read starting with its wonderful introduction, written by Le Guin herself. This part is so important, especially for those who from the advantage of society that has moved on after decades since the book came to be may view it as tame, as not going far enough, not being visionary in the way that calls to our wishes and current views. Let’s give the spotlight to Le Guin’s own words:
“This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. […] The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future—indeed Schrödinger’s most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the “future,” on the quantum level, cannot be predicted—but to describe reality, the present world. Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.”
Le Guin described the world as viewed not from the Ekumenical year 1491 but from the Earth year 1969, and there are still elements that are painfully recognizable.

But what I see, what gives me hope, is that essential humanity that triumphs over the smallness of prejudices and conventions. The humanity that Le Guin was so good at bringing to forefront.
“It is a terrible thing, this kindness that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give.”
Dream on, Therem Harth rem ir Estraven. Dream on, and I’ll dream on with you.
”Will you tell us about the other worlds out among the stars—the other kinds of men, the other lives?”
——————
——————

2012: The question that permeates Le Guin’s 1969 sensational for its time novel about the ambisexual society is what remains once the male and the female labels are stripped away? What is underneath the labels – is it simply humanity? “A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”
Like some readers, Genly Ai, the protagonist of this brilliantly written leisurely-paced cerebral sci-fi classic, for a while just cannot seem to move past the ambisexuality aspect. Ai is an ambassador to the planet Gethen to convince its leaders to join the interplanetary union Ekumen. The inhabitants of Gethen differ from other humanoid races in two aspects: (1) they have adapted well to tolerate the Ice Age climate of their world, and (2) they are ambisexual. For the majority of lunar cycle they are essentially neuter, and for several days they enter a sexual phase, kemmer, during which they attain either male or female characteristics and become capable of sex.
“What is a friend, in a world where any friend may be a lover at a new phase of the moon? Not I, locked in my virility: no friend to Therem Harth, or any other of his race. Neither man nor woman, neither and both, cyclic, lunar, metamorphosing under the hand’s touch, changelings in the human cradle, they were no flesh of mine, no friends; no love between us.”
Ai, a male proud of his “virility”, does not feel comfortable among the Gethians. He is always suspicious, always mistrusting of these people whose essence he refuses to understand. He views himself as “a stallion in harness with a mule”, chuckles at the idea of a pregnant King. He tries to view the Gethenians as male, and is appalled at all the femininity that he sees in them, feeling that it is wrong, inferior, alien to him. In the world of wholeness, not of duality, he feels lost and isolated without the familiar stark division that rules our lives. After all, the first question that people immediately ask at birth is – boy or girl? Man or woman? [Sidenote: Remember the whole relatively recent conundrum about Canadian parents who decided to raise their child without telling the society the child’s gender? They received death threats for that attempt, so ingrained is the gender division among us].Ai is not a bad guy. He is just lost, confused, and isolated – a human, in the other words. He is so out of his comfort zone he does not comprehend how to deal with the society that he views as passive, where there is less competitiveness, and where crying is perfectly fine. He finds it so hard to accept this world without the quientesential ‘maleness’ or ‘femininity’ – even though he struggles to define exactly what it is that separates men from women.

Ai becomes so terribly isolated in his alienness, longing for something familiar. In this strange and unfamiliar world of wholeness, he clings to the eternal human “Us vs. Them” divide, refusing in his loneliness and fear to look beyond the usual, the prejudice. Until circumstances force him to get to know Estraven, and Ai finally sees in him “not a man’s face and not a woman’s, a human face.” “A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.”
But it’s really Therem Harth Estraven, who, in my opinion, is the true hero of this story. Estraven sees the promise that the union with Ekumen has for his world. In his attempts to help Ai, he becomes viewed as a traitor (view spoiler)[and ultimately sacrifices his life (hide spoiler)] . But it takes a long time and many trials and tribulations for Ai to recognize Estraven for what and who he is – just HUMAN, to move past the uncomfortable and the prejudice and discover simple human love. “It is yin and yang. Light is the left hand of darkness… how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself, Therem. Both and one. A shadow on snow.” The language of this book was initially a stumbling block for me. It was dry and very cerebral, making it difficult at first to become immersed in the story. But that was the language of Genly Ai, the man who was not meant to be likeable at the very start. But then I got to the first interlude – short and very poetic legends of Gethen which help shed light on the nature of this world and help us see the events of this story in a different context and different light. The beauty that Le Guin’s language reaches during these interludes is breathtaking. The segments of the story written in Estraven’s voice are also very distinct, very urgent, simple, and filled with so much dignity and quiet resolve that it made my heart leap and weep at the same time.
——————

The Left Hand of Darkness is a deep story of humanity, love, betrayal, alienation, and acceptance. But it is not an easy book to read. It is not meant to take you on an exciting whirlwind ride. Instead its aim is to make the readers think and reflect. It may be slow to start, but it’s hard to put down as well. I walked away from it feeling that a part of me has been changed forever – and for the better.

I walked away from it with more questions than I had when I started – and that’s a very good thing, as far as I am concerned. “And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him: that he was a woman as well as a man. Any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with the fear; what I was left with was, at last, acceptance of him as he was.”