October 2003
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Review
First, I would like to say I mean no disrespect to the talented Ms. Le Guin, but this book is utterly incomprehensible.
There is something bold in having a genderless society when our own culture is so wrapped up in the worth of gender.
A woman is not beautiful if not thin but busty, a man is not a man without his muscles and penis. Women are weak and
therefore worthless, good for bearing children, not for running a society. Men are the makers of policy the master's
of our fates. What a wonderful thing to be without such restraints, such absolute expectations.
Perhaps it is the concept that escapes me, I doubt it but to give benefit to those who saw HUGO and NEBULA worth in this novel I can concede that I may be wrong. Again I doubt it. For me, a lover of words and their smiths, this book leaves a hollow unsatisfied feeling. I don't feel as if I read a book, but an encyclopedia of what not to do. The person I assume is the main character, though I am horribly confused by that, Genly, seemed unable to do his job, unfit for it and lost in the milieu of a culture that a mere human could not understand.
Second, where was the story here? Where lies the character development, the conflict, the plot? If its there I couldn't find it, and I've read many, many, many books. Some good, some bad, a few great and a handful of horrible. All of which had some semblence of a plot, character, conflict and struggle. Perhaps the Left Hand of Darkness sought struggle from me. It failed were that the purpose. I read a book, with black words printed on white paper, that was billed to me as a story, but I didn't find one. I was not challenged by the idea of a genderless society, I was not enthralled or intrigued, or disgusted and dismayed. I was confused, trying to find the difference between this society and the one in the book, I kept running against parrallel's. Women are good for sex, not governance. For giving birth, but not giving advice or counsel. A waste of time? No, not at all, maybe you'll be touched, changed or provoked by the ideas outlined. None of that happened to me. When a book leaves me apathetic, and I don't laugh or cry or think or threaten to throw it out at least once while I'm reading it then I am lost. Within the pages of Left Hand of Darkness, I found absolutely nothing, except well written words, in reasonable sentences.
