Book Report: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin

The Left Hand of Darkness has been recommended to me by multiple people over the years, so when I came home with a copy after the book exchange at the most recent Boneshaker Books volunteer party, I didn't have any excuse to not read it. And after all that buildup: it's fine. I know that any Le Guin fan who stumbles upon this will want to fight me, but I'm pretty lukewarm about the book. And after reading The Dispossessed a couple of years ago and having a similar experience, I'm comfortable saying that she's just not for me.

The book is set on the planet of Gethen, an icy world which is visited by Genly, an emissary from the earth-like Terra on behalf of the Ekumen. Genly is trying to convince Gethen to join the Ekumen, something of a United Federation of Planets. Genly and the residents of Gethen are all recognizably human, but Gethenians are androgynous and only have sex during the few days a month when they're in kemmer, when they can take on male or female characteristics in order to procreate. Any Gethenian can be a father, and any Gethenian can be a mother. They consider Genly, who is male, a pervert because he is capable of having sex throughout the month.

The book is a political drama for the first half or two-thirds, sort of like a novella-length version of the Star Wars prequels, except with considerably better-quality writing. Then, for the last part, it's a man (ok, well, one of the participants is androgynous)-vs.-nature adventure story on the frozen glacier between the countries of Karhide and Orgoreyn.

I could go into considerably more detail with the plot description; there's a lot here. Both the setting and the culture are richly imagined, and I feel somewhat guilty that it left me cold (not unlike Gethen, amirite?) when I've met so many people who have had a much more meaningful interaction with Le Guin's work. However, I didn't connect with any of the characters here, and I really couldn't care less about the internal political machinations surrounding Genly's proposal, which took up a significant portion of the book. If there were significant metaphors here for life on earth, I completely overlooked them. Once Genly takes to the ice, fleeing for his life with an initially reluctant companion, it was more exciting than politics, but I wasn't emotionally invested enough in the characters to really get sucked into the adventure.