The Left Hand of Darkness

Notes:

This is a book which explores the issues around the extent to which our societies are dominated by our sexual identities and dualities. Clearly this is not a book for younger readers. It may well not be a book for older readers. But the most striking thing about this story — a story which turns on sexual identity and in which almost every character is ambisexual — is that there are no sexual encounters described. Not even in a situation when two characters are sharing a tent for weeks on end, during which time one of the characters enters “kemmer”: a period of a few days when his sexual instincts are aroused. There's no doubt that this book is not for younger readers, but nor is it an excuse for the depiction of sexual activity. One chapter does consist of an official federation report explaining the sexual characteristics of the planet's natives, but it's all couched in clinical terms and not calculated to excite unncessary interest.

My overall feeling is that, while interesting, the story doesn't bring quite enough to the table to merit grabbing it off the shelf. But it's a thoughtful book, making reasonable use of its SciFi setting — a human-populated universe many years in the future when planets have combined into a loose federation called the Ekumen. In spite of that name, presumably from its Greek root meaning “the whole world”, there are no religious overtones. There are, however, references to Christianity as a religious movement still in existence.

The main question the book poses is the extent to which our behaviour as humans is dominated or influenced by our differences in sex. And this at two levels: whether the apparent duality of two different biological and psychological sexes informs our whole world-view; and whether our view of any one person is influenced more or less by our knowledge of their sex. Winter is not a perfect world: there are political intrigues, acts of pettiness and revenge, acts of greatness and generosity. While there are no acts of war as such, the story is leading towards one such act at its climax. If the story has an answer to its questions, it seems to be that the sexual nature of the Gethenians (the native name for the planet) makes them different but not free from the usual human problems.

There is a semi-spritual element to the story, leaning towards a Tibetan-style mysticism. There are groups of people — Handdara — who live in lonely Fastnesses and who can, in a mystic gathering, foretell the future at some level. Genry visits one such community, and stays there a while, finding in the Weaver Faxe a steadier character than the more ambivalent Gethenians he's left behind in the city. Genry's initial friend Estraven, exiled for that association, later rescues the envoy from prison and undertakes a gruelling journey of hundreds of miles across snow and ice. It turns out that he was raised among the Handdara and retains some of their skills in controlling his body to cope with the rigours of the journey. By doing this, he can give more food and more support to Genry, who must simply endure the journey.