The Left Hand of Darkness

Assignment 6
Book review: Ursula le Guin’s "The Left Hand of Darkness"
By Leah Summerville Farrar


Ursula le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness” is a powerful and moving novel, and an example of science fiction writing at it’s finest. It is the story of a young man, sent as a first-contact envoy to the planet Winter, and his efforts to both recruit that world into the interplanetary collective of the Ekumen, and to understand and eventually become part of this alien culture he finds himself within. Told primarily in the first person, this novel is reminiscent of the works of such authors as Elizabeth Moon (author of a series of science-fiction novels about heroine Ky Vatta), and Timothy Zhan (in particular, his brilliant “Icarus Hunt”). However, this novel is also, I would argue, reminiscent of the works of J. R. R. Tolken in style and in the scope of telling, and brings a level of immersion and complexity to science fiction writing that many writers shy away from.

To start with, I must say that one of the most interesting things about the novel, and the one that I would most like to learn to emulate, is the way that le Guin has tied together several different narrative styles in order to make her story more informative and cohesive. The majority of the book is told in the form of a first-person narrative, with the character of Gently Ai, the Envoy, doing most of the narration. However, within this le Guin had included chapters that are from the ‘personal journal’ of the other main character, Estraven, as well as recorded myths of the alien world, and analysis’s done by the team of ‘inspectors’ that came to Winter before Gently. What this combination allows, in my opinion, is for the primary text to be told in the form of a continuing narration, with little time taken out to explain the elements of the alien society or physiology beyond what would be expected of someone, say telling of their vacation here on earth. The extra parts allow for any truly necessary external explanation to be given outside (and yet at the same time, still within) the story’s narrative, without them breaking the flow of the tale.

To this point, “The Left Hand of Darkness” is definitely told in a very serious, very ‘realistic’ manner. What I mean by this is that it told in a matter-of-fact, take-it-or-leave-it sort of style. There is little explanation of the world; you learn as you go, thrown into the world as totally as Gently Ai, the main character, has been. It is like stepping into another culture, another world, your only guide book a member of that culture (in this case the enigmatic Estraven). This frankness of style was enthralling, and was primarily accomplished through the language that le Guin chose to use in her telling.

Personally, I found the diction of “Left Hand of Darkness” fascinating and totally engrossing. As someone who read voraciously for most of her life, and so has at least basic grasp on many of the common plots and styles of writing, I can honestly say that I need a strong plot and unique writing style to truly grab my interest. This book delivers that with aplomb. The writing takes no prisoners; it doesn’t make excuses for the ‘alien’ who is trying to understand this culture so different from our own, doesn’t stop to explain the terms used, to let the poor reader emerge to take a gasp of breath before being sucked back under its unrelenting force on style. Instead, it simply plows ahead, throwing the reader into the world of Winter in much the same way as Gently has been thrown in. This is a world that is totally alien to our own, this narration style says, and so is a world that we have to take as is. The difference is pronounced, and yet though the use of the characters we are granted entrance in to this alien world.

Something that I find highly interesting about the characters in this novel are that the two main characters—Genly Ai, a human attempting to make first contact with another world, and Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, the only citizen of that world who truly believes him—are at once very similar, and extremely different. This, I feel, was intentionally on the part of the author. Both are, in their own way, exiles, attempting to prove themselves in one of the harshest natural climates one will ever hear about. However, they are also of two species so totally different from each other—both socially and physically—that it provides a continued source of tension throughout the novel. By highlighting their similarities, their alien-ness to each other, le Guin has given both them and us a means of associating with the characters, of opening ourselves to them. Without highlighting the sameness of the characters (their styles of writing, their thoughtful natures, and their alien reality) than the differences between them would be too vast for their connection to be believable. And it is this connection that truly forms the heart of the novel.

At one point in the story, the main character goes to see a sort of oracle or precognitive to whom he asks the question of whether, in five years, he will accomplish his mission and Winter will join his interplanetary collective. He is told that yes, it will, but that his question was answered not because it was important, but because, perhaps, it was unimportant. In that, we see how the tensions, and plot, of this novel are both resolved, and left open. Yes, he accomplishes his mission as Envoy, but as the story progresses we learn that the real tension of the book, and what Gently comes to realize may be his true mission, is not truly resolved. This ‘true’ mission is his relationship with the local peoples and with Estraven in particular. In this, there is little closing, and the tension remains at the end of the book; an ending that seems extremely fitting, while at the same time totally heartbreaking. I wanted Genly to succeed in not just securing Winter’s admittance to the Ekumen, but also in his attempt to form a relationship with the locals. In the end, however, his alien-ness is affirmed; both by his hesitant acceptance by the people of Winter, and by the fact that he is in part unrecognizable to his own people. He has become, in his own way, like the people of Winter; totally singular, androgynous not of sexuality, but of race.

Having finished “The Left Hand of Darkness,” the first thought that came to mind was that I wanted to ask the author how this world came to her; it is so detailed, so complex, and so totally foreign that it’s very creation that its visualization by le Guin fascinates me. I have not been able to stop thinking about since finishing it, and while reading it had to work hard in order to tear myself away for such mundane tasks as eating and sleeping. In the introduction of the book, le Guin states that she believes that many people do not like science fiction because they describe it as “escapist” (vii). Though she elaborates by saying that, when pressed, these individuals admit that this is truly because they “find it depressing” (le Guin vii). This is because most science fiction takes on aspect of society and expands it into a horrifying prediction of the future. In “The Left Hand of Darkness”, however, le Guin admits to making no prediction about the future, not total and overarching statements about the nature of humanity. Instead, she is simply granting us an immersion into a culture that is different, and yet at the same time startlingly similar to our own. And yet, and yet, I would say that in this she is examining humanity, examining society, as deeply and as totally as any science fiction novel or movie I have ever read.