The Left Hand of Darkness

I finished this book yesterday. I have a large pile of books stacked in my room that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, but hadn’t due to school and work. Now its summer, so I have more time on my hands to get at these. This has been sitting at the very top for weeks now and I finally got the chance to explore Ursula K. Le Guin’s planet of Winter.

Many people told me that The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the best Science Fiction novels out there and I wasn’t disappointed. Though there is not a serious amount of action in this book, it maintained a pace of its that definitely kept the pages turning with rapture.

The ecology of the planet Winter (yes, odd name) reflected its inhabitants. At first glace you see the people as cold and sterile, but as the story rolls on we, and the narrator, see them just as human beings, not merely the hermaphroditic aliens we were first introduced to but more the pure combination of the two halves of humanity (almost making them better than the rest of humanity). Many of the themes in the novel involve certain kinds of prejudices due to preconceived notions. The narrator assumes that the character who he should trust the most is untrustworthy and he also goes to a country that he assumes would be best for his quest. There is also a focus on foretelling and the importance on not what questions a person should ask, but what questions are just unanswerable (which when discovered would remain unanswered).

But the ending left me feeling oddly disappointed. The ending seemed to be heading to a bitter-sweat-leaning-towards-tragic but ended up in the final chapter kind of cyclical. But I think that the confused reaction I got at the end were intended and maybe necessary because the main character seemed to have the same distance and confusion that a reader could experience at the end. As if he is thinking “Is this really all tied up? I guess we’ll find out.”

Either way, even though a Nebula and Hugo winning book should scarcely be ignored anyways, this book is a must read for any lover of literature. This book gives a reader a lot to think about (which is my definition of a good Sci-Fi), so make sure to actually READ it and give it some time let your brain digest it.