The Left Hand of Darkness

I started this book in a mood maybe indisposed to be fully appreciative, and it didn't really shake that mood from me; it didn't "wow" me. It took a chapter or two for me to find something interesting, and by the end I was invested, but still a little bored. The Left Hand of Darkness is clever and intricate, but at the same time I wish it were a little bolder. There were a couple of times it seemed to build up a caricature of gender, and then find something to shatter that impression, as if to chide the reader for gendering the characters that way. Each time I would sigh a little, because the author was the one who described them in a gendered way, so it felt a bit transparent. I found the language rather dry, and the pacing a bit numb. I didn't enjoy spending time with the main character, but the few sections from other points of view were better. It did have some great philosophical ponderings — I'm a sucker for a good rumination — and it does some interesting things with the narrative, breaking traditional structures and whatnot. While my time with the book wasn't very successful, I think someone coming at it from a different starting point would really enjoy it. By no means poorly made, just not made in a way that I liked.

After an unassuming and somewhat slow start, Le Guin's story and prose builds to a crescendo that includes what must be among the most beautiful portrayals of platonic love in literature.

Thought-provoking and unpredictable from start to finish, The Left Hand of Darkness seems as fresh and relevant today as it did when it was published. The only aspect that seems dated at all is Le Guin's periodic descriptions of masculine and feminine behaviours, pigeonholing that would've gone unremarked in the 70s but which jars today.

Narration by George Guidall decent.

Given the changes that have happened in the decades since publishing, the pronoun choices grate, but it's absolutely amazing for when it was written.

"The king is pregnant" .. enough said.