I’m a little unsure where to start with this review, so much so I almost wasn’t going to write it.
This is not a reflection on the book, but, if anything, a reflection on the audio book. I used a long trip for work to listen to the book, because it was my selection for Bookclub and I wasn’t sure where I was going to find the time to read it in amongst all my work and uni reading.
In retrospect, I would have been better to make the time to simply read it.
The story itself, as I suspected it would be (being a giant fan of Ursula Le Guin’s other writing) was fantastic. It was so fully realised and well constructed that, as usual, I was easily caught up in it.
The story, that is.
The audio book was the worst one I have ever listened to. It was clearly a digital recording taken from cassette tapes that sounded muffled and fuzzy, as if I were listing to a radio play on a wireless in some by-gone era. But on top of that, the quality and volume of the voice changed dramatically, and frequently, sometimes mid sentence. Further, the reader was not altering her voice at all for character, or emotion, or dramatic effect, so it took me a while longer than usual to differentiate who was saying what and which characters were which. She did, however, pause for breath in the most odd places, not where one would naturally pause if they were reading (aloud or in your head) which again threw me off.
Leaving that aside, I’ll now talk about the genius who was betrayed by this recording.
As with her other titles that I have read, Le Guin has made a perfectly tangible world for the reader to discover. This time set on a planet called Gethen where androgynous humans have a very different way of life to any that we know. Each person is gender neutral (or hermaphroditic) for most of the time, yet for 2 days out of every lunar cycle they enter ‘kemmer’ where they assume either male or female sexual organs in order to mate. To quote the book: “the mother of several children may be the father of several more.”
In this way, Le Guin has created a society where gender politics have been removed completely. It makes for a very interesting reflection of the nature of social gender constructs and how heavily they affect the way we think about people. Superbly done, the story is seen through the eyes of an outsider, a human from future earth. This way we are able to process what we are being shown in a way similar to our own constructed reality, yet with the scientifically and politically neutral commentary of the emissary.
One thought that I did have as I was listening to it, and after I had finished, was that it lacked the subtle, understated poetics that her writing for young adults has. This might have been because of the audio book, but others at bookclub found it hard to get into and somewhat uneventful. I’ll admit it was slow in places, and it took me a while to understand what was going on because of all the names and politics and relationships etc, took a while to be explained. But for those that love character development and don’t need too much action, then I’m sure there’s something in it for you too.
In the end, I’m glad I have read it. Judging by the quotes and reviews I’ve read, The Left Hand of Darkness is at the centre of the adult Sci-Fi and Fantasy canon. Personally, I prefer her Young Adult fiction, but I enjoyed this one all the same.
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