The Left Hand of Darkness: Genderless-Gendered
The Passing of Le Guin
At
the beginning of this year (2018), the author Ursula K Le Guin died at the age
of 88. At the time, I had not read any of her work, but I knew she wrote a lot
about gender, specifically of the feminine kind. Eventually she turned p on the
Science-Fiction list I am working through with her book The Left Hand of Darkness. Typically books on gender don’t interest
me, not because I don’t think they are important, but because I have enough
confusion and worries in my life without questioning or over-thinking my answer
to one of the most basic identifying questions. Nevertheless, I read The Left Hand of Darkness where humanity
has spread out among the stars and evolved into separate species. What I guess
you would call a ‘normal’ human has come to the planet Gethen to welcome them
into a human-species confederation to share knowledge. Gethenians are
genderless for all but 4 days out of each month where they take on the
sex-characteristics of a gender to mate.
No Gender?
As
such the novel explores what a society would be like without gender and how a
gendered being like the main character Ai would attempt to interact with such a
culture. The Gethenians view Ai as a pervert as he can have sex at any time and
think he must be emotionally volatile. While there are the occasional
skirmishes between groups and occasional interpersonal conflicts, this planet
so far has had no concept of war. This hints at an idea that sexual desire is
what drives people to extreme conflict. However, the novel itself problematizes
this idea by having Orgoreyn declare a kind of war on the other main kingdom on
the planet, Karhide. This makes the readers begin to question whether a sexually
limited society is actually more peaceful than a gendered one.
Genderless Justice
In
the afterward of the book Le Guin writes that she views her book as “a vision
of genderless justice or the dream of two as one,” (1). While I personally have
never wanted gender to disappear, I can understand where Le Guin is coming from
when she says a “genderless justice”. Women often bemoan the fact that all the
physical burden/blessing of children is solely on them. I say burden/blessing,
because when not actively looking for children the monthly annoyance and
vigilance is draining. On the other hand, my mom often tried to console me with
the fact that if I have children in her experience men feel a bit jealous of
the fact that women are the ones pregnant. All of this to say that, I think
when Le Guin talks of “justice” that she is referring to an evening out of the
physical differences of gender.
The Problem With Thought Experiments
While thought experiments are
fascinating, I often find that they are lackluster foundations for novels. An
idea may well be more than interesting enough to sustain a short story, but
when it becomes spread out over chapters the idea quickly peters out. A simpler
more-recent example of this is Divergent by
Veronica Wroth. The novel came from her experimenting with the idea of exposure
therapy, which she learned about in a psychology class. The idea is cool for
the first couple of chapters, but she keeps harping on fear and taking risks
quickly becoming repetitively predictive. Naturally, as Le Guin is a more
experienced writer her thought experiment takes longer to lose steam than
Wroth’s did. Nevertheless, it does happen. Eventually readers are left there
saying, “Ok. Yes, I get it. They don’t have gender, but then they do and there’s
tension. Ooooohhhh.”
Other Conflicts
Admittedly there are other conflicts
within the story, but Le Guin can’t seem to let the genderless-gendered
conflict move to the back seat long enough for the other conflicts to make an
impact. For example, Ai spends a considerable amount of time in the novel in
Karhide’s rival kingdom Orgoreyn, where regularity,
orderliness are highly prized to the point where political dissidents are sent
to labor camps reminiscent of those in Siberia in Soviet Russia. But the
brutality inherent in this kingdom is highly prized both by those living in the
kingdom and those in Karhide. In fact, Ai’s guide and main supporter Estraven,
a native of Karhide, cannot help but admire Orgoreyn orderliness, even after
witnessing first hand the Orgoreyn brutality necessary to perpetuate that
order. This fascinating quandary of “What is order and efficiency worth?” is
quickly swept under the rug in favor of rehashing the same old
genderless-gendered dilemma that has dominated the entire book.
On Unifying Threads
Of
course books need a unifying thread that runs through all of the pages keeping
it from shattering into a bunch of unconnected episodes. But if that same
thread is harped on too much than the book quickly becomes cyclical. Ai does
thing, forgets that Gethenians act differently because no gender, rethinks
thing with genderless-ness in mind, wow isn’t the world so different without
gender? Alternatively, Gethenian does thing, forgets that Ai has gender, rethinks thing with gendered-ness in mind; wow isn’t the
world so different with gender? So on
and so forth for the rest of the book. On the other hand a good book is a bit
of a juggling act. Sometimes the unifying thread takes the spotlight. Other
times it is allowed to fade into the background so that a different thread can
come up and provide another perspective. The best authors are those that have unifying
threads while permitting other conflicts to come up and interplay with the main
thing in order to give variety and new angles to the main theme.
Take a Break; Push Pause
None of
this is to say that The Left Hand of
Darkness isn’t interesting. It just can get repetitive if reading in
successive sittings. I would recommend taking breaks with this novel so that it
doesn’t become to repetitive. Anytime you pick it up, Ai quickly reminds you of
what is going on with this book and its genderless-gendered characters.
Notes:
Sources:
Image Credit: The Left Hand of Darkness Cover
Comments
Post a Comment