Welcome, to another episode of benevolent colonialism vs barbaric indigenous culture, and this from the celebrated annals of science fiction. Oh, but Welcome, to another episode of benevolent colonialism vs barbaric indigenous culture, and this from the celebrated annals of science fiction. Oh, but what's this? The indigenous people are winning?! And without a white savior or a colonialist deflecting to the good side? No transformative hero's arc? No construction of entire narratives centred around a white dude that realises the value of indigenous culture and saves the day? So you're telling me, science fiction, a world of comple make-believe, a world belonging to Meinong's jungle, can actually imagine healthy, hopeful alternatives? Man, what a bummer. Ursula Le Guin clearly did not know how to play by the rules.
I had trouble with this book in the beginning, mostly because the first chapter is about the hyper-masculine, misogynistic, racist, rapist, pro-pro-colonialist, protagonist-antagonist. I wondered if this was finally going to be that one Le Guin book that I would absolutely hate. But as always, she surprised me in no time.
There is a madness to this story, a sacred insanity. As Selver comes to grips with his own divinity and the vicious dreams that he sees seeping into reality around him, he has to battle that other insane divinity, the crazy God, the protagonist-antagonist, Davidson. With the knowledge of death and murder dawning upon him, Selver counters oppression with destruction, with rebellion. And what could be more punitive than a forced exile, than a prolonged life, to a God that wants an end? So Selver bestows upon Davidson with the one thing he has never known, the one thing he abhors: mercy.
And with this I complete my 2021 goal of reading the six main books of the Hainish cycle. ...more
This book should probably be a wake up call for me to stop judging books based on their cliche titles, but it most certainly won't. In my defense, I rThis book should probably be a wake up call for me to stop judging books based on their cliche titles, but it most certainly won't. In my defense, I read the dreadful City of Bones as a teenager and immediately fought the urge to cleanse my mind with sanitizer. (I know how this sounds, okay? It was just that bad for my brain cells.) And fantasy writers aren't exactly remarkably creative with their book titles. I also disliked the first two books from The Hainish Cycle (to my great dismay) so I had low expectations from this one to begin with.
But, this is my first five star review of 2021 and I can easily vouch for its brilliance.
The book deals with many themes, the central one being about the illusory nature of the self and the city one inhabits - about how each of us can be lost amidst a myriad of possibilities, shackles, dead ends and lies. It is also about how language deceives us into substituting truth with propoganda. As with its central character, silence is sometimes the only solace one can find.
What I personally liked the most about the book is its witty deconstruction of the idea of the state machinery. Le Guin masterfully and rightly shows that a defensive society simply hides behind a conformist facade, thereby forcing its residents to live in a suspended state of perpetual slavery.
Despite its dreary setting, the book conveys a very important message (especially for our times) - that ultimately the only way forward is to accept the truth of all the various selves we carry within us, even with all their mutual contradictions
I alone am confused confused desolate Oh, like the sea adrift Oh, with no harbor to anchor in…...more
**spoiler alert** The second novel of The Hainish Cycle is much more nuanced and lucid than the first one, I could see Le Guin's writing beginning to **spoiler alert** The second novel of The Hainish Cycle is much more nuanced and lucid than the first one, I could see Le Guin's writing beginning to flourish here.
At the crux of the story is a 'forbidden' romance. Growing despite a long history of conflict between the light skinned, light haired Tevarans - a tribe indigenous to the planet Werel and the dark haired, dark skinned colonists of earth humans stranded on Werel, the love between Rolery and Jakob Agat holds the story together throughout its violent development.
The Tevarans believe the colonists to be barbarous witches - mostly because the colonists are capable of telepathy although they seldom practice it even amongst themselves without an explicit permission from the recipient. The Tevarans are also extremely bigoted, sexist and racist to the point of punishing any woman from their tribe with rape and death if she pursues a romantic relationship with a colonist.
However, the approaching harsh winter with its hordes of marauders and snow ghouls forces the two tribes to unite forces despite conflict (including a severe case of lynching) around the marriage between Rolery and Jakob.
Both the societies insist on the certainties of their culture although the Tevarans take excessive pride in theirs which eventually leads to their destruction.
The love story seemed very abrupt in its development, but I do greatly admire Le Guin for begining a writing tradition here that she was to follow throughout her life - the merging of socially important themes with science fiction....more
One of my reading goals for 2021 is to the read the six main books from the Hainish cycle (including re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness and The DispOne of my reading goals for 2021 is to the read the six main books from the Hainish cycle (including re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed - two books that are amongst my absolute favorites.) I hate to admit that I was entirely disappointed by this book which is first in the reading order recommended by Le Guin herself.
I first came to know of Le Guin through my partner who read her as a child and was thoroughly enchanted. While I tried to see for myself what the whole deal was about, I fell in love with Le Guin myself. I sincerely believe that there's no other writer like her, and to this day I am scornful of many of those literary awards that fail to recognise the merit of genre fiction. Anyone who's read Le Guin knows how unfair it is that she died without receiving a Nobel prize in literature. (Really, Bob Dylan's songs are literature, but science fiction isn't? Especially science fiction that's as nuanced and intricate as Le Guin's?)
However, what usually stuns me when it comes to Le Guin's writing was entirely missing in this book. Most of it was messy and aimless. The characters weren't as complex as the ones from her other popular books. The most admirable thing about Le Guin's writing to me is how reified her characters seem - they weave their stories around them in a way that makes them palpable. But Rocannon and his companions failed to make any memorable impression on me. In fact, I already can't recall most of the story.
I want to say that you can see the beginnings of Le Guin's brilliant literary career here. But if I have to he honest, I almost couldn't believe that it was written by her. It lacked the subtle amalgamation of profound themes and refined characters that I've come to expect from Le Guin's writing....more
As I read more of Le Guin's books, I understand better the value of using the circle as a metaphor and I suddenly no longer find people with circle taAs I read more of Le Guin's books, I understand better the value of using the circle as a metaphor and I suddenly no longer find people with circle tattoos as cringy as I used to. It's a dominant theme across all of her books, especially in the books of the Hainish cycle - the idea that return is as important as the voyage. Isn't it so befitting, so absolutely satisfying that you always end where you began, that is nowhere? Or as Shevek puts it in this book, we always return home so long as we understand that home is a place we have never been.
Anarres, the anarchist (really, it's postmodern anarchism, even though Le Guin used the theories of Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin in developing the world of Anarres) planet is much more than just that, it's an embodiment of its people, more specifically it's an embodiment of the ideas and the revolutionary spirit of its people. Using various ethical quandaries as plot points within the book, Le Guin examines that important dilemma that all anarchists must face: social responsibility vs individual freedom. Of course we might even argue that individual freedom will attain it's maximal potential in a society with no state, no organized religion, and no private property since everyone gets an equal share. But then again this can only be fruitful if there's mutual co-operation and mutual aid. So how is an anarchist society supposed to overcome power relations, because even if a society has absolutely no heirarchical structure, there will always be power vaccums and individual, psychological dispositions towards power. Le Guin's answer to this is as radical as the rest of the book: linguistic anarchism. Pravic, the language developed specifically for the Anarresti has no personal pronouns. As intriguing as this sounds, Pravic presents its own restrictions - it arrests the revolution temporally and creates channels for bureaucracy to flow through. And in understanding this, Shevek realizes that only by completely understanding what we're standing against can we truly oppose it. Pravic, with its strict linguistic structure does not allow this. Just as the people in power on Urras aren't very bothered about the rise of anarchism before Shevek's arrival because they know their people don't have the linguistic means to conceptualize it. We might want to destroy all our social shackles and open our minds every which way, but sometimes we are doomed to fail because of the tyrrany language imposes on us.
It's remarkable how Le Guin writes about physics and makes it sound logical and plausible without even delving into it too deeply. I love the way she writes about the experience of time in consciousness, about seeing all becoming as one being and therefore understanding the eternal return.
Le Guin has stated that Shevek was modeled after the physicist Robert Oppenheimer. This is ironic and amusing to me, because Oppenheimer was practically the head of the Manhattan project and Shevek actually risked his life to make sure his revolutionary work would not be weaponised by the 'profiteers' and would be shared openly and freely. Although, Oppenheimer was vocal about ethical science later and was also academically exiled thanks to rampant American McCarthyism, so he might be a good fit after all.
In Shevek we see the remembrance, becoming, permanence, eternal return, and revolution that is at the heart of anarchism.
You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.
This is my 100th review, and of course it had to be of one of my all-time favourite books. Given that I only started writing reviews during lockdown last year, I must have had an awful lot of time on my hands. Well, might as well enjoy it while it lasts....more
**spoiler alert** I don't know how to write a review for a science fiction book without giving spoilers even though I maintain a strict no-spoilers po**spoiler alert** I don't know how to write a review for a science fiction book without giving spoilers even though I maintain a strict no-spoilers policy in my review. Sue me.
It could be easy to read this story as a mere unfolding of events in the centre of which, Genly Ai, an envoy from Earth finds himself alone in an alien world, Gethen. But this would be an immature and extremely unfair reading of the book.
Genly Ai is an envoy of colour and he goes to Gethen on behalf of a confederation of planets. His main aim is to convince Gethenians to join this confederation. Gethen is a cold, icy planet with no birds, no mammals except for the androgynous, ambisexual humans, no rape and no incest taboo. The languages of Gethen don't even have a word for 'flight.'
Most of the book is through the perspective of Genly Ai and the world of Gethen evades him. Its lack of sexual differentiation is hard for him to interpret and so he imposes his own, narrow framework that is conditioned by his 'maleness' and heteronormativity onto the structure of Gethen. This makes him a very unreliable narrator and in this sense The Left Hand of Darkness is a postmodern novel, it emphasizes how our differences and constrained frameworks make us all unreliable narrators and that it's our duty to transcend our subjectivity by understanding it and overcoming it, especially when we place ourselves in relation to others. (Yes, science fiction can be postmodern too.)
Genly Ai constantly tries to categorize the actions of Gethenians as 'masculine' or 'feminine.' He is unable to trust any Gethenian because his own sexism makes it difficult for him to reconcile the differences between his perceived and constructed categories. Le Guin beautifully writes about the projection of one's idea of oneself onto the 'other' and the displacement of the self that is caused when confronted by an alien 'other.' This displacement is twofold, we end up not understanding ourselves or the other.
My favorite part of the book is undoubtedly the ice journey where Estraven and Genly have to rely on each other for survival. I've always loved descriptions of harsh winter and I wish Le Guin would have written at least fifty more pages of this journey. Human sensory awareness is not just a function of biology but is also modelled and modified by culture, and this idea shines through in this book.
Le Guin also believes that embracing diversity is not about forgetting our differences, but accepting them. The monologue through which Genly Ai realizes this and stops viewing Estraven as 'masculine' or 'feminine' is one of the most beautiful paragraphs of literature:
For it seemed to me, and I think to him, that it was from that sexual tension between us, admitted now and understood, but not assuaged, that the great and sudden assurance of friendship between us rose: a friendship so much needed by us both in our exile, and already so well proved in the days and nights of our bitter journey, that it might as well be called, now as later, love. But it was from the difference between us, not from the affinities and likenesses, but from the difference, that that love came: and it was itself the bridge, the only bridge, across what divided us. For us to meet sexually would be for us to meet once more as aliens. We had touched, in the only way we could touch. We left it at that. I do not know if we were right.
Although famous for its radical writing on gender and sex, this book is very textured and deals with a lot of other important themes in more subtle ways. Politics is a dominant topic and we see this in Le Guin's writing of the development of militarisation in a planet that has never known war, rising tensions between Karhide and Orgota and the eventual downfall of both the governments.
And I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, how that yearning loyalty that had shaken my friend’s voice arises: and how so real a love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where does it go wrong?
Religion, mysticism and shifgrethor are other dominant themes, but I'm sure plenty of grad students have written elaborate papers on this and I know I won't be able to explain what shifgrethor is even though I have a conceptual notion of it in my mind.
The introductory essay by Le Guin is brilliant, she writes about how she isn't extrapolating androgyny and that science fiction is not predictive. This essay also contains one the most eloquent, profound and hilarious paragraphs I've ever read:
Yes, indeed the people in it are androgynous, but that doesn’t mean that I’m predicting that in a millennium or so we will all be androgynous, or announcing that I think we damned well ought to be androgynous. I’m merely observing, in the peculiar, devious, and thought-experimental manner proper to science fiction, that if you look at us at certain odd times of day in certain weathers, we already are. I am not predicting, or prescribing. I am describing. I am describing certain aspects of psychological reality in the novelist’s way, which is by inventing elaborately circumstantial lies.
I hate this review, I can never do Le Guin any justice. She has my heart. <3...more
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