Eternal Winter in The Left Hand of Darkness

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A fitting book for these cold days, but you won't find a warm refuge in the pages of Ursula K. Le Guin's sci-fi novel The Left Hand of Darkness.

A human lands alone on a planet with eternal winter. This man, Genly Ai is an envoy - a messenger sent to the planet Winter to convince the tribes to join the Ekumen's coalition of more than 80 worlds for the peaceful and profitable exchange of goods and intelligence.

Alone, it is his mission to learn the language and culture of the various tribes and convince them that joining the Ekumen will be profitable. The novel begins a year into his stay, with Ai having made his mission known. He is set to meet with the king of Karhide to further discuss plans for joining the Ekumen, but when Estraven, Ai's local adviser, is exiled as a traitor, Ai's own existence in the kingdom is jeopardized.

He flees to another region to spread his word but runs into more troubles, as he finds himself always caught in the power struggles of the local governments. The novel follows his adventures through the planet of ice and snow, from prison to an icy wasteland and back, the ultimate friendship that rises between himself and Estraven the only thing that keeps him, and hope for his mission, alive.

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Besides the never-ending winter, the most remarkable aspect of the planet is the people. As Ai notes, they are neither men nor women, but at the same time, both men and women. The people of Winter can switch gender, but in doing so, don't discard the other gender. It's fluid, both unified and disparate, and Ai has a hard time wrapping his mind around it, and thus accepting the people as more than anomalies. But the residents find Ai perverse, too. They can't imagine being constantly in one state of being.

This simultaneous duality and wholeness is mirrored in one of the world's religions/ways of life, the Handdara, from which the book takes its name:

"Light is the left hand of darkness

and darkness the right hand of light.

Two are one, life and death, lying

together like lovers in kemmer,

like hands joined together,

like the end and the way."

I couldn't help but think of other great sci-fi and fantasy worlds (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.), where the inextricable relationship between light and dark, good and evil, is one of the central themes.

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Sci-fi isn't a genre I typically gravitate towards, as the focus is usually on world building and less on character development. Sure, there can be both, but the characters tend to be flatter - authors relying instead on the unique worlds they create to captivate readers. Winter's world was interesting, but not to the point where I felt fully immersed. The characters didn't compel me strongly, either.

What I found most compelling were the philosophies behind the plot - the relationship and essentiality of both light and dark, as well as the deep, almost painful desire we have to connect with others and know, really truly know, that we are not alone.

6/10 📕