Comments on: The Left Hand of Darkness

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:27:49 +0000

I recommend Le Guin's essay "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" in Dancing at the Edge of the World. It's an essay she wrote about a decade after The Left Hand of Darkness and then updated after about another decade. Mostly she's talking about her choice of pronouns in the book, but it's more generally an interesting view on whether she feels it's a feminist classic.

By: Percy

Percy — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:33:10 +0000

Oh Hugh @8, please, please do tell us how you, with your superior skills as an enlightened internet-based male expert on feminism, define a feminist text. You and your lovely hat.

By: Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 07:42:59 +0000

Just read Left Hand of Darkness myself. It’s good shit. I also wouldn’t describe it as a feminist classic, but I’ll admit that’s no specialty of mine. I’d describe it as LeGuin brilliance, forcing you to think at every point about things. Gender is one of those things in that book. But it also seemed like the most mystical of her books, and not in a bad way.

By: Frankie

Frankie — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:00:07 +0000

Nope, The Dispossessed is still a masterpiece. Along with The Left Hand of Darkness, I recommend it to people on an almost weekly basis.

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:04:09 +0000

Really? I thought it’s because he wanted to make his books as silly as he possibly could.

Glass half full/empty? A story with dragons and wights is already going to be fantastic, so a character named “Edward” in a world with a history clearly divergent to our own will be more jarring to the reader in such a context than one named “Eddard” whereas one named “Morgoth” or whatever would really be estranging. Other names such as “Sandor” seem odd to English speakers, but are real eastern European names. It’s a matter of judging the appropriate degrees of strangeness.

By: sheesh

sheesh — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 07:53:21 +0000

“The unknown,” said Faxe’s soft voice in the forest, “the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion. … Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, unpredictable, inevitable — the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”

That we shall die.”

Yes, There’s really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer. … The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 06:32:11 +0000

I understand George R. R. Martin’s use of almost-normal names like “Eddard” and “Petyr” for his characters . . .

Really? I thought it’s because he wanted to make his books as silly as he possibly could.

By: Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 06:15:12 +0000

@12

Ha! Cthulhu should have more grandeur. Brownlee, alas, is too banal – but then could banality be the true essence of evil? Nice podcast anyway.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 05:41:58 +0000

On the other hand, H. P. Lovecraft deliberately used unpronouncable names such as “Cthulhu” in order to convey the utter inhumanity of his monsters.

I believe Cthulhu is pronounced “Gerry Bownlee”.

Or, you could ask the man himself for his preferred pronunciation…

http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/webpage/appendix-b-friederich-nietzsche-and-h-p-lovecraft-featuring-james-adomian-and-paul-scheer

By: Paul Williams (@psbwilliams)

Paul Williams (@psbwilliams) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 05:20:58 +0000

I’ve not read this book, I did read another of her books, The Dispossessed, which had strong feminist themes but tended more towards Marxism. I regularly re-read it in fact.