The Left Hand of Darkness – Playing Shifgrethor

The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel written by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1969 (this review is based on the 2010 edition). But it is not a cyborg-war-in-the-matrix kind of science fiction. Technology only plays a minor role. 

 

The most prominent aspect of this novel certainly is the gender topic: Human ethnologist Genly Ai is sent to the planet Winter to study the aliens there, who are basically hermaphroditic humans with a mating cycle called kemmer, which allows them to become male or female and mate heterosexually. The rest of the time, the Gethenians, as they are called, remain asexual. Also, their planet is mostly covered in snow and ice and there are no other mammals and technology is comparatively underdeveloped, they don’t have any spaceships unlike their visitor Ai.

The novel starts right in medias res, and first, you will find it difficult to find your way in this strange setting You are witnessing a royal procedure in the kingdom of Karhide. Later, you will learn that you read from two perspectives: Some chapters are narrated by Ai, the human whom the Gethenians regard as a “pervert” for being a male-only and thus in constant kemmer. Our “pervert”, however, doesn’t consider reproducing. Aprt from his scientific studies, his goal is to convince his Gethenian contacts to join the intergalactic trade union. Other passages are narrated by Estraven, the only Gethenian to offer Ai a helping hand (and thus putting himself in danger).

 

The Left Hand of Darkness (2010, Ace Science Fiction).

Unfortunately for Ai, most of the Gethenians are terribly ignorant and refuse to believe that he has come from a different planet. They just regard him as a weirdo, and even their leaders don’t recognize the opportunity to profit from an alliance with his people. In order to avoid further tensions, he withholds the fact that there is another spaceship in the orbit with more of his kind on board.

 

This promptly backfires as both Karhide, the oppressive kingdom and Orgoreyn, the equally oppressive socialist state, send him away, seeing only a loner whose sheer existence means potential trouble:

’Fear you?’ said the king, turning his shadow-scarred face, grinning, speaking loud and high. ‘But I do fear you, Envoy. I fear those who sent you. I fear liars, and I fear tricksters, and worst I fear the bitter truth. And so I rule my country well. Because only fear rules men. Nothing else lasts long enough. You are what you say you are, yet you’re a joke, a hoax. […] Now take your traps and tricks and go, there’s no more needs saying.’ (42).

On a long, long journey that is strenuous both for the narrators and the reader, Ai and Estraven form a deep friendship as both outcasts are exposed to extreme weather conditions – freezing tears included. The reader learns a lot of folklore and backstories in between their narration. 

The Left Hand of Darkness is a novel mostly worth reading for its musings on the nature of man and alien. When Ai reflects on the nature of the Gethenians, he likens them to mammals in their inability to make war. Karhide and Orgoreyn are in a Cold War – literally, as the icy weather is more threatening than their puny disputes. Later on, however, an armed conflict between Karhide and Orgoreyn seems inevitable – all signs point to disaster as the malintent Tibe, cousin of the king of Karhide wants to invade a disputed piece of land. He starts utilizing the radio for his nationalist propaganda speeches, reminiscent of the use of the Volksempfänger in Nazi Germany. 

The style is, fittingly, quite blunt and straightforward, and both Ai’s and Estraven’s reports are somewhat similar as they are both outcasts. They, especially Estraven, use a lot of strange sounding names, evoking a feeling of otherness on this weird planet in the reader,  the most prominent probably being shifgrethor. Shifgrethor is something that can be “played”, and it basically is a form of courteous conversation but at the same time a way of challenging the conversationalist’s pride, a kind of rhetorical competition.

 

The Left Hand of Darkness is an interesting novel, with a lot of thought-provoking ideas, although it certainly has some tediously stretched moments, especially the final journey at the end of the book, but otherwise, it has aged fairly well. Le Guin’s style of writing is very plain and direct, which prevents the story from shifting into a fantastic fairy tale in spite of the absence of futuristic technology in a world (still) dominated by the forces of nature.