Re-read review: 'The Left Hand of Darkness' and 'Coming of Age in Karhide' by Ursula Le Guin
'The Left Hand of Darkness' is an exploration of a society without permanent sex or gender; a very bold and interesting book, especially considering it was published in 1969. It is challenging in its structure as well as its themes, because it alternates primarily between reports from an Earthman named Genly Ai, who is stationed on the planet Gethen as a mobile of the Ekumen1, and the journal of a Gethenian named Estraven. Interspersed with these voices are reports from other Ekumen visitors, which mostly serve as anthropological exposition, and Gethenian legends, which usually foreshadow events and ideas in the main story.
Gethen is a cold world; early Ekumen visitors dubbed it 'Winter' because it is in the middle of a long ice age. The Gethenians we meet somewhat resemble the Inuit, being short and stocky with yellow-brown to red-brown skin and dark eyes with folds at the corners. They are very cold-hardy; though they make use of radios and electric vehicles and such2, they do not use central heating, perhaps to maintain this adaptation. However, the thing most offworlders notice about them is that they are 'ambisexual'. That is, most of the time they are genderless and asexual - a state called somer. Roughly every 26 days, they enter a sexual state called kemmer, in which they will take on male or female physical features. Which one depends on a complicated balance of internal hormones and the pheromones of others. It is not under conscious control, but individuals may guide the process by controlling who they first come into contact with, or by taking hormones. Some individuals 'vow kemmering' with a single partner, but others simply visit the kemmerhouses when it is that time of the month. This whole setup has a lot of implications for Gethenian society, most obviously in the fact that there isn't any such thing as men's vs. women's clothing3, or men's vs. women's work, especially regarding child-rearing. As one observer noted, "the mother of several children may be the father of several more".
Genly (or 'Genry' as the locals pronounce his name) is trying to persuade the Gethenians to join the Ekumen. He is not an entirely reliable narrator. He is trying, but the ideas he brings with him often get in the way. In the beginning, at least, his brain keeps trying to assign genders to individuals who don't have them, and he dislikes traits that he sees as 'feminine'. That sort of suggests some lingering sexism on this future earth, which is disappointing4. On the positive side, racism doesn't seem to be a thing anymore - possibly meeting aliens will do that! Genly himself is probably of distant African ancestry, as he is described as being taller and darker than most Gethenians, with a broad nose. And, to be fair, Gethenians find the idea of having two sexes equally bizarre. In the words of the King: "So all of them, out there on those other planets, are in permanent kemmer? A society of perverts?...Well, it may be the fact, but it's a disgusting idea."
Estraven5 is described as "a stocky dark Karhider with sleek and heavy hair, wearing a heavy overtunic of green leather worked with gold...and a neck chain of heavy silver links a hand broad". He6 is the King's Ear, and has been advocating on behalf of Genly. This proves to be his undoing, as the King's cousin Tibe whispers to the King of plots to undermine his power with this so-called alien, and so Estraven ends up having to flee to a neighboring nation under penalty of death quite early in the book. It takes Genly a long time to trust Estraven - which is a shame, since he is the only one who fully believes in Genly's mission, and devotes the rest of his life to seeing Gethen join the Ekumen.
1. The Ekumen is sort of similar to Star Trek's Galactic Federation, only there is actually a biological justification for why all the aliens are humans with funny ears: A huge number of planets, including Earth and Gethen, were settled by the Hainish long ago and then were left to their own devices. Most of LeGuin's science fiction stories take place in this universe.
2. There was no Industrial Revolution as we know it, but rather a slower, gentler change that didn't wreak the same kind of ecological harm.
3. For the short time that they ARE male or female they don't tend to be wearing clothes much at all.
4. In fact, Genly clearly finds women more alien than the Gethenians, and when he is asked whether - given the fact that equality isn't a given on other worlds - women are mentally inferior he doesn't say 'no' he says 'I don't know'.
5. Technically Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, with Therem being the personal name, and Estraven a title (lord of Estre). But this character is first introduced as 'Estraven'.
6. Especially given modern pronoun usage, the way Le Guin decided to call all Gethenians 'he' or 'man' is confusing...but it helps if we pretend it is the misogynistic Genly who is translating things that way!
The world-building is excellent in this, as in all Le Guin's books. We enter Gethen through the country of Karhide. One might initially think of it as feudal, since in the first scene we see a parade of almost Renaissance-level pomp featuring the king. But immediately we see that something is off, here, if this is feudal: "Next, the royal party...none of them keeping step or rank yet walking with great dignity; and among them is King Argaven XV, in white tunic and shirt and breeches...A gold finger-ring is his only adornment and sign of office." The hierarchies are weak. There is money and trade, and businesses operated in what seems like a moderately capitalistic way, but there are other features of the society that seem almost socialist; the Karhiders are very much at home with communal housing and eateries, for instance. It doesn't fit any of our earthly political-economic systems (so far), but instead feels like its own thing. The neighboring country, Orgoreyn, where both Estarven and Genly enventually end up, is more directly modeled on the Soviet Union. There is an even stronger emphasis on the communal, endless checks of one's papers, modern but rather inelegant buildings...and a secret police and gulag archipelago6. Genly notes that if he wasn't an Earthman he might not have picked up on that: "It is not altogether a bad thing to have criminal ancestors. An arsonist grandfather may bequeath one a nose for smelling smoke" Still, this knowledge isn't enough to save Genly from being packed off to a 'voluntary farm', and Estraven must hatch a plot to get him out and back to Karhide.
The Gethenians have never had a war. Skirmishes, yes, but not a proper war. Observers debate whether this has something to do with Gethenian biology - the fact that no one has permanently high testosterone, for instance, or that everyone is potentially a mother - or whether it perhaps has to do with the climate. There is no enemy on Gethen like the cold and the ice, and wars are wasteful of resources. However, at the time of this story, Karhide and Orgoreyn do seem like they might be gearing up to have a war at last. Shortly before his banishment, Estraven asks Genly if he has experienced patriotism:
'No,' I said...'If by patriotism you don't mean the love of one's homeland, for that I do know.' 'No, I don't mean love...I mean fear. The fear of the other...It grows in us, that fear...We've followed our road too far.'
On their long journey together across the northern ice sheet, Genly and Estraven finally come to understand one another, and to form a deep bond. But it is as hard a journey as the physical one. At first, when Estraven hints that they are not (yet) friends, Genly thinks:
"What is a friend, in a world where any friend may be a lover at a new phase of the moon? Not I, locked in my virility: no friend to Therem Harth, or any other of his race. Neither man nor woman, neither and both...changelings in the human cradle, they were no flesh of mine, no friends; no love between us."
Estraven finds Genly's concepts of manliness confusing - he doesn't understand why the Earthman is ashamed of tears, or why he finds certain kinds of care patronizing. But he is a bit ahead of Genly on realizing the source of their miscommunications, and takes the lead on releasing shifgrethor, which is a kind of personal pride/face-saving held dear by Karhiders that to Genly comes across as indirect or duplicitous. He notes about the Earthman:
"There is a frailty about him. He is all unprotected...even to his sexual organ, which he must carry always outside himself; but he is strong...he can haul harder and faster than I...To match his frailty and strength, he has a spirit easy to despair and quick to defiance; a fierce impatient courage."
Estraven goes into kemmer while they are traveling. The two are now fast friends, and Genly notes that they could potentially have been lovers. But both almost wordlessly agree that to pursue that path would be to risk their fragile new bond and understanding. Through Estraven, Genly becomes so used to people who are simply human that he is suddenly uncomfortable when he comes into the company of men and women again.
As for the title, it comes from a Gethenian poem that reflects the rejection of separate binary categories:
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
The afterward to the 2019 printing of the book (written by Charlie Jane Anders) concludes: Gender, sex, romance, desire, power, nationalism, oppression...they're all just stories we tell ourselves. And we can tell different stories if we choose.
6. However, there is no central leader like Stalin, nor a single party. And while some aspects of the society should be even more leveling - all children are raised in communal creches, all a person's property returns to the state on their death - it is nevertheless possible for an individual to amass great wealth during their lifetime. That is different from former Soviet countries, which still have lower wealth inequality than the US, though Russia briefly overshot in the mid '90s (https://www.gapminder.org/).
Coming of Age in Karhide
As mentioned previously, after 'The Left Hand of Darkness' was published, Le Guin was somewhat annoyed to learn that many readers pictured the Gethenians as male because she had chosen to use 'he' pronouns for all characters, and because most of the characters we meet are engaged in politics or relatively strenuous physical tasks. Other readers criticized what they saw as lingering heteronormativity, as descriptions of kemmer implied that if one partner became male the other automatically became female7. Le Guin eventually addressed both issues in the 1995 short story 'Coming of Age in Karhide'8. In this story, we hear directly from Sov, a Gethenian from Rer, the oldest city in the world. They9 remind the reader that for Gethenians it is always Year One: "It's like Rer, everything always changing, but the city never changing." Or like the Gethenians themselves, perhaps?
Sov grew up in a Hearth, a shared house inhabited by multiple families. Their family, the Thades, are a large and somewhat unruly clan, who usually kemmer as women and who never 'vow kemmering' (get married).We get to see the packs of genderless kids running riot through the house, and a Somer-Forever celebration, which is basically like a celebration of menopause:
That's what I remember vividly: in the fire-lit three-story centerhall of our Hearth, a circle of thirty or forty people, all middle-aged or old, singing and dancing...There was a fierce energy in them, their grey hair was loose and wild...their voices were deep and strong, they were laughing...I looked at the dancers and wondered, why are they happy?...Why do they act like they'd got free? What's it like, then, kemmer?
Approaching the age of kemmer sounds like a particularly intense version of standard puberty:
But why did I want to cry all the time? Why did I want to sleep all the time? Why did I get angry at Sether? Why did Sether keep bumping into me and saying 'Oh sorry' in that stupid husky voice?...My back ached all the time...Something I could not locate anywhere, some part of my soul, hurt with a keen desolate, ceaseless pain. I was afraid of myself: of my tears, my rage, my sickness, my clumsy body....It wasn't mine, it wasn't me.
A little later, Sov and Sether share their worries that kemmer is dehumanizing, that it turns everyone into just something to have sex with. Perhaps this is why the occasional people who are always male or female are viewed as freaks, either sacred or potentially dangerous. Sov meets one such person on their first visit to the kemmerhouse: Ebbeche the Doorkeeper. They reflect:
If...the first person you meet is fully male, his pheromones are likely to gender you female right then, whether that's what you had in mind this month or not. Responsible Doorkeepers, of course, keep well away...But permenent kemmer may not lead to responsibility of character; nor does being called halfdead and pervert all your life, I imagine. Obviously my family didn't trust Ebbeche...But they were unjust. He honored a first kemmer as much as anyone else.
The kemmerhouse is a rather intense place, but a safer and more comfortable one than Sov had imagined. Everyone seems to be looking out for one another, and especially to make sure the younger visitors aren't pressured or taken advantage of. The kemmerhouse has lots of rooms, cool pools, plenty of food - and "the person in charge, an old woman-halfdead...wouldn't give you any more beer if you showed signs of getting wild or stupid." Sov, who kemmers as female, first pairs off with a male-kemmering hearthmate named Arrad.
I was in love forever for all time...with Arrad. But Arrad...fell asleep...and an extraordinary person named Hama sat down by me...I realized that I must be in love with Hama, until Gehardar joined us. After that I think I began to understand that I loved them all and they all loved me and that that was the secret of the kemmerhouse.
While Hama and Gehardar's sexes aren't specified, Sov spend a lot of her time in the kemmerhouse with Berre, "my golden fish", who is also kemmering as female. Berre becomes a lifelong friend and co-worker. But if Sov has a favorite it is Sether; they seek each other out in whatever combination "every dark of the moon", and then they continue to get together and talk for hours, even in sexless old age. Sov concludes: The old days or the new times, somer or kemmer, love is love.
7. Well, the Ekumen observer describing kemmer notes that even in two-person kemmer pairings it might not always end up male-female. She didn't have any evidence of a deviation from that pattern yet, but is aware of the fact that no biological pattern is ever a 100% thing.
8. Actually, there was an earlier correction attempt in 1975, when LeGuin reprinted a pre-LHOD short story, 'Winter's King', with all 'she/her' pronouns. But 'Coming of Age in Karhide' is the proper follow-up story, which can be found in the compilation 'The Birthday of the World'.
9. I'll use 'they' as Sov's somer pronoun here, although in this story LeGuin tries to avoid pronouns except for characters in kemmer.
Overall recommendation: Yes, absolutely read these! - especially if you like more biological/anthropological science fiction, or if you have an interest in the question of what humanity might be like if gender either didn't exist10 or was fluid for everyone. That aspect feels very timely, as genderfluid and nonbinary people gain greater recognition in our own society.
10. Or rather was never socially constructed? LeGuin's hypothesis is that if permanent biological sex didn't exist, it never would have occurred to anyone to come up with the idea of gender differences in dress, societal roles, etc. Some of the Gethenians act in ways that we might call more masculine or more feminine, but to them those are just individual-level personality differences, like being introverted or extroverted.
