Prior to reading this book, I was only familiar with Ursula K. Le Guin insofar as hearing her name and titles come up here and there in conversation. I didn't know anything about her really. When I mentioned to a friend I was going to read Left Hand of Darkness, they said it's like the best nonbinary media representation there is. That's super high praise coming from an enby, probably! Upon actually completing it, this book is dope as hell, it's pretty true.
What I liked most about the story was its worldbuilding. When it comes to sci-fi, or maybe fictional settings in general, it takes a lot for me to suspend my disbelief. I can't pinpoint exactly which aspect of the worldbuilding was the most satisfying, it was kind of how everything fed into everything else. The middle of the story was bogged down a little bit by the boring politics, but it still only added to the cohesion of the world itself. It was all so fleshed out, how the astronomy works, how it influences the climate, how that influences the Gethenian cultures, how that influences societal structure, how that influences foreign affairs. Addressing the elephant in the room, the world and its characters were built on the high concept of a hermaphroditic human physiology. As much as I liked it, it was intriguing and compelling for the entire book, still I have some conflicted feelings about it.
Personally, most of the time I was terrified of kemmer. To me, gender is already body horror, so the idea of a hormonal cycle turning someone into a sex that they might not even want in a matter of minutes is just horrible. In the beginning of the book, there was one Karhide official who leaned more femme, and told Genly in a defeated tone that they never turned into a woman before, only a man. That like automatically broke my heart and it painted over my perception of the concept. It was revealed much later in passing that people in Orgoreyn can take drugs that choose which sex they'll assume during kemmer, which confirmed that dysphoria definitely still existed even in this genderless world. The other part of kemmer that got to me was how it's an estrous cycle. Being asexual, it also disturbed me to think that Gethenians are essentially ace until they're biologically forced not to be. Plus, there's the 3 or 4% chance that it's permanent and you're gendered and horny for the rest of your life, doomed to be outcast as a Pervert? Awful. And the fact that everyone can tell when it's happening to you just by looking at you, that sucks so bad. On top of all that, since the humans are hermaphroditic, that means the sex they assume is influenced by the people around them, and I absolutely hate the idea that someone can force others into a specific sex if they wanted to. In the initial Investigator's log, they hypothesized that rape cannot happen on Gethen, which I think was basically disproved when one of the Orgoreyn politicians attempted to manipulate Estraven during kemmer. "Damn them, these unclean men."
But those are all personal reactions to the book's core concept. Practically, I think it was expertly wielded as a social commentary. As the narrator for most of the story and the main protagonist, Genly Ai, the human from Earth sent as Envoy to the alien world of Gethen, the book was written from our gendered point of view in a genderless setting. Genly, a man, struggled the whole time to see Gethenians as fellow men, and it colored his judgement. He kept the big picture in mind that Gethen is part of mankind and related to their humanity, but socially Genly had a harder time accepting their androgyny than their alienness. He/him pronouns were used for every single person in the world, except the one Gethenian near Genly who turned female during kemmer. I think it makes most sense as a reflection of Genly's unavoidable bias towards gendered thinking, particularly as a man who feels most familiar and comfortable around male traits. When the narrator switched to Estraven, I figured the real pronouns being used were neutral in their native Karhidish, but translated to default masculine in English. I know the story was written in the 1960s though and they/them pronouns probably just didn't really exist yet, and I think I remember reading somewhere the author later said she regretted using masculine pronouns, but at least it was possible to suspend disbelief given the situation.
The way the book discussed gender was interesting. Most of it was indirect, enveloped in subtext more often than not. There were of course the times when Genly had a sudden reminder that the people around him were androgyne (more like something reminded him of femininity). What I'm more fascinated by is how the central theme of the story, especially in the second half, was that gender is inconsequential to the humanity of the Gethenians or the depth of their bonds. Only once was it explicitly called into question whether Gethenian societies were generally more passive/pacifist because of less masculinity or simply because of the harsh climate. That question was asked early enough in the story to make the reader constantly think about it during the rest. Paying close enough attention to the behaviors of Genly and Estraven while they were hiking the Gobrin Ice, a lot of the social customs of the populace shone through the experiences of basic survival. In the same survival arc, the story presents a question and then fails to answer itself: which differences between men and women are innate or learned? Unsatisfactorily, there probably isn't an answer, we will probably never know. The gender roles we are subjected to in the real world are constructed in our own contexts, a comparison is pointless. If gender roles were objective, then there would be something useful in comparing to the complete absence, but they aren't, so there isn't. I suspect it's loosely related to the Handdara wisdom from much earlier in the book, that it's unwise to ask unanswerable questions.
Additionally, I really enjoyed the overarching theme of dualism. Almost everything is caked in it, Karhide and Orgoreyn, Haddara and Yomesh, ignorance and knowledge, darkness and light, cold and warmth, betrayal and loyalty, all the doublespeak; basically everything except male and female, which is instead injected by Genly and the reader. I felt so excited and vindicated when Genly taught Estraven about yin and yang.
I loved the characters too if it wasn't obvious already. Estraven is my favorite, they were so smart, always steps ahead of everyone, and yet also impressively grounded and humble. Their death was so quick and unceremonious, a sudden reminder of the pettiness of politics and the illusion of justice, right after the survival arc where politics were forgotten.
Part of me could go on and on about the rest of the cool stuff, honestly though it feels a little like repeating myself. I just loved the themes, premise, world, cultures, climate, conlang, twists, direction, characters, etc. It was a wonderful time, and I had a lot of fun turning the pages. I sing its praises and I highly recommend it. I should read more Le Guin sometime.