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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - King Bob - 02-03-2020
Thought I'd read this since it's supposed to be a classic. It was good. In fact as far as creating a world goes, it was great. But it didn't read that well for me. I found it slow going. I assume all of you have at least some idea what it's about so no need to say. There is an overlong section toward the end about crossing a glacier. I wondered if she'd done research that she didn't want to go to waste. It could have been shorter and still worked. So I'd call it good but not great.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - Drunk Monk - 02-04-2020
I know I read this during my LeGuin phase but I can not remember a single thing about it.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - Dr. Ivor Yeti - 02-05-2020
I’m with DM on that
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - Drunk Monk - 02-05-2020
Ha! So glad I'm not alone on this.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - cranefly - 02-05-2020
I read The Left Hand of Darkness back in the '70s as a college class assignment.
And nope, not recalling any of it -- not even the meaning of the title.
Likewise for The Dispossessed.
No. Wait a second. I do recall Zeno's Paradox getting a heavy-handed treatment in one of these -- likely the latter. Like it was some great mystery when in fact it's just the phrasing of the problem that makes it seem paradoxical. The damned turtle is going to run into that wall, and it'll get a good headache if it's sticking its head out at the time.
No disrespect meant for LeGuin, though I don't think math/physics is her strong suit.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - Greg - 02-05-2020
Hmm, I've only read the one LeGuin book but I can't remember it's title. It's about a socialist community and a capitalist community set on two adjacent planets or one is on the moon of the planet. And it involves a socialist mathematician going down to the capitalist planet to do some work for the capitalists. It's all very allegorical.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - King Bob - 02-05-2020
Greg, that's The Dispossessed.
Since none of you remember, Left Hand of Darkness is about the planet where the people are genderless except when in heat, and then they can become either male or female. It doesn't quite work because LeGuin keeps calling the main alien "he" when I felt like she should have introduced a term out of their language for it. A representative from a galactic federation arrives to invite the planet to join, and he narrates most of it.
I'm thinking that her only great book is A Wizard of Earthsea, and the rest of the Earthsea trilogy is weak.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - Drunk Monk - 02-05-2020
I kinda remember Earthsea. I remember liking the first book and then struggling to finish it. I also remember that when you lined up the old paperbacks together, a little fish was formed on the spine of the books. I thought that was cool and echoed it with KFTC (line up a year's worth of issues and look at the spines).
Long after I read LeGuin (high school) I learned of her Daoist leanings and occassionally thought I should reread her stuff to see if that was more apparent now that I know Daoism a little better. But I generally don't read fiction anymore. So I probably never will.
RE: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - thatguy - 02-06-2020
I’m currently in the middle of Left Hand of Darkness. I have been for months. It’s a slog and I find it hard to pick back up. I too can’t remember it which makes picking it up all the more difficult.
—tg
Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - thatguy - 07-27-2021
I finished a book!
I think I started reading this one last fall, or really early spring. I'm familiar with Lathe of Heaven as, though I haven't read it, I've seen two different productions and thought the story compelling. This is the first Le Guin book I've read and I found it somewhat tedious to read, hard to pick up and get into, easy to put down. A bit like homework.
I don't have much more to say about it.
--tg
RE: Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - King Bob - 07-29-2021
Actually there was already a thread for this one: http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum/showthread.php?tid=5292
RE: Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - Drunk Monk - 07-30-2021
That’s my line...
RE: Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - King Bob - 07-30-2021
TG - if you read one book of hers, it should be A Wizard of Earthsea. It's fairly short and done in an enjoyable slightly fairy tale-ish style. Probably also a big influence on J.K. Rowling.
RE: Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - thatguy - 07-30-2021
I was sure there was an existing thread, but I did a search for “Guin” and I didn’t see it in the results. Looking now, I had even posted in that other thread.
Oh well…
Agreed on what KB said about the gender thing. It was confusing and could have been helped by a unique word since there were unique words for everything and a glossary in the back of the book to figure out WTF the characters are saying in a given sentence.
I’ll check out Earthsea…I’m 3 chapters in to Moby Dock and I was thinking of starting Foundation before the series comes out. I also just remembered that Mark Twain had a piece that was only to be made public 100 years after his death (which was a few years ago now). I forgot what it was (short essay, novel, autobiography…?) but I’ve enjoyed his writings before so I may go search that out.
—tg
RE: Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin - King Bob - 07-30-2021
Actually I'd only recommend the first Earthsea book; the second two don't have the same tone and aren't as good IMO. And years later she wrote two more that were focused on female characters from the earlier books.
Moby Dick is probably gonna take you a while. That's one of my all-time favorites. Have to re-read it again, but probably not this year.