A WInter's Tale

 “The Left Hand of Darkness,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969

This is a science-fiction novel set on a planet inhabited by ambisexual humans.  In ‘rut’ – called klemmer – they can be either male or female, and then either person can produce a baby.  The story is about an ambassador from a well-organized, advanced league of 84 planets named Genly Ai and a league called Ekumen.  It is a sort of a Star Wars ‘galactic republic’ which still has sex and babies the old-fashioned way. The world Ai is visiting, Gethen, is more primitive in many ways.  One is a ‘centuries-old’ local medieval economy run by kings that has yet to experience full-scale war - Karhide.  Another is an organized bureaucracy dominated by the secret police – Orgoreyn – where everything is owned by the government and there are ‘communal’ farms.  (That should rings some bells…) They both are suspicious of space travel, his communication device and the broad social organization Ai speaks of.  Like all science fiction, there are obvious parallels and inspirations in human social reality.

I’m not sure why Le Guin wrote this except as a kind of ‘thought experiment.’  It is part of a story cycle of 6 novels, of which The Dispossessed is one of the latter.   At the time it was published it became some kind of feminist novel by bringing up genetic androgyny.  The story is mostly narrated by the envoy, with primitive tales and mystic mediations of past times interspersed into the narrative; the thoughts of an ally, who had to escape the monarchy as a ‘traitor;’ along with records of prior ‘Investigators’ who visited the planet. The envoy Ai wants to enlist the whole planet, or its societies, into the republican confederation of Ekumen.  Ekumen (‘ecumenical’) is an organizer, not a ruler of 84 worlds, so in a way a U.N. without an army, jails or a police force.  It is more interested in trade, communication and social goods … sort of a communistic international body.  On the other hand planet Gethen is very cold and isolated, and Ai suffers because his home Terra is much warmer and more comfortable.  His people call the planet Winter due to its icy nature.  There are clear parallels with Siberia and prison camps in Gethen.  Overall it’s a pretty sad place, no matter how they have babies or sex.

The envoy speculates that due to the totally ambiguous sexual role each person plays, there are no hard and fast gender roles throughout the societies … no expectations of gender, sex, personality, strength or abilities given your birth.  There are ‘kemmerhouses’ for those without a partner or still sexually high.  Ruts are periodic, lasting for 3 days, usually successful, so sexual loneliness is uncommon.  The locals mate for life, though seduction by others is possible.  You can take a drug to stop klemmering, something given to prisoners.  Even the King has a baby, but the baby dies.  This setup should thrill the trans ideology caucus. 

Le Guin graces the story with made-up words and portmanteaus, a common practice in science-fiction, along with some technical advancements.  One word – shifgrefor – is almost incomprehensible, so this method is tricky. They have electric cars and trucks on the planet, though how the Gethens figured that out is left unsaid.  There are no sign of windmills or power plants of any kind.   She creates two different though similar ‘worlds’ (societies) edging towards war due to the violent patriotic ravings of a proconsul on one side and the secret police on the other.  Ekumen abandoned war after suffering its effects for years and the envoy gets caught in the middle of their crude conflict.  A small faction in the Orgoreyn bureaucracy wants to align with Ekumen but they are a minority. Others believe the envoy, his space ship, the other planets, Ekumen itself – is a hoax.  No one in the Karhide kingdom is positive about Ekumen, so there’s that.  These reactionary nationalisms are resonant in the world today.

The Siberia of 'Winter'

The androgyny side of this story doesn’t save Gethen from being a troubled and backward place, which puts androgyny in its real location in Le Guin’s anthropological view.  Ultimately the retrograde Gethens in Orgoreyn treat Ai like a pervert, a spy or a hoax and threaten his freedom and life.  Here follows the key scenes in the book, as he and his multi-sex ally Estraven (estrogen?) escape across hundreds of miles of ice, snow, crevasses and the like, like scenes out of Jack London.  There is even some sexual tension in the tent between the two unlike friends.  

Ai's attempt to get this world to join Ekumen is like a socialist trying to convince capitalists and backward nationalists to join in a socially-useful society.  Without some form of force, the mission should be a failure.  Except in this case it is successful due to political circumstances that change, giving the book a 'happy ending.'  In a way, Le Guin probably felt like Ai, an alien on this sorry planet.  The book is not as progressive and political as The Dispossessed though it hints at a trajectory away from standard U.S. sci-fi tropes of dystopia, war, social medievalism and hyper-technical inventions.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “The Dispossessed” (Le Guin); “The Road” (McCarthy); “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (Dick); “Red Star” (Bogdanov); “People’s Future of the United States,” “Damnificados,” “Blade Runner,” “Fire on the Mountain” (Bisson)’ “Hunger Games,” “The Matrix,” “Divergent,” “The Heart Goes Last” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” (both by Atwood); “Cloud Atlas,” “Good News” (Abbey).    

And I bought it at May Day’s excellent progressive fiction section!

Red Frog

September 5, 2023