Mass market, 366 pages
English language
Published Aug. 26, 2003 by Ace.
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and this is something that other cultures find incomprehensible.
The Ekumen of Known Worlds has sent an ethnologist to study the inhabitants of this forbidding, ice-bound world. At first he finds his subjects difficult and off-putting, with their elaborate social systems and alien minds. But in the course of a long journey across the ice he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians—it might even be a kind of love…
this is the first le guin I've finished. damn!! it's good!!
this is the first le guin I've finished. damn!! it's good!!
I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...
It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").
But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.
Now to …
I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...
It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").
But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.
Now to go discuss at book club #wsf
