Recent reading

[luzula]

Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Re-re-reread. Or something. This was my choice for book-club-at-work, and it was interesting to hear people who weren't used to SF discuss it. One of them googled the word "kemmer" expecting it to be a real English word, and when he didn't find it, he failed to pick up from context what it meant throughout the first third of the book. *boggles* But I think I would've gotten more out of the discussion myself if I'd read it with fellow genre fans.

This time around I couldn't help but notice the things about gender which felt a bit dated. Ah well. What I appreciated most this time around was the politics (last time around it was the ice journey). I've heard someone say they think it's a simplistic Cold War story, but no. Sure, Orgoreyn is pretty clearly inspired by the Soviet Union, but Karhide is hardly the US. There are thoughts about nationalism and war and social organization here that are really interesting.

Maybe I should re-read good books more often.

Naomi Mitchison: A Profile of Her Life and Work by Lesley A. Hall
(Thanks, jesse_the_k!) This was interesting as context and background, and I picked out some more Mitchison titles that I'm going to search out.

The Fourth Pig by Naomi Mitchison
A collection of re-written fairy tales steeped in social democracy, from the first half of the 20th century. Is how I read it, anyway. : ) The prose is really lovely.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Glad the context was useful!

Frankly the LHOD wouldn't have been all that if it had been published in 1980. But Le Guin's prose is always delightful.

Reminds me I haven't read Four Ways to Forgivness this decade, better fix that. And I also have Lavinia in hardback but I need a push to read it. Perhaps if I spent some quality time with Mary Renault?

[luzula]

Frankly the LHOD wouldn't have been all that if it had been published in 1980.

With regard to gender issues, maybe not. But there are many other themes in it that are worth reading for, and the basic idea of the Gethenian sexual cycle is still a very interesting one.

Sadly, I got bored with the one historical Mary Renault book that I tried. Have you read many of them?

[toft]

This made me think I should reread The Left Hand of Darkness - it's a book I feel like I should love but that never stuck with me as much as some of her other books.

[luzula]

What are your favorite of her books?

I myself didn't enjoy LHoD as much the first time around--it grew on me when I reread it. OTOH, I think I was in my teens the first time, and I've changed since then.

[toft]

My favourite of her books was traditionally The Dispossessed, but I haven't reread that one for a while. I really, really love the first two Earthsea books, and a random YA novel she wrote, A Very Long Way From Anywhere Else, was really important to me as a teenager.

[hurry-sundown.livejournal.com]

The Left Hand of Darkness is one of my favorites. I read it the first time for a college lit class; subsequent times, just because. It breaks my heart a little every time.

[luzula]

I remember last time that I cried and cried at the end. I didn't do that this time--I guess it depends on what mood I was in.

[nonesane.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Left Hand of Darkness <3 Though I get what you're saying about the dated gender language - it's the one thing that bugged me all through the book.

And I recognize myself in that bringing-scifi-to-work-book-club culture clash XD Brought The Raw Shark Texts by Steve Hall to mine and while we did get a pretty good discussion going it was prefaced by a lot of "that was weird" comments (discussion was probably saved since it was pretty 'mild' scifi set on Earth in 'modern' times, not the future).

[luzula]

I hadn't actually thought about how reading science fiction (or any genre, I suppose) relies on being familiar with the conventions of the genre before--it was an interesting realization.