Not really a meme, I know, but I thought this was amazing and worth sharing and I didn't know where else to share it on Lemmy.
Ursula LeGuin was an incredible person and, although she did live a long life, her death was still a huge loss.
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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I just reread The Left Hand Of Darkness last month, and it's such a great book. Nothing in it is dated. It was written in 1969, and it's not just about hermaphrodites; the people of that planet are essentially genderless except once a month when, if they get together with someone else also going through it, one becomes female and the other male essentially randomly - it could switch next time. She takes that situation and explores what a society like that would be like. Further, it's told through the eyes of a more traditional male who seems somewhat misogynistic. It's an amazing piece of work, and it's amazing it was published when it was.
It was my introduction to her writing, and wow what a fucking book. I read it in two days, I couldn't put it down.
I admit I haven't read it in many years, so thanks for correcting me on the details. The way she goes in depth exploring the societies and beings she imagines while still maintaining a plausible plot and believable characters you can empathize with is really incredible. It's something other writers rarely achieve. Iain M. Banks had similar literary skills.
Well that description got me to place a hold on it at my library. I have a hard time getting into new authors and have wanted to try her work for some time
I'm confident you won't regret it. I read quite a lot of SF, both older and newer. There's a lot of classic SF that's really good, but you have to constantly keep in mind the time it was written in because the story or the characters or the dialog is dated. There was zero of that with that book, it could have been written yesterday (the setting kind of insulates it culturally and technologically). And the sensibilities are so, so far ahead of its time.
I read left hand of darkness and loved it. It was my first Le Guin. I had heard a lot about the gender themes, and was surprised to find how it does not it you over the head at all. It was a great adventure and just really stuck on your head thinking. The dispossessed was another one like that. Its message is a little bit more obvious, but is an incredibly well built world that really is anarchist. All of her works I’ve read so far are great to read. There are extremely strong themes, but she seems to present it a bit more as a take it or leave it approach than a lot of the other (cough, Heinlein) I grew up reading.
So it sounds like the Mormonism in the stormlight archive. Where it’s ever present but requires literary analysis to see