I’ve been reading a lot of books and a lot of reference material but very little in the way of novels for the blog so you’ll have to be content with one of my textbooks instead. I have awesome textbooks, I may repeat this statement.

I first read this book in the 1970s but I was far too young and it went in one eye and out the other totally bypassing the brain. If you’d been tracking the flow of words with some scientific equipment you could have watched it happen. It’s an incredibly far reaching novel and I’m really chuffed to have to study it.

The plot is about a human who comes to a planet they call Winter with the view to bringing the inhabitants of the planet into the union of many planets. What Ambassador Genly Ai doesn’t fully understand is that the people of Winter have no fixed gender, they are hermaphrodites and because of this there is no male/female domination. It’s a difficult concept to understand and I sat reading the book in amazement that someone could come up with this concept and convey it just using words.

Le Guin’s writing is economical. The copy I have is only 202 pages, the plot is simple but the details rather complex and there are several other challenging concepts explained. To give you an example of her economy with words. Ambassador Ai has to walk down a corridor towards the King, he’s just heard some news which is likely to negatively affect his mission and he describes the length of the hall “a six months’ journey.” Only four words to illustrate the length of the hall, obviously it’s not literally six months but emotionally it feels like it and we understand how hard this walk is with only that one clause. Just brilliant.

Do I recommend it?

Totally and absolutely. Without any hesitation. Shall I stop now?