Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

15 reviews

mrgriffit's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A masterclass in storytelling. About how people connect with each other, their country, and their world. It’s at its best when the main characters are pushed together and the only flaw I can find is that it doesn’t get to the point where they are “together” until much later in the story than I wished.

On an altogether different note, it feels as though in some ways, the journey that began in Rocannon’s World is finished here. The gift of Mindspeech is finally used for its true purpose, connection and understanding. A tool to bring people together, not to dominate or destroy.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Incest, Misogyny, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Murder, and Pregnancy

gilnean's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Incest, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Ableism, Child death, Cursing, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Excrement, Vomit, and Sexual harassment

ylimets's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal death, Child death, and Incest

angorarabbit's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

TLDR:  A bit challenging, it needs a closer reading than many first contact sci-fi novels, but is worth the effort for the ideas and the writing. 

 

Clarketech:  Mind speech, near light speed space travel, ftl communications, Chabe stoves, cryosleep or hibernation during space flights. 

 

Context:  I loved what had been published in the Earthsea series in the late 1970’s so tried to read this then. Sadly, my head was too full of wizards and dragons for me to appreciate this gem. I am sorry I didn’t rectify my error before now. 

 

I did have difficulty getting into the novel. The book is written first person singular with short hearth-tales, interspersed for the first quarter of the novel. Then a second voice is added. You then go back and forth between povs with the only indication being the context of the chapter.. 

 

Ms LeGuin does not hold your hand introducing you to this new world. While my edition did have a few helpful footnotes and a Gethenian Calendar and Clock addendum; there are many words are in the native languages with little to no explanation as to what an earth translation might be. It took me awhile to understand that Estraven was writing in a journal and that the strange words were dates. 

 

I have read that there is some controversy over the use of the pronoun he to describe the inhabitants of Gethen. Ms LeGuin has appologized for this. I would point out that he was used instead of they in the US in the 1960’s The author has also acknowledged and apologised for the presumption that all Gethens were heterosexual . So much of the novel being Genly’s report, I don’t think there is enough information to judge how the Gethens actually felt about orientation. I would agree that Genly does appear to be homophobic or perhaps in denial over his own orientation, especially in the middle chapters. 

 

I also wondered at Genly’s statement that very few women were known as mathematicians, composers, or inventors. He seems to be at a loss when talking about women at all and seems to be uncomfortable with what he sees as feminine characteristics. It seemed that the Ekumen would have an equal division of labour on its ships. In fact the first Ekumen off the ship in the last chapter is identified as female. One would also think that their first contact on a planet would be more comfortable with any gender. 

 

There are many thoughtful and beautiful passages in the book and it is a great starting point to discussing gender and orientation. I did not see any passages that would be problematic for a tween to read. I would like to get the collected Hainish Cycle and read the novels and stories in sequence, plus reread this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcohol

gender and orientation diversity is complicated

acemummerz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, and Deportation

Minor: Child death, Incest, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

sunn_bleach's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I read "The Left Hand of Darkness" in 2018 and didn't really get it. Yeah, I got the subversion of man-as-default, but I didn't get some of the deeper considerations Le Guin was going for regarding societies that previously did not know war and totalitarian systems that don't match one-for-one to our earthly systems. I also found Genly and Estraven's trip over the icefield monotonous - but after four years of serious mountaineering pursuits, it's anything but that, and Le Guin masterfully captured the sheer stress of being on the run for one's lives while also underneath the beauty of the stars. I'm tempted to argue that the gender fiction aspect falls prey to TVTropes' "Seinfeld is Unfunny" given how much has progressed in half a century (like the he/him pronoun aspect not being as radical), but the fact it still makes me think shows it's relevant 25 years into the new millennium. Masterful book, and a good example of "the worst criticism I have is that it could be longer"... and the ending felt a little saccharine, losing the conceit of it being a report. But still!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Gun violence, Incest, and Violence

Minor: Child death, Sexism, Pregnancy, and War

bookishperseus's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It did take a while for me to be able to start this book, and at times I found it incredibly slow, complex or tedious.

I did keep reading it because there was a small interest as to what would happen, even though this book is following what could be considered a 'usual every day life'.

Towards the end, I found the final 3 or 4 chapters actually quite interesting. Not something I'd read again, but glad I finished it!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Deportation

Minor: Body shaming, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

amaya_jam's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i see the intrinsic value of this book and it brings forward a lot of interesting concepts but i found the story ultimately unsatisfying.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Slavery, Vomit, and Trafficking

Minor: Child death and Pregnancy

kaziaroo's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Synopsis: an envoy is sent from a vast, interplanetary alliance to a wintery planet to recruit its inhabitants, a people of no gender whose bodies instead develop sexual organs for just a few days each month; in his quest, the envoy becomes embroiled in the politics both within and between two feuding countries, while being drawn to one figure in particular.

This was very interesting to read, especially from a 21st century perspective where we are accustomed to the boundaries of the gender binary being pushed, twisted, and ignored in wonderful diversity. We are also mostly familiar with, and accepting of,  the gender neutral pronoun "they" being used exclusively to refer to a particular person. 

In The Left Hand of Darkness, the main character, Genly Ai, is a poor representative of planet Earth in this respect; he is frequently disgusted by the Gethenians' bodies and attitudes towards sex and constantly tries to fit them and their characteristics into gendered boxes. He refers to the Gethenians using masculine pronouns, and seems to reject their femininity; it is only when one of them cries, or flirts, or is distressed, that he thinks "Ah ha! There is his femininity!" when it has been there all along. Genly's awkwardness around the Gethenians' sex and even his own fumbling description of what defines a woman, paired with the fact that he is the minority, the alien, on this planet, betray the notion that perhaps it is us earthlings who are the silly ones, forcing divides and highlighting differences between genders where there are none, and believing ourselves superior because of it. The Gethenians have no gender, yet they also have so far had no testosterone-fueled war or sexism (although they are not perfect; some parts of the book had strong echoes of 1984). On the other hand, the society of Earth that we see glimpses of is cisnormative and allonormative; at the beginning of the book, Genly cannot fathom a sexless and genderless society

and yet by the end he is in the beginnings of what I would tentatively call a queerplatonic relationship with no sex and no gender roles

. 

I enjoyed this book a lot, and although I would have liked an earlier explanation of certain concepts (mostly kemmer), once I understood them I could fully immerse myself in the world. The Gethenians' societies and customs felt incredibly detailed and well thought out for such a short novel. It was interesting reading from the perspective of both the alien visitor and the visited, except this time it's us earthlings who are the visitors.  I particularly loved the scenes journeying across the icy landscape. I highly recommend this book, but it's important to remember the publication date before complaining about the intricacies of gender politics – it was ahead of its time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, and Acephobia/Arophobia

Moderate: Gun violence, Miscarriage, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Excrement, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Child death, Rape, Pregnancy, and War

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Physical abuse, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicide, Torture, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail