Ah, The Left Hand of Darkness! That book is just pure magic.
The thing that amazes me is that it is from the 1960s, and from before Le Guin even identified as a feminist--and even with all the tremendous progress that has been made in some places in such thinking (multiple waves feminism, LGB rights, trans and genderqueer movements) it STILL holds up as a meditation on gender, and as a story.
Maybe we're still on the Mishnory road. (Also, that metaphor--I cannot tell you how useful it has been to me and my life.)
ALWAYS HAPPY TO FACILITATE REQUESTS FOR MORE LE GUIN!!!
If you've just read Left Hand, you really have to read "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" the essay she wrote about it and then revised. It's in most of her edited collections, including the 2nd ed of The Language of the Night and also Dancing at the Edge of the World. Personally, I think Language of the Night is a must-read on its own.
Le Guin is at heart a short story writer, and much of her short work is her strongest. (Even her best novels tend to be succinct.) I highly, highly, highly recommend her relatively recent collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories, which includes some of her most recent Gethen-set work, though that is not as memorable as the mind-blowing title story and "Paradises Lost," a novella about a Chinese generation ship en route to colonize a new world.
I also adore somewhat older A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, the title story of which is her first story set on O (a planet on which all marriages include 4 partners; Le Guin has described some of the O stories in Birthday as Jane Austen in a different society), and a really doozy. (Not many short stories make me cry.) I also really love "Newton's Sleep" (a clever and creepy critique of special-people-escape-troubled-earth-by-fleeing-to-the-stars-and-oh-look!-they-all-happen-to-be-white story) and the very political "The Rock That Changed Things," which always makes me shiver. There are people who think this collection is "too political" or "too feminist" except for the final story--which just about everyone loves--but they are most definitely not me.
I adored Lavinia, which is close to straight-up but very smart mythical/historical fiction about the character from the Aeneid.
And I would very highly recommend both her YA fantasy series: all 6 books of the Earthsea Cycle (whose world-building she revised as her politics shifted and understanding of feminism grew) and the more recent trilogy the Annals of the Western Shore (Gifts, Voices, and Powers).
I would avoid The Telling, which is probably her weakest book (down there with City of Illusions), though I personally had a lot of fun arguing with it when I read it. I could go on--basically ask me about any Le Guin book you're interested in and I will most likely have an opinion!
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The thing that amazes me is that it is from the 1960s, and from before Le Guin even identified as a feminist--and even with all the tremendous progress that has been made in some places in such thinking (multiple waves feminism, LGB rights, trans and genderqueer movements) it STILL holds up as a meditation on gender, and as a story.
Maybe we're still on the Mishnory road. (Also, that metaphor--I cannot tell you how useful it has been to me and my life.)
ALWAYS HAPPY TO FACILITATE REQUESTS FOR MORE LE GUIN!!!
If you've just read Left Hand, you really have to read "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" the essay she wrote about it and then revised. It's in most of her edited collections, including the 2nd ed of The Language of the Night and also Dancing at the Edge of the World. Personally, I think Language of the Night is a must-read on its own.
Le Guin is at heart a short story writer, and much of her short work is her strongest. (Even her best novels tend to be succinct.) I highly, highly, highly recommend her relatively recent collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories, which includes some of her most recent Gethen-set work, though that is not as memorable as the mind-blowing title story and "Paradises Lost," a novella about a Chinese generation ship en route to colonize a new world.
I also adore somewhat older A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, the title story of which is her first story set on O (a planet on which all marriages include 4 partners; Le Guin has described some of the O stories in Birthday as Jane Austen in a different society), and a really doozy. (Not many short stories make me cry.) I also really love "Newton's Sleep" (a clever and creepy critique of special-people-escape-troubled-earth-by-fleeing-to-the-stars-and-oh-look!-they-all-happen-to-be-white story) and the very political "The Rock That Changed Things," which always makes me shiver. There are people who think this collection is "too political" or "too feminist" except for the final story--which just about everyone loves--but they are most definitely not me.
I adored Lavinia, which is close to straight-up but very smart mythical/historical fiction about the character from the Aeneid.
And I would very highly recommend both her YA fantasy series: all 6 books of the Earthsea Cycle (whose world-building she revised as her politics shifted and understanding of feminism grew) and the more recent trilogy the Annals of the Western Shore (Gifts, Voices, and Powers).
I would avoid The Telling, which is probably her weakest book (down there with City of Illusions), though I personally had a lot of fun arguing with it when I read it. I could go on--basically ask me about any Le Guin book you're interested in and I will most likely have an opinion!