by Ursula Le Guin
Science fiction classic views Winter with an anthropologist’s eye
When I was a young man, I used to love reading ethnographies. I was turned on by the difference between clan and moiety, matrilineal and matrilocal. Later, I stumbled upon the heart-wrenching story of Ishi, the last of California’s Yahi tribe, and the anthropologist who “rescued” him, Alfred Kroeber. Which lead to my discovery of his daughter, Ursula K. Le Guin.
She was her father’s daughter literarily-speaking as well. Her books were like those ethnographies I loved to get lost in. Though the cultures and places she described were invented, they felt deeply grounded by an anthropologist’s understanding of human communal life.
Reading this book again today, I’m stuck by how contemporary it feels, as opposed to two other wildly popular science fiction titles of the era, “Dune” and “Stranger in a Strange Land.” For one, Le Guin’s speculations on the ambisexuality of the Gethenians, the inhabitants of a world also known as Winter, are a perfect fit for today’s discourse on gender non-conformity.
The organization of Gethen also resonates—the collectivized Ororeyn with its state-run farms and secret police. The increasingly militarized monarchal state of Karhide. Thick, political machinations dominate the first two-thirds of the book, first when the Envoy from the Ekumen confederation, Genly Ai, makes his case for alliance in Karhide, then when he does the same in Ororeyn. Adding to the complexity are discussions of competing religious philosophies.
The book soars in its final third—Estraven, Karhide’s disgraced prime minister, and Ai’s long trek across the polar ice. Le Guin studied accounts of polar explorers and every detail here vibrantly places us in a world of perilous beauty. The intimacy that develops between Ai and Estraven is the core of the book, one that elevates this final section beyond a tale of simple daring-do.
It’s not an easy read. Le Guin rarely explains the terminology of her strange world. A glossary and map are good companions on this journey into the bewildering landscape of the human heart. { Cross-posted at goodreads. }