The Left Hand of Darkness book review

 I read the novel The Left Hand of Darknessthis week, and I think it is a very profound novel. The author describes an intersexual civilization on an icy planet called winter Star. Each individual in this civilization is not naturally male or female, but rather a snail like intersex, and at the same time their sex is cyclical and only impulsive for a few days in a month. The protagonist was very uncomfortable at first, because he was viewed it in a traditional patriarchal way, but as time went on, he slowly began to accept, and eventually to accept.

 

Since I am an earthling, the way of thinking is too deeply influenced by gender when I was reading this novel, and because the author uses “he” in the story. It is always difficult for me to fully relate to that environment when imagining the plot of the novel, and it is difficult to really fully imagine an individual with no particular gender orientation. I always subconsciously imagine Estraven as a kind of feminized man or vice versa, The king was supposed to be an individual with male tendencies, and all the other prophets were supposed to be male. But they're not. They're supposed to be neutral.

 

Unlike some of the fanciful science fiction that followed, the author brought real intellectual stimulation, and the biggest question she raised was gender. The author is asking a question that most people ignore: to what extent is our civilization influenced by gender differences? At least in literature, art, and politics, almost every issue is profoundly marked by the problem of gender differences.

 

On this planet, due to the special way of reproduction, there is a real equality. To be more specific, everyone can have children, because many gender differences and inequalities have been eliminated. People seem to have no obvious distinction between the sexes, usually the personality is very mild, nothing is urgent and slow, and the punishment of prisoners is to use injection to curb their estrus only. It makes me feel that the theory "sex is the root of all destruction" is really reasonable.


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