I am one very happy LeGuin nerd

[areyououtthere]

Somebody has written Left Hand of Darkness fanfic that actually reads like LeGuin.

You have no idea how surprising this is. I've done thorough google-scouring before just to prove to myself that Left Hand fic doesn't exist...because I was convinced that somebody out there would totally ruin the spirit of the story by writing Genly/Estraven porn.

Comments

[areyououtthere]

It's not so much the fact that she looked at the wings that was sexist, it's Mieville's explanation for why she does it. I'm paraphrasing here since I don't own the book, but I believe it was something along the lines of "she was an artist, and she'd been deprived of anything pretty, so she looked she was warned not to." Feels like awfully weak characterization to me, for a character who was pretty smart throughout the rest of the book, with more than a hint of stereotypical, overly emotional impulsive woman thrown in. (You could possibly argue her taking the job with Motley in the first place was dumb and foreshadows her later stupidity, but I maintain that that was a calculated risk.)

Also, to steal a line learned from one of matt_rah's friends, don't kill (or in this case severely disable) a character unless their death/disablement adds more to the story than their life did. In this case, I don't think Lin's later condition adds much to the story--even if she'd gotten out of Motley's house without looking at the wings, she'd still be pretty beaten up physically, traumatized psychologically, maybe unwilling to do any more art. Isaac would still be dealing with his girlfriend being in a very different place than him, which is the sort of tension Mieville's going for, but she'd actually be able to snap back, force him away, and otherwise have interesting interactions that might keep that last section of the book from dragging as much as it does.

On second thought,maybe I'm more opposed to bad plotting than sexism (though I think there is still some degree of sexism going on.)

[crystalpyramid]

You're right that that's not a very good line. On the other hand, in the circumstances, I'm pretty sure I'd look too, for most of the same reasons. It's the Orpheus-and-Euridice thing, the pillar-of-salt thing, something we're told is stereotypically feminine, this failure to trust males enough when it really matters and there's no other information. Isn't that a human trait, not a female one? I always hated those myths because I knew I'd be the one to look, simply out of curiosity.

And yes, I agree that it's a calculated risk, like Vegas is, and it's not like Isaac doesn't do something just as silly for his part of the book.

I think what her disablement at the end does is simply make obvious and unavoidable what her being merely traumatized might make the reader able to gloss over. In both cases, nothing will ever be the same again; in the case that actually occurs in the book, Isaac's illusions that maybe they will be are shattered at the last minute. As opposed to him having to gradually and painfully realize that over an additional 50 pages of book. It's a narrative shortcut, I guess.

And it hurts that she's a second-class citizen who the world can do this to without blinking. But that's the fault of the whole world that's been created, not the fault of the particular narrative arc, and I think the author is trying to make a point by it.