Book Challenge 11/12
Into the home stretch of the 2016 Book Challenge! My next to last fill is the "book you previously abandoned":
"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin
When I took on the challenge right at a year ago, this was probably the first fill that I knew exactly what the book would be, and while some of my early ideas changed, this was the one I was never willing to let go of. In the year or two before, I'd tried to read this, got maybe a third of the way into it and skipped around in the rest enough to know sort of how it went, but somehow I never finished it, even though I thought it was awesome. So yeah, I knew the "previously abandoned" fill was going to be this all along, and it still took me this long to get to it.
(I've been on a LeGuin mini-binge, BTW; the non-challenge book I crammed in before this was "A Wizard of Earthsea," read for a library book discussion group.)
But really, I'm not sure what to say about this. It's a classic of feminist sci-fi, and it's awesome, although at least for me with the ideological marinade I choose for myself, it does show its age. It was published in 1969, and the gender issue --- it takes place on a planet where the people are ambisexual and genderless --- which was obviously the big deal about it when it came out is now something I could just take in as "worldbuilding, whee!" When the Terran male main character remarks on some of the natives' qualities as seeming feminine, it often comes off as quaintly sexist, and some of the reflections along those lines don't have the impact that seems to have been intended and was probably there for the original audience. (In fact the time when that struck me most was the view from outside, when one of the natives wonders what the Terran male has against crying.) The reflections on struggling toward intercultural understanding and on politics and love of country vs. jingoism felt much more incisive and topical now, for me.
Either way, though, it's an amazing book, and I recommend it highly if you haven't read it.
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you can finish in a day
-A book you've been meaning to read
-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
-A book you should have read in school
-A book chosen for you by [a loved one]
-A book published before you were born
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
Now, this does leave me with only three days for the final fill, the "book that intimidates you," but I have a plan and I think I can do it.
Cover me, I'm going in (soon).
‡ original post at Dreamwidth ‡
"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin
When I took on the challenge right at a year ago, this was probably the first fill that I knew exactly what the book would be, and while some of my early ideas changed, this was the one I was never willing to let go of. In the year or two before, I'd tried to read this, got maybe a third of the way into it and skipped around in the rest enough to know sort of how it went, but somehow I never finished it, even though I thought it was awesome. So yeah, I knew the "previously abandoned" fill was going to be this all along, and it still took me this long to get to it.
(I've been on a LeGuin mini-binge, BTW; the non-challenge book I crammed in before this was "A Wizard of Earthsea," read for a library book discussion group.)
But really, I'm not sure what to say about this. It's a classic of feminist sci-fi, and it's awesome, although at least for me with the ideological marinade I choose for myself, it does show its age. It was published in 1969, and the gender issue --- it takes place on a planet where the people are ambisexual and genderless --- which was obviously the big deal about it when it came out is now something I could just take in as "worldbuilding, whee!" When the Terran male main character remarks on some of the natives' qualities as seeming feminine, it often comes off as quaintly sexist, and some of the reflections along those lines don't have the impact that seems to have been intended and was probably there for the original audience. (In fact the time when that struck me most was the view from outside, when one of the natives wonders what the Terran male has against crying.) The reflections on struggling toward intercultural understanding and on politics and love of country vs. jingoism felt much more incisive and topical now, for me.
Either way, though, it's an amazing book, and I recommend it highly if you haven't read it.
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you can finish in a day
-A book you've been meaning to read
-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
-A book you should have read in school
-A book chosen for you by [a loved one]
-A book published before you were born
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
Now, this does leave me with only three days for the final fill, the "book that intimidates you," but I have a plan and I think I can do it.
Cover me, I'm going in (soon).
‡ original post at Dreamwidth ‡