Left Hand of Darkness reread: Monday
In which my prolific revisitation of LeGuin's Hugo- and Nubula-award-winning novel continues. And yes, I'm a couple days behind because I don't have The Internet consistently and also because I'm lazy.
Ch 3 - ‘The Mad King’
This is a fun chapter, and I mean ‘fun’ in that King Argaven’s reactions to everything are priceless. He is an entertaining, alarming, yet pitiable character.
[I have an annoying habit of making dramatic monologues out of fictional characters’ dialogue…there’s a reason I’m possibly doomed to minor in theatre…anyway, last year I picked on Estraven for such purposes, but I might take a shot at Argaven this year!]
I recall the first time I read this; I was seized with delight at how nonplussed Argaven was at the idea of all the human beings on other planets, who have two dichotomous genders at all times, not just during their oestrus. Perverse! Monstrous! It made sense to me. Hell, it still does, though that’s something I suppose many more happily gendered folks would disagree with me on.
“What makes a man a traitor?” The king is quite stuck on this whole traitor business. I noticed that the only instance where he is specifically said to stop pacing and shifting is when Ai is conveying this question through the ansible. This is the only thing that ever comes up in their conversation that actually seems to matter at all to Argaven. Indeed, this is the question (or one question) the whole bloody book asks.
“…only fear rules men. Nothing else works. […] But I am already afraid, and I am the king. Fear is king!” I am loving Argaven. He’s completely bonkers and easily manipulated, but something about him is uncommonly lucid.
When he’s not parroting Lord Tibe, at any rate. What the hell kind of a name is Pemmer Harge anyway? No wonder Lord Tibe is an s.o.b. It’s never explicitly stated, but one can pick up the two contradictory lines Tibe is feeding the king in order to facilitate his power grab: A. We hold fast to tradition here in Karhide. B. Here in Karhide we are boldly forging new paths.
My obscure puzzling over the placement of the preceding legend, ‘The Place Inside the Blizzard,’ neglected the obvious fact that it enumerates in a tricksy “show, don’t tell” kind of way the Karhidish norms around incest, suicide, and of course exile. The placement of it anticipates Estraven’s exile in the present chapter; just as the closing of this chapter with Ai (whose depleted brain cells seem thankfully to have grown back) resolving to go to the Fastnesses anticipates the upcoming Foretelling story ‘The Nineteenth Day.’
“When action grows unprofitable, gather information. When information grows unprofitable, sleep.” Words to live by, always and anywhere. Good luck ‘gathering information’ from the Handdarata though!
Ch 4 - ‘The Nineteenth Day’
The citation with its “recorded by G.A.” tickles me for no particular reason. Today I’m going to say this is my favorite of the interspersed tales, though this may not be true when all is said and done. Liberal dash of the old “why it’s folly to seek to know the future” theme, teaspoon of the tragical, tablespoon of the ironical, and add to taste speculations on the shared personal name of Ashe between two people named in this book (Berosty, Foreth).
When the Weaver goes through with a pro bono Foretelling, he warns Herbor that “the asker pays what he has to pay.” Herbor does pay, later on, with his life, but for some reason the connection never made itself present to me before: that is exactly what he said he would pay, but which the Weaver himself had no use for. (Side note: just how big is this stone table thingy Berosty is tossing around? Seriously, what gives?)
Like Berosty, King Argaven was asking the wrong question in the prior chapter, obsessed by it to his own blindness and misery.
The tale also exemplifies another theme present throughout the book, that the answers to the wrong questions may not bring us the satisfaction we’d hoped. Ai will begin to find this out in the next chapter, though it will be many chapters more before he understands it.
Ch 3 - ‘The Mad King’
This is a fun chapter, and I mean ‘fun’ in that King Argaven’s reactions to everything are priceless. He is an entertaining, alarming, yet pitiable character.
[I have an annoying habit of making dramatic monologues out of fictional characters’ dialogue…there’s a reason I’m possibly doomed to minor in theatre…anyway, last year I picked on Estraven for such purposes, but I might take a shot at Argaven this year!]
I recall the first time I read this; I was seized with delight at how nonplussed Argaven was at the idea of all the human beings on other planets, who have two dichotomous genders at all times, not just during their oestrus. Perverse! Monstrous! It made sense to me. Hell, it still does, though that’s something I suppose many more happily gendered folks would disagree with me on.
“What makes a man a traitor?” The king is quite stuck on this whole traitor business. I noticed that the only instance where he is specifically said to stop pacing and shifting is when Ai is conveying this question through the ansible. This is the only thing that ever comes up in their conversation that actually seems to matter at all to Argaven. Indeed, this is the question (or one question) the whole bloody book asks.
“…only fear rules men. Nothing else works. […] But I am already afraid, and I am the king. Fear is king!” I am loving Argaven. He’s completely bonkers and easily manipulated, but something about him is uncommonly lucid.
When he’s not parroting Lord Tibe, at any rate. What the hell kind of a name is Pemmer Harge anyway? No wonder Lord Tibe is an s.o.b. It’s never explicitly stated, but one can pick up the two contradictory lines Tibe is feeding the king in order to facilitate his power grab: A. We hold fast to tradition here in Karhide. B. Here in Karhide we are boldly forging new paths.
My obscure puzzling over the placement of the preceding legend, ‘The Place Inside the Blizzard,’ neglected the obvious fact that it enumerates in a tricksy “show, don’t tell” kind of way the Karhidish norms around incest, suicide, and of course exile. The placement of it anticipates Estraven’s exile in the present chapter; just as the closing of this chapter with Ai (whose depleted brain cells seem thankfully to have grown back) resolving to go to the Fastnesses anticipates the upcoming Foretelling story ‘The Nineteenth Day.’
“When action grows unprofitable, gather information. When information grows unprofitable, sleep.” Words to live by, always and anywhere. Good luck ‘gathering information’ from the Handdarata though!
Ch 4 - ‘The Nineteenth Day’
The citation with its “recorded by G.A.” tickles me for no particular reason. Today I’m going to say this is my favorite of the interspersed tales, though this may not be true when all is said and done. Liberal dash of the old “why it’s folly to seek to know the future” theme, teaspoon of the tragical, tablespoon of the ironical, and add to taste speculations on the shared personal name of Ashe between two people named in this book (Berosty, Foreth).
When the Weaver goes through with a pro bono Foretelling, he warns Herbor that “the asker pays what he has to pay.” Herbor does pay, later on, with his life, but for some reason the connection never made itself present to me before: that is exactly what he said he would pay, but which the Weaver himself had no use for. (Side note: just how big is this stone table thingy Berosty is tossing around? Seriously, what gives?)
Like Berosty, King Argaven was asking the wrong question in the prior chapter, obsessed by it to his own blindness and misery.
The tale also exemplifies another theme present throughout the book, that the answers to the wrong questions may not bring us the satisfaction we’d hoped. Ai will begin to find this out in the next chapter, though it will be many chapters more before he understands it.