Zana’s Reviews > The Left Hand of Darkness > Status Update

“Two years I had spent on this damned planet, and the third winter had begun before autumn was underway—months and months of unrelenting cold, sleet, ice, wind, rain, snow, cold, cold inside, cold outside, cold to the bone and the marrow of the bone...”

#NorthernerProblems

“Incest is permitted, with various restrictions, between siblings, even the full siblings of a vowed-kemmering pair. Siblings are not however allowed to vow kemmering, nor keep kemmering after the birth of a child to one of the pair. Incest between generations is strictly forbidden...”

How many books about incest have I read this year 👁️👄👁️

“If the individual was in the female role and was impregnated, hormonal activity of course continues, and for the 8.4-month gestation period and the 6-to 8-month lactation period this individual remains female. The male sexual organs remain retracted (as they are in somer), the breasts enlarge somewhat, and the pelvic girdle widens.”

“Normal individuals have no predisposition to either sexual role in kemmer; they do not know whether they will be the male or the female, and have no choice in the matter.”

Interesting

“...How did the fellow come here, riding on a comet? Astride a meteor? A ship, what sort of ship floats on air? On void space? Yet you're no madder than you ever were, Estraven, which is to say shrewdly mad, wisely mad. All Karhiders are insane....”

So rude

“I was born to live in exile, it appeared, and my one way home was by way of dying.”

Emo

‘“...Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”’

“That we shall die.”

“Yes. There's really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer.... The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”’

Damn deep

‘”You don't see yet, Genry, why we perfected and practice Foretelling?”

“No.”

“To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.”’

Deep

‘“...He might simply ask, Who'll serve me best as prime minister?—and leave it at that.”

“He might. But he doesn't know what serving him best may mean. It might mean the man chosen would surrender the valley to Orgoreyn, or go into exile, or assassinate the king; it might mean many things he wouldn't expect or accept.”’

Gotta hit chat with the detailed prompt

“I felt cut off and cowered inside my own mind obsessed by hallucinations of sight and touch, a stew of wild images and notions, abrupt visions and sensations all sexually charged and grotesquely violent, a red-and-black seething of erotic rage. I was surrounded by great gaping pits with ragged lips, vaginas, wounds, hellmouths, I lost my balance, I was falling....”

Boy what