All posts tagged: Left Hand of Darkness

Dear Ursula…

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When I first began writing seriously a few years back, I enrolled in a local creative writing intensive program. During one of the workshop sessions, we were asked to read something we loved in order to figure out how great writing sounds. Naturally I settled on your writing and found a passage in my battered Ace trade paperback edition of The Left Hand of Darkness. Chapter 18 begins: “Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep in a dark and quiet room, I have for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. The wall of the tent leans up against my face, not visible but audible, a slanting plane of faint sound. The susurrus of blown snow, nothing can be seen. The light emission of the Chabe stove is cut off, and it exists only as a sphere of heat, a heart of warmth. The faint dampness and confining cling of my sleeping bag, the sound of the snow. Barely audible, Estraven’s breathing as he sleeps. Darkness. Nothing else. We are inside, the two of …

BBC Radio’s Adaptation of The Left Hand of Darkness

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So this came into my feed: Adaptations to beloved stories are always risky. But having listened to the preview of what is undoubtedly the most moving passage in what is arguably my favourite book, I think they will do justice to the work. The words have changed compared to the first paragraphs of Chapter 18, but the haunting beauty of the scene is as I remembered it, back when I first lingered on each sentence, back when I first read it aloud in my writer’s group, and now as I recite it again in my mind. From memory (pardon the punctuation mistakes): “Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep in a dark and quiet room, I have for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. The wall of the tent leans up against my face, not visible but audible, a slanting plane of faint sound. The susurrus of blown snow, nothing can be seen. The light emission of the Chabe stove is cut off, and it exists only as a sphere of heat, a …

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On Love, Change, and Possibility

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I don’t usually like New Year’s resolutions, but I couldn’t help but be inspired by the list over at Philosophy for Change (a blog everyone should check out). Number two on that list most resonated with me, because it speaks of a theme I’ve found myself returning to again and again on Ekostories. It’s a subject I’ve been grappling with over the past year: The power of love to affect change.

Left Hand of Darkness Word Cloud

Winter’s Tale: The Left Hand of Darkness

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“Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the left hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.” – Tormer’s Lay, p.233-234 Some stories enter our lives as flings, escapist tales that thrill and delight but leave little lasting impact. Others are more serious fare, demanding commitment and care. The going can be frustrating and difficult, if we are receptive and the tale rings true, we can find ourselves changed in some subtle way. After all, a good story, like a good relationship, has the power to help us learn about ourselves and grow in ways we could never discover alone. I wasn’t too impressed the first time I read The Left Hand of Darkness, arguably the most influential science fiction novel of the twentieth century. The beginning was glacial in pacing (pun intended if you’ve read the book), the alternating narration was jarring, and the linear narrative I expected from the genre was constantly interrupted by …