#gender and the holograms
Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness was a big deal in feminist science fiction for being one of the first widely popular and critically acclaimed works to do cool shit with sex and gender (which was certainly nothing new, but previous such works had rarely “taken off” the way LHoD did). It was criticized for referring to the genderfluid characters with the indefinite “he,” which was a la mode in style guides at the time, instead of using alternating or gender-neutral pronouns. In time Le Guin came to agree with this criticism; she considered her decision not to take things further one of her biggest literary regrets, stating that “I am haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns.”
I tell you this only because the phrase “I am haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns” is one I think about a lot.
A lotta people in the notes have pointed out that it is consistent with the novel’s internal logic, given that the point-of-view character is an idiot from another planet who struggles to understand Gethenian society. & as a person with blue hair and pronouns in real life, I mostly agree with that interpretation (and it holds up incredibly well for a novel written in fucking 1969) but honestly one of LHoD’s biggest weaknesses in my opinion is that Genly comes across as such a gigantic asshole that he can be kinda hard to read about
