The Side Quest Book Club discussion

This is the place to get all spoilery.

I have given up. On this book.

The novel starts cooking about half-way through when the protagonist, Genly Ai, is hauled off to jail. I really wish there had been one more brief chapter early on from Estraven's POV so the reader would have a better idea how much danger Ai was in. Ai DOES state at the very beginning he hadn't realized how much danger his life was in, but once he GTFO of Karhide and away from crazy king Harge, I thought the danger had passed. Maybe THEN would've been a good place for Estraven to tell the reader, "Oh, he's still pretty farked..."

Alicia wrote: "I have given up. On this book."

Where did you stop? FYI, Wikipedia has a useful plot summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lef...

One more point that occurred to me in the argument against Gethen being a joyless culture - they eat five times a day. They're like hobbits with fewer hang ups about sex.

1. Yes, but they make it seem nice (you can't talk business during meals, and Genly says the food is good usually).

2. Given how Tolkein treats his women, his idealization of chivalry/romantic love, I think it's safe to assume that he transposed his Anglocentric JudeoChristian morals to Middle Earth.

Patty, I gave up when they headed to the Fastness, is that what it's called? I really liked what Lindsey had to say about the book it just didn't hook me in.