Sci-Fi Group Book Club discussion

AN article about some collected stories

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/bo...

If I could meet one celebrity, it would be her.

Good

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/u...

Thank you for posting the interview with UKL. She's one of those authors I've always known of but hadn't really ever read, aside from A Wizard of Earthsea. After this, I'm totally picking up something from Grace Paley.

I finally started The Left Hand of Darkness last night, I'm only 30 pages in, but am enjoying it so far. It's interesting how it is hard to conceive of a world without gender, or to think of a relationship as being composed of a wife/husband, based on those gender stereotypes. I don't know if it's our natural inclination or a societal mandate, but it's too easy to assign gender roles to certain behavior. I find it interesting that Ai seems to view manipulation as a gender trait related to female, yet the self-serving politician seems like such a male concept. (view spoiler)[Of course, I'm just at the point where that character is banished for treason. (hide spoiler)]

I do find it interested that LeGuin uses the pronoun "he" as a default. It reminds me of an article I read many years ago called the Myth of the Gender-Neutral Male. I wonder if that's as pointed as it seems...that we just cannot get away from assigning someone a sex.

I think it is a great intuitive leap in science fiction story telling to predict a future in which gender roles disappear completely.

While I've certainly contemplated the concept of gender roles, I never thought much about how ingrained our sex is in terms of our identity. It's the first thing we learn about ourselves once our existence is manifested. To enter a world where that isn't even a thought it fascinating.

In addition I appreciated the different societies, and the different power plays. The early birth of nationalism was an interesting backdrop for this anthropological visitation. I did find the last bit of the story very compelling, and the trip over the ice, harrowing. (view spoiler)[Very sad about the ending. (hide spoiler)]

Hi Lynda,

Blame the English language for sex-specific pronouns. Until very recently, the (notionally) male was always assumed to include the female; e.g., 'every man for himself!' and 'one man's meat is another man's poison'. I even recall reading one commentary on Genesis (the Bible) written a couple of centuries ago that said that God created Eden and put the first two men there.

I think it is only the rise of feminism (which I support!) that has started to demand a specifically gender-neutral pronoun.

So 'he' doesn't necessarily mean a male assignment. I sometimes wonder if a better way forward might be to invent a specifically male pronoun ('ghe'?), and allow 'he' to continue to be used as a gender-neutral option by dropping the male 'g' and the female 's' initial letters; I think that would allow moderns to read older books without automatically making assumptions that might not have been intended by the original author.

But a living language doesn't follow orders; we are at the mercy of common usage.

A nice catch up about what she is up to recently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/boo...

Also this one: with some of the inspiring stuff she has been considering.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/05...

Damon wrote: "A nice catch up about what she is up to recently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/boo......"

I love rebellious old ladies like Ms Le Guin! Thank you for these links, Damon. Definitely food for thought.