1. This novel wonderfully mixes mysticism, science, and adventure saga in an engaging way that reflects the ideas Le Guin discusses: paradoxical politics, mythic mysticism, human evolution, and interacting with people different than oneself. I think the main theme here is the latter: living with different people and cultures. Much of the storyline and many of the monologues and conversations support this idea of differences complementing rather than separating. And the structure of the story as well—especially in the chapters that switch between Ai and Estraven's perspectives from chapter to chapter. Their adventure on the ice directly supports this theme because they have to complement each other simply to survive. They must also understand each other's differences for psychological survival. This is an interesting book that embraces mystic paradoxes, but is also driven by a well paced, exciting narrative adventure.
2. The interspersed chapters of myth storytelling really work: adding to the sense of place and the understanding of the culture. They even influence the plot in appropriate, natural ways: elements of the myths are directly quoted and indirectly discussed by Ai and Estraven in the narrative chapters. But these chapters of myth could endanger the reader's engagement with the story by breaking the narrative flow—they could come off as tangential time wasters. But they do not. Through their short length they lessen the danger of losing the reader; through their focus and tight construction they remain important to the reader's understanding of this culture; and through their echoes in the overarching story they stick to the thrust of the plot and theme of the novel, keeping these interludes integral to the whole. They help break up the longer introspections, conversations, and chapters to stave off potential reader fatigue. This novel experiments structurally, and Le Guin pulls it off.
3. One of the ways that she pulls it off is the writing quality and variety. Her writing techniques differ from Ai's chapters to Estraven's, and the myth chapters differ from both. But beyond that, one chapter is composed of journal entries, another is half taken up by a flashback, and she changes her writing techniques for these too. Her writing is incredibly varied throughout. That it remains legible, and that all of these various techniques are done well, shows the incredible breadth of her skill as a writer.
4. At times though, she tells more than she shows. This probably in part reflects the attempted alieness of the culture Ai is exploring: it would be impossible to show everything in here from the start when Estraven's reactions are so foreign to the reader. But by the end of the novel she trusts her readers to have understood her telling, so she shows more. Her showing is stronger than her telling, but I cannot fault her too much because her telling leads to more showing.
5. She translates some terms for the reader automatically instead of giving the reader another made-up word, then translating it in a dictionary excerpt. What I mean is that she describes temperature in Fahrenheit degrees instead of whatever the local word and scale might be. The alieness of the culture and world is already so well established that she doesn't need to browbeat the reader with another invented word to communicate temperature. This works wonderfully: it simply communicates with the reader while avoiding unnecessary complications in world building, and unnecessary explanations outside of the narrative thrust of the story.
6. Though she often translates terms, the made-up names are almost too much. Almost. Often, speculative fiction names every street, house, and boat with a ridiculous, made-up word, name, or title. It may be intended to give a sense of history to the place described, but provides too much detail for the reader to follow, obscures the location and blocking of characters, and is invented history that the reader cannot actually relate to. This bad habit typically does more to overwhelm the reader than inform them. Here, Le Guin almost does that, but holds back just enough to not drown the reader by trying to impart objects with unrelatable pseudo-historical import. She does this by simply using generic terms where possible. For example, she mentions that this snowy world has quite a few names for different types of falling snow, many names for snows on the ground, and still more names for ices. But rather than listing a hundred made up words and defining each of them, she simply mentions that they exist, and then translates those words as "snow" throughout. Or at least she usually uses the human words familiar to mountaineers and glacier lovers, not new alien ones.
7. Every idea she touches on early in the novel is explored in more depth later. There are some early ideas that I wanted more of after I first read them: mystic politics, androgynous culture, Ekumenical worlds, the winter weather and technology on Winter, et cetera. In chapter 11, the mystic politics are explored in greater depth. Throughout the novel, the androgynous culture is slowly explained more and more. The chapters where they cross the ice allow weather and technology to be discussed naturally. And at the end, some ways the Ekumenical worlds work are mentioned. This book deeply explores a few ideas—even going so far as to courageously criticize blind patriotism during the heart of the cold war. Instead of the usual science fiction trick of pushing a single idea to a logical extreme before examining it, this is more of an exploration of a few ideas—she calls it a "thought experiment" in her 1976 intro—and it's a great tactic for a speculative fiction novel. She pulls it off here by hanging philosophical exploration on the plot hooks of an exciting adventure tale.
8. The characters are well-realized. They're not terribly complex, but their alieness from each other helps what complexity they do have to become important. Argaven is somewhat complex, and his characteristics become important to the plot itself because of his position of power. Estraven and Ai are interesting, though Ai is somewhat passive as a person and both are reserved. They are well understood by the end, and they make sense—they don't do something that doesn't seem like them.
9. In all, what I'm trying to say is that this is good writing with a variety of experimental techniques, good storytelling with a variety of experimental structures, and a deep examination of some interesting ideas. It's unusual in all the good ways, and she pulls it off. This was a good read. Not magnificent, but solid with quality. I think the first three or four chapters were a little rough in how the world was introduced, but it all pays off by the end. And O how happy am I that she didn't start the novel with the murder. Of the last four speculative fiction novels I bought, three start with a murder. This is annoying because I want variety as a reader. Le Guin gives that to me here.
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