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But do they both want the process to continue for long? The reality is that both also have incentives to restart fighting. Hamas because, after years in which the world turned away from it and in which oil-rich Arab states began making peace with Israel, the organisation’s vicious assaults have made the world pay attention to Palestine once more. Israel because Netanyahu knows that, after his failures helped pave the way for the horror of 7 October, he faces being ousted from office and prosecuted for corruption as soon as the conflict comes to an end. Most of the research and the debate in short-sightedness has focused on the effects of repeatedly looking at things up close, what researchers call close work, rather than the effects of reading in poor light.
Unfortunately, there is no convenient set of studies that have examined the long-term effects of reading in the dark. So we have to look at studies that looked at different factors and try to piece together the information. Been living there?’ he asked. I said, ‘Yes.’‘Fine lot these government chaps—are they not?’ he went on, The vast majority of what I’ve mentioned so far has shown events from an Imperial viewpoint, but there are a few books which take a look from different perspectives as well. These are all set after the Great Rift has taken place.
Just like seeing your primary care doctor, having your eyes examined at the intervals your eye doctor recommends is essential in maintaining your eyesight and eye health,” he says.
The book’s protagonist, Genly Ai, faces many challenges in his mission to the frigid world of Gethen, but the biggest is his struggle to understand a society of people who are gender-neutral most of the time, except for once a month when they go into kemmer and become either male or female. In the hands of an ordinary writer, this “ambisexual” approach to gender would be an interesting what-if. But Le Guin goes much further, building an entire world that feels so rich and undeniable that kemmer, and everything that goes with it, comes to seem like an actual feature of a society that exists. She does this with a million lovely details and a lively, chatty tone, but also by including lots of Gethenian folklore and sayings, which weave together into something that feels bigger than just one novel. I’m unsure whether Conrad was a racist or not. There is not enough strong evidence to prove or disprove such an argument within the text. But, condemning him for being a racist is a little harsh; yes, racism is terrible, I’m not saying that. However, Conrad wrote at the end of the Victorian period. Whatever you may think about his possible viewpoints, to judge him by today’s standers is flawed. If you judge him by today’s rising liberal opinion regarding race, then you can systematically extend the same judgement to pretty much every author of the period and the periods that came before it. Half the English canon was probably racist. The Victorians, as a society, were racist. So was most of Western society for centuries. It’s how they saw the world; it’s how their society saw the world. This is, of course, a terrible thing. But it was the norm. If you dismiss Conrad based upon this, then you can dismiss many, many other authors too. So, for Joseph Conrad, who may or may not be racist, to condemn Imperialism and Colonialization is kind of a big step. Before she became a bestselling author, Scarlett St. Clair was a librarian in Oklahoma City. She was still working full-time when A Touch of Darkness was published in 2019 and when the books went viral. At the same time, some feminists, including the author of The Female Man, Joanna Russ, complained about the fact that we never see child-rearing or other stereotypically female pursuits in this novel, even though every Gethenian is potentially a mother as well as a father. Le Guin made up for this, years later, by writing another short story about Gethenian domestic life, “Coming of Age in Karhide.”One can, in fact must, see such actions as provocations without endorsing further murderous violence against civilians. But if you watched only US news, you would be likely to presume that Palestinians always act while Israel only reacts. You might even think that Palestinians are the ones colonizing the land of Israel, no less. And you probably believe that Israel, which holds ultimate control over the lives of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and yet denies them the right to vote in Israeli elections, is a democracy. Don’t hold your breath! As the Hindu sacred books say, endless Kalpas will seem to pass before that glad dawn. Eye strain from reading in the dark could temporarily make it difficult to see well, which could be unsafe and uncomfortable. So it isn’t something to ignore. But eye strain isn’t a dangerous condition long term, and it generally fades away when you rest your eyes. Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Charles Marlow. Kurtz was the product of Europe, “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” and so Kurtz embodies the empirical lusts of the “crusading” Europeans in Africa (and historically to the Romans in ancient Britain) though Kurtz shrugs off the moralistic trappings of good intentions. Kurtz’s written statement, “Exterminate all the brutes” is evocative of his apocryphal dying declaration, “the horror”.
Collects Army of Darkness (1992) #1-3, Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes (2004) #1-4 and Army of Darkness: Shop Till You Drop Dead (2005) #1-4, Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator (2004) #1-4, Army of Darkness (2005) #5-7 and stories from Tales of Army of Darkness (2006). In this context, the use of the male pronoun for the Gethenians feels like an extension of Genly Ai’s own issues. And his slow progress toward opening his mind is part of one of the main overarching preoccupations of The Left Hand of Darkness: the attainment of wisdom. If you’re a fan of Inquisitor Greyfax, this four-part audio drama is the next step in her story after Eye of Night. It also heavily features Saint Celestine, and has brilliant performances from Katherine Tate (Greyfax) and Emma Gregory (Celestine). I wouldn’t say it was essential to the ongoing story, but it provides a good look at the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition post-Great Rift. That symbolic use of “darkness” is a great example of what makes this book, and others like it, so great. The “immense darkness” is simultaneously the real unknown of the jungle, as well as the symbolic “darkness” that hides within the human heart. But then it is also something that pervades society — so the narrator has been made aware that London, just upstream, really should be understood to be as frightening as the Congo. And the reader should understand that, too.You can’t separate the politics of this novel from its spirituality. People are constantly grappling with big questions about what makes a group of people into a nation, and the meaning of patriotism, alongside discussions of the balance of light and darkness (borrowed liberally from Taoism) and Gethenian cultural concepts like shifgrethor. Play readings are not just for prospective actors, but for anyone who would like to join in reading the play – or just listen to it being read. The readings are informal social occasions when the bar is open - we enjoy meeting new people and welcoming them to our club. There is no obligation to audition for the play or even to read – and there’s no need to book, just turn up!
Avid childhood readers may remember this parental admonition. You wondered then and you wonder now: Does reading in the dark really hurt your eyes? And of course ALL Adams, like you and me (and all my negligently disobedient friends!) will see our Edens forever blighted - like our dying planet - or so it will seem to us, since that first Kurtzian day of wrath. I think there was a recent poll about what was the book you have re-read the most. No doubt for me, it’s this one, read it a couple times in HS, few times in college and innumerable times since. Looks like this is the third in the Goodreads era. Even beyond the uplifting story of Genly and Estraven building a friendship, the book is suffused with an optimism that feels especially brave in 2019. We’re never given cause to doubt that the Ekumen is an enlightened society. Or that everyone can make the rough, messy journey from ignorance to awareness. Or that sharing knowledge among different cultures will lead to the advancement of science. Or that spirituality and scientific curiosity can go hand in hand.
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I recently rewatched Francis Ford Coppola’s brilliant 1979 film Apocalypse Now starring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen and so decided it was past time to reread one of my all time favorite books. This is a short work, a novella really, so I should reread this annually. On the most superficial level, Heart of Darkness can be understood through its semiautobiographical relationship to Conrad’s real life. Much like his protagonist Marlow, Conrad’s career as a merchant marine also took him up the Congo River. And much like Marlow, Conrad was profoundly affected by the human depravity he witnessed on his boat tour of European colonialism in Africa. Much later in the novel, Genly informs Estraven that in the Ekumen, women seldom seem to become mathematicians, musical composers, inventors, or abstract thinkers. “But it isn’t that they’re stupid,” Genly adds, digging himself in deeper. (He doesn’t include “science-fiction writers” in that list, but in 1969, most people would have. That same year, Le Guin herself was forced to use the byline U. K. Le Guin for a story published in Playboy, so readers wouldn’t know that she was a woman.)
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