Octavia E. Butler's Birthday - Some Thoughts

[julieandrews]

Today (June 22nd) is Octavia Butler's birthday. She would've been 61 this year.

The first book I read of hers was Parable of the Sower and I really liked it. It was unlike other science fiction I'd read. I went on to read more of her books... I think I've read a little less than half now. I read enough to start noticing themes that I didn't agree with, that remind me of themes in Orson Scott Card's books. So like with OSC, I have a love-hate relationship with her work.

But I would've loved to have met her in person. She's one of Clarion's success stories. And Clarion does have many success stories, but she'd be near the top, for sure.

I wish I'd known it was her birthday today, yesterday, when I was in Borders. Because now I want to pick up her collection of short stories, Bloodchild and Other Stories.

Read more about her on Wikipedia.

Comments

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

Just curious -- what are the themes that you don't agree with in her work?

I'm still mad at myself; I had the chance to meet her at Readercon a few year ago and couldn't work up the nerve to approach her. =(

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

I think it's harder to talk to someone you admire than say.. a writer you've heard of, but haven't read anything by.

I'm not very good at articulating the theme, especially when I haven't read anything by her or OSC recently. But it's got to do with people being forced or coerced into relationships and into reproducing, for the survival of or for the good of the human race.

It'd be one thing if those people fought against it (preferably successfully), but when they put up a struggle and ultimately cave in, agreeing that yea.. the human race really does need me to have sex with this person to make a baby.. It's just not a theme I like reading in large doses.

Maybe I should reread a couple of her books and maybe a couple of OSC's and look at this more closely. If it's bothering me, then there's probably something worth exploring there. And then I could explain myself better, with examples.

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

I guess forced/coerced relationships is a running theme in her work, although I don't think it's restricted to reproduction. The underlying theme as I see it has basically been, "Human beings doing what they have to do to survive," however distasteful that might be. It's especially noticeable in Kindred, which has nothing to do with reproduction, and the "Patternist" books, where reproduction is only one of the things the characters have to do to survive (they also have to kill loved ones, enslave others, become the very thing they hate the most, etc). I see this as a consistent theme of oppression, not reproduction -- the fact that people who are in a powerless position end up doing a lot of horrible stuff (including breeding their own replacements) and dealing with a lot of horrible people, just to get by.

I think this theme is clearer in the Bloodchild collection. The title story "Bloodchild" is explicitly about reproduction, but the fact that the burden lies on men in this case (they have to incubate alien larvae... surprisingly non-squirm-inducing) makes it a bit clearer that Butler's not advocating forced women's sexuality as the solution to all of humanity' ills. =) And she explains the underlying theme of that story as "paying the rent". Basically the oppression theme again -- when you're in a powerless position, you do what you have to do to get by. The rent must be paid, even if it's paid in flesh and blood, and when you're truly powerless, that's often the only currency you have.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. The theme I was trying to describe as a subtheme of oppression, or arising out of it.

I wonder if that can be extended to OSC.. where his humans are controlled and oppressed by an AI orbiting satellite in the Memory of Earth books, adults in Ender's Game, and God in some of the other stories.

What bugs me is clearer in Memory of Earth than in Octavia Butler's books. Where a gay man and a woman who seems not so keen on the idea get married to have children for the sake of the human race, or whatever, because they were told to. And then they decide it's not so bad after all and they've found happiness together. But that tends to open up the whole can of homophobic worms, and that's not quite what my issue is.

---

"Bloodchild" definitely sounds interesting. And sounds like it could be a contender for a retrospective Tiptree.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Just for the record: pick up Bloodchild and Other Stories even if you can't do it for her birthday. Don't wait for next year. It's got some of the most amazing short stories I've ever read. And her essay(s?) in there really speak to beginning writers like us.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

I love essays on writing.