(no subject)

[skygiants]

Fledgling, Octavia Butler's last novel, is sort of . . . . well. Okay. The experience of reading Fledgling is a bit like this:

OCTAVIA BUTLER: So I hear that the kids these days think that vampires are pretty hot. You know, sexy blood-drinking, being in sexy vampire thrall, just plain old vampire sex, that kind of thing.
BECCA: That is true of some kids these days I guess, it is not so much my bag but to each their own.
OCTAVIA BUTLER: WELL, I bet it is suddenly less sexy when the vampire in question is an amnesiac juvenile who looks like an eleven-year-old girl!
BECCA: Octavia Butler I am not sure I like where you are going with -
OCTAVIA BUTLER: Who literally makes the people she feeds on addicted to her vampire venom so that they'll die if they're separated from her, and exerts vague mind-control powers over them, which makes all the sex she has with them highly dubcon as well as awkwardly pedophiliac, even though she doesn't realize that she's dubconned them until after it happens! AREN'T YOU UNCOMFORTABLE NOW.
BECCA: YES, IN FACT. I am VERY uncomfortable now!
OCTAVIA BUTLER: LOLOLOLOLOL okay now that we've gotten rid of all the people who heard this was a vampire novel and are here for the sexy vampire times, we can start talking about the things I am actually interested in talking about, which are the ethical questions raised when one intelligent being is required by its nature to impose symbiosis on another intelligent being, and the kind of communities that that necessary symbiosis creates, and the ways that people adapt to becoming posthuman sort of without their consent, and the ways that people react to posthumans (or post-vampires as the case may be) and also racism.
BECCA: Yes, these are all really interesting things to talk about, and your interest in these topics is a large part of the reason why I read your books! And once you get past the squick this book is actually much less bleak than most of your other explorations of these topics, and it's nice that for once in a Butler book the whole of the human race is not doomed, but -
OCTAVIA BUTLER: Oh right, I guess I also needed a plot for the second half of the book while I'm busy showing Shori the vampire and her symbionts adapting to vampire society? VAMPIRE LEGAL THRILLER, GO.
BECCA: . . . okay? I'm pretty sure the plot is besides the point. Anyway, I do find the vampire (or Ina) society that you have set up really interesting, but . . . Octavia Butler, I know you want your books to be sort of uncomfortable to read, but seriously was it really necessary to squick us all out THAT MUCH?
OCTAVIA BUTLER: Yep! :D
BECCA: I AM NOT SURE I AGREE.

So, um, yes. Fledgling! As with all Butler books it was an interesting read, if uncomfortable in SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ways than most of her others. But in a lot of ways, also similar to her others too. Vampire protagonist Shori's voice is a lot like Lauren Olamina's in Parable of the Sower; the dubcon-symbiosis of the vampire communities reminded me in different places of Dawn and Mind of My Mind and Clay's Ark. I think it's worth it if you've read a lot of Butler already to see what she's doing differently here (and can deal with the fact that she starts out the book trying her hardest to make you REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE), but I would definitely not tell new readers of Butler to start with this one.

Semi-relatedly: while I was looking for reviews on the internet, I totally found Fledgling listed on a "If You Like Twilight, Try . . . !" page, along with L.J. Smith and the Sookie Stackhouse books. Which I think is the FUNNIEST THING I HAVE SEEN ALL WEEK.

Comments

[rahkan.livejournal.com]

So, once upon a time I got an email over some Stanford list that was all like, "This writer, Octavia Butler, is going to be speaking at [some place, I think it was that Black community center near Roble]."

I was all like, "WHAT?!!?! WHEN?!?!?!"

And the email was all like, "In half an hour!"

So I raced down there, and she talked about how she'd had writing block for seven years while she was trying to finish her parable series! And that she had finally (like, just 2-3 years ago) managed to get out of it by writing a fluffy little vampire novel that had just come out. I was made very happy by that.

And then she died.

[skygiants]

Yes, I remember that story. I also remember spending the past FIVE YEARS being bitter that I was not on the right Stanford email lists to find out about that until after it happened. (Or that I didn't check my email enough, either is equally possible.)

I do, however, love that this was Octavia Butler's version of 'fluffy'.

[rahkan.livejournal.com]

As I recall, I text messaged you about it, but you had better things to do.

[skygiants]

That must be a cruel lie, I can't think what I possibly would have had to do that was better. (What I do believe is that you text messaged me but I had forgotten to charge my phone, because that is the story of my life.)

[agentclaudia.livejournal.com]

I keep on meaning to read more Butler because she is really really awesome, but every time I go to the bookstore I buy things I think will creep me out less instead.

I will totally fix this sometime soon!... >.>

[skygiants]

She is absolutely worth reading, and her books are so fascinating. I would . . . recommend lining up something cheery to grab right after one of her books to balance it out, though. Pairs well with a light Pratchett, that kind of thing.

[batyatoon]

Pairs well with a light Pratchett

Becca, you are my favorite. *giggling*

[skygiants]

<333 :D!

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Oh man this sounds right up my alley. I read Kindred for a sci-fi class and... haha, WOW, I had never read anything that challenged me so, and was so very difficult read, emotionally. I loved it, but I'm pretty much unable to re-read it, since I know I would just cry and cry forever.

She's such an amazing writer, though. And I am so damn sick of all the 'new twists' on vampirism when the actual implications are NEVER EXPLORED or are just asked and then never get brought up again. So hallelujah to her for doing that! *adds to list*

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

hahhahahahahahah oh god I just found a review on Amazon comparing it to Twilight are you serious? XD

[skygiants]

I am pretty sure that Octavia Butler spent a lot of time while she was writing this book just cracking up to herself to herself picturing the faces of the people who came to Fledgling from, say, Anne Rice. Twilight would probably have just made her laugh even more.

[skygiants]

Oh man, I think all of Octavia Butler's books are fascinating, but I think Kindred is her best - it's so complicated and thorough and complete. I love it and, like you, I don't know when I will be able to reread it.

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

I would definitely not tell new readers of Butler to start with this one.

What would you recommend new readers of Butler to start with?

[skygiants]

It depends! If you want a really good introduction to her work and themes, I would say to start with Dawn, which deals again with her favorite themes about forced change and becoming posthuman (and also hilariously involves the least sexy 'and then we mate with tentacle aliens' plot in existence) but is not as unrelentingly bleak as some of her other stuff.

On the other hand if you just want a really good book that will tear you apart but is not all that much like her other stuff, I would say to read Kindred.

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thank you! I've been meaning to check out her work for some time now -- maybe your recs will be the push I need. :)

[skygiants]

If you read them, you should tell me what you think! :D

[marfisa.livejournal.com]

Is "Mind of My Mind" still in print? That's a bit less relentlessly "the human race as we knew it is now doomed, and here's how I rather ambivalently lived through it" than the Dawn and Clayark series, and a bit more like a cross between a thoughtful-but-relatively conventional teenager-with-psychic-powers book and "What if Theodore Sturgeon had been black and female?"

[skygiants]

I think it is, but I don't know, I always feel Mind of My Mind is bleaker even than Dawn just because everyone in it is so UTTERLY AMORAL. Most teenager-with-psychic-powers books don't end up with their protagonist mentally enslaving a whole bunch of people!

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, shouldn't that be, "If you like Twilight, try NEVER READING THIS EVER"??

Also

I would definitely not tell new readers of Butler to start with this one.

Not even me? :D

[skygiants]

"If you like Twilight but found yourself secretly wishing that Edward Cullen was an eleven-year-old girl with six or seven other dubconned human boyfriends and girlfriends and also an eventual vampire fiance, MAYBE GIVE THIS A GO!"


. . . . I dunno, man! On the one hand, okay, yes, IT IS RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS. *laughing* On the other hand I still kind of think it's better to start with the one with the tentacle aliens!

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

You know, that sounds really interesting.

Although I might be affected with how the books that have made a most lasting impression on me lately have been the ones that made me go "This SUCKS."

[skygiants]

Octavia Butler is always memorable. Nothing I've read of hers has been a comfortable read, but it has all definitely made a lasting impression!

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

There's no Butler in my library. :-( There was none in my previous town either. Shame on them. I could buy some, I guess, but "uncomfortable" does have me wary. Your post on this particular book, though, didn't make it seem so much uncomfortable as it made it seem like Let the Right One In, which admittedly I haven't read, only seen. (But the paedophilia and castration are pretty broadly hinted at even in the film.)

Maybe I should do long-distance loans again.

[skygiants]

Well, when I say 'uncomfortable' I generally don't mean so much "I AM SIDE-EYEING YOUR MORAL CHOICES" as "Octavia Butler wants to make you think hard and she doesn't particularly care if you're happy while you do it," if that makes sense. (I was thinking about Let The Right One In just from what I've heard about it - I haven't seen or read it, only read summaries - but I would say the feel is a bit different from what I gather of that, because in Fledgling Shori finds out that this is all very normal for vampire society and just sort of adapts to it. So she is very pragmatic about it all, and you're forced to filter in your own moral discomfort with everything that's going on around her voice, which is preoccupied with other concerns.)

ALL OF WHICH is a long way of saying, I think owning Butler is worth it! But again, this isn't the first one I would buy. If you're only going to buy one, make it Kindred.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of extra wary of Kindred? Because of that comment about crying and crying and not wanting to reread. It made me think of Requiem for a Dream, which is a prime example of "very good story I never want to relive again, ever." (There's a reason I haven't dared to see Black Swan yet!) I get overinvested in stories, so when there are preventable unhappy endings (as opposed to the Love Story type of unhappy endings where bad things just happen) I can't shake them, because I keep wanting to fix them. (Then again, sometimes it's worth it, like Janne Teller's Nothing. Gave me existential angst like WHOAH, but SUCH a good book.)

[skygiants]

Well . . . it's hard, it's absolutely hard, but it's not 'rocks fall and everybody dies', it's not hopeless. And the thing about almost all Octavia Butler books is that they aren't about preventable bad things. They're about the hard things that you have no choice but to live with, and how you deal with them.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

ack, I hope I did not put you off reading it!

It is not a desolate book without hope, like @bookelfe said. But it deals with extremely difficult issues and racial history and it basically forces you to examine privilege, all and any of it (especially if you yourself are white).

It is emotionally gripping and exhausting but also has a very cathartic feel to it. Like, I do not regret reading it at all; I think it is one of the best books I have ever read in my life. But... it is not a book that you re-read. Sort of a ONCE AND IT WAS AMAZING AND NOW I PUT IT ON MY SHELF AND OCCASIONALLY REFLECT ON IT SOBERLY.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Okay, that does sound interesting!

The whole privilege thing is... I tend of have to make myself examine it when it's framed in US terms, if that makes any sense? I mean, the specifics are so wildly different that it basically takes a lot of translation: "Okay, so if instead of group X I think group Y, and instead of historical factor A it's historical factor Z... whoah, that says some really nasty things about me." There's been some local stuff that hits home right away, but with the anglo stuff I pretty much have to will it to do so. I'm now curious to find out if this is any different!

Anyway, long-distance loan seems like a good start. I just have to finish the dozen library books I've got, first.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes! It may have a bit of a different impact if you're not from the US (since it deals expressly with US slavery), but I imagine there are a lot of similar occurrences in history elsewhere that are pretty nasty in the same regard. (blargh there I went assuming everyone is from the US)

It's also just extremely well-written and amazingly researched and etc etc.

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I'll stick to Buffy the Vampire Slayer for my vampires, thank you very much.

[skygiants]

This definitely should not be on an "If You Liked Buffy, Try . . ." either!

[eredien]

but . . . Octavia Butler, I know you want your books to be sort of uncomfortable to read, but seriously was it really necessary to squick us all out THAT MUCH?
OCTAVIA BUTLER: Yep! :D
BECCA: I AM NOT SURE I AGREE.

I saw Butler speak at my college about a year before she died, and asked her, basically, "so, I see you've written elsewhere that other people found Doro creepy, but in your head you got used to him, and even kind of fond of him. Didn't that squick you out a little, that somebody you thought up was obviously so evil, even to you, and to your readers, but as a writer you didn't care?" She was basically like, "well, he's an evil guy, but I'd had that character so long in my head that he wasn't just evil to me--it was just the way he was, you know? And I'm not him, and he's not me."

As a writer, I really respected that, and had asked the question because as a writer I was having a hard time dealing with being comfortable with my own rather, well, less-than-savory characters and their depravities. And in the end, writers are gonna write for themselves, mostly, and consider it a privilege when anyone else wants to read their work.

But as a reader, I realized I would have preferred a different answer. It took me years to figure that out.

[skygiants]

Huh! That is really fascinating - and you know, it doesn't really surprise me, when I think about it, just because that's the way it works in her books too. There is this thing - whether it's a person like Doro, or a disease like the clayark disease or whatever - and at first you go "Oh, this is EVIL, this is AWFUL, how could anyone live with this?" But then you do live with it, because you have to, and it comes to the point that you're just used to it - "oh, well, Doro, that's the way he is, I'll figure out how to get him not to kill me and then we live with it."

Which is not necessarily the way one wants to think about the evil in the world; one wants to think that the moral judgments one makes can matter. Though it is, yeah, a very good answer for a writer, when you know a story has to be the way it is, and there's not much you can do about it.

[jothra]

I am now in love with the idea of Octavia Butler trolling her way through the sc-fi and fantasy genres, LOLing the whole time.

[skygiants]

READER: Hey, first contact novel!
OCTAVIA BUTLER: But I bet you weren't expecting the tentacle porn.
READER: Even if I was expecting the tentacle porn this is NOT THE TENTACLE PORN I WAS EXPECTING.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: So I hear you like psychic kids? I would like you to meet Mary.
READER: D: D: D: D: D: D: D:
OCTAVIA BUTLER: Have fun!

READER: Hey, post-apocalyptic rebuilding of society with an actual hopeful ending! Awesome!
OCTAVIA BUTLER: >:D
READER: . . . what do you mean the sequel starts with EVERYONE IN A PRISON CAMP?

READER: Oh look a time travel novel! This'll be - okay okay I am building the blanket fort in advance this time.

[hafl.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should totally read some books by this author, but the only ones available at the library are translated and I have horrible distrust of sci-fi and fantasy translations. I'll borrow some, but I'm fully prepared to be horrified.

Also, for vampire novels, you should totally read Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian which is more or less about fighting Dracula with the powers of research and contains evil vampire librarians.

[skygiants]

I hope you will not be horrified! I don't really read Butler for the prose anyway, though - I mean, it's very clear and serviceable prose, don't get me wrong, but it's the ideas that stand out in her books.

I have heard of this! I do like the power of research. :D

[lacewood]

I have only ever read 1 Butler short story (slightly terrified to try the full dosage so far), but the thought of someone expecting Stephanie Meyer vampires and getting HER is still COMPLETELY HILARIOUS. (A clean up crew should be required to stand by to pick up the pieces after) XD

[skygiants]

DID YOU READ THE STORY WITH THE ALIEN MPREG

[lacewood]

I'M... NOT SURE. MAYBE? DID THE MPREG INVOLVE PREGNANT REPRODUCING SPACESHIPS?

[skygiants]

NO I DON'T THINK THAT'S THE ONE

FROM WHAT I HAVE HEARD YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU'D READ THE MPREG ONE

[lacewood]

.... Now I'm getting kind of curious. +_+

Any tips on where to find this story (or what it's called)? XD

[skygiants]

It's called "Bloodchild!" In her collection called, shockingly, "Bloodchild and Other Stories." I haven't actually read it yet, but it's absolutely on my list.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Oh, do. It's really an excellent story -- I find Butler easiest to take in moderate doses, so it has many of her favorite themes but more tightly focused.

[skygiants]

It's definitely on my list! (And by this point, I've read so much of her work that I think I may as well be a Butler completionist. GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL.)