rsadelle: (Default)
[personal profile] rsadelle posting in [community profile] 50books_poc
People who know me know that I like sci fi. Octavia Butler is pretty much the classic PoC sci fi author. Aside from this, all I knew about her was that she writes vampire books and she wrote Kindred. I did not read anything about Kindred before I requested it from the library. I kept waiting for the vampires to show up, and only realized 35 pages in that it was not, in fact, a vampire book. D'oh!

Kindred is instead the story of Dana, a black woman married to a white man in 1976, who keeps traveling back to the nineteenth century at moments that allow her to save the life of her white, slave-owning ancestor Rufus.

I read the first thirty-some pages on Monday, another forty-some pages on Tuesday, and the rest of the book in one sitting yesterday, a sitting where I kept thinking, "At the next section break, I'll get up and do my weight lifting," but didn't. That's a pretty good sign that it's an engrossing, compelling story.

I have this idea in my head that Octavia Butler is a Serious Writer who deals with Serious Issues, which she does. The book clearly tackles both the issue of white slave owners fathering children with their black slaves via rape and the issue of how easily people adapt to their circumstances, even if those circumstances mean they become slaves. The Serious Issue that seemed hinted at but not directly addressed is how their time in the past changes Dana and Kevin's relationship in the present of 1976.

Some of the dialogue is a little stilted, and not the nineteenth-century dialogue, either, but the 1976 dialogue. I suspect most of that is simply the formula of writing in the 70s (I can't remember the last time I read a non-children's book written before 1990, so I don't really have anything to compare it to), but there's at least one spot where the message is showing a little too clearly.

In terms of broadening my experience of the world, I have to admit that I had a hard time really accepting how easily Dana adapted to being a slave. I'm not sure how much of this is the writing not pulling me far enough into her head and how much of it is my white privilege that means I've never had to think about what it would be like to be a slave, which is clearly something Dana lives with even before her time travel experiences. I was skimming Racialicious earlier today, and in recounting a discussion about BDSM race play, Andrea Plaid says, "Personally, I think of race play and, yeah, I feel the body memories of slavery, too," which makes me more convinced it's my white privilege showing.

Date: 2009-04-10 12:52 am (UTC)
ext_31455: (Default)
From: [identity profile] papertigers.livejournal.com
to elaborate, in case that brief comment came off as snarky or dismissive, my intention was to point you toward some Black women writers who DO write vampire books, in addition to suggesting reasons you might have been misled into thinking Octavia Butler was one. Fledging was OB's last book and the paperback was published the year after she died, so it received a lot of attention in sci-fi/fantasy circles. I have bronchitis and am running a fever, so I'm not terribly eloquent just now.

Date: 2009-04-10 04:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jacquez.livejournal.com
I've been avoiding Octavia Butler because of my perception that she wrote Serious Books about Serious Issues.

She kind of does, though I wouldn't say they are the type of book where the reader ends up rolling their eyes and going "GOD, Octavia, use Western Union already". (Except, possibly, Parable of the Talents.)

Date: 2009-04-10 07:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jacquez.livejournal.com
I will say that PotT seeming issue-hammery may have more to do with me and my belief system than with Butler's writing. :)

Date: 2009-04-10 10:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jacquez.livejournal.com
I'm an atheist humanist with Serious Issues with organized religion. (But I repeat myself!) Parable of the Talents deals partially with the clash of competing belief systems, and how different organized religions (including the fictional one invented by the protagonist of the earlier book, Parable of the Sower) function and cope.

The whole thing gave me mental hives in a weird way that I am not sure I can explain without spoiling the book!

Date: 2009-04-12 03:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jacquez.livejournal.com
Definitely start with the first book in the series!

Date: 2009-04-10 05:46 pm (UTC)
sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)
From: [personal profile] sanguinity
There was a big fuss about Fledgling even before she died, actually. It was the first novel of hers in eight years -- fans had been chomping at the bit, wondering if she had given up writing. Then when it finally came, it was completely out of left field. ("A vampire book? Is this the same Octavia Butler?") She gave a couple interviews that suggested it was a writer's-block-clearing book, and so some fans hoped that the next book might be more "typically" her--

And then there was no next book.

Date: 2009-04-10 07:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jacquez.livejournal.com
Yeah, I was hoping after Fledgling that she'd end up finishing the last Parables book, but...no dice.

:(

I hadn't made it to Fledgling in my to-read stack by the time she died, and after that I saved it up for quite a while because I didn't want to have finished everything.... dammit.

Date: 2009-04-10 08:27 pm (UTC)
ext_31455: (Default)
From: [identity profile] papertigers.livejournal.com
oh, I remember all that too, but I was trying to get at why someone unfamiliar with her work might associate her with vampire books, since she wasn't around to clarify when the paperback was published. I've been putting off reading Fledging, not because it's a vampire story but because I don't want to not have anything else new of hers to read once it's done. so it's sitting on the bookcase like a redheaded stepchild, although I've had the paperback since it came out (I almost never buy books in hardcover).

Date: 2009-04-10 08:30 pm (UTC)
sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)
From: [personal profile] sanguinity
*nods*

My favorite author ever, whom I have been reading for the past twenty-five years and pretty much grew up with, has become elderly and doesn't publish much anymore. One of his more recent books sat unread on my shelf for an age and a day, because I couldn't stand the possibility of maybe not having any more of his to read.

Date: 2009-04-12 02:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] b-writes.livejournal.com
I think I'll do the same thing when Terry Prachett publishes his last.

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