#1: Dawn, Octavia Butler

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

Dawn is the first volume in a trilogy by Octavia Butler named first Xenogenesis and later Lilith's Brood, the second name being something of a spoiler.

Lilith Iyapo wakes, again and again, in a cold, featureless room. She is interrogated by unseen beings who ask her questions. Eventually, she learns that-- as she had feared-- the Earth has been made uninhabitable by nuclear war, and that-- as she had never suspect-- alien beings have take in the Earth's few survivors. They plan to repopulate the Earth with the few humans left. But they also have other desires, which only become clear as the novel continues.



The aliens want to blend their genetic materials with the humans; it is, they explain, the only way their species can continue. Lilith's confusion and mixed feelings, and her eventual willingness to work with the aliens (Oankali), become the focus of most of the book. The second third or so has Lilith training a small group of humans to inhabit the Earth to come. Things, as they so often do, don't go well, and the book concludes with a pregnant Lilith vowing to do better with the next group she trains.



There are some really nice details here; the multicultural cast, the way the humans initially react to Oankali with horror and revulsion because of their utter strangeness, the way the (never explicit) sexuality is expressed. Oankali have three genders: male, female, and ooloi, and none are dispensable, emotionally or for reproductive reasons.

There are bits that date the book too; rape comes up more often than I think it would had the book been written in 2007 rather than 1987, and homosexuality is only mentioned a few times, generally obliquely. (I am not quite sure what the Oankali would have done with homosexuals; maybe ignored them, maybe incorporated them somehow? But the question is never addressed; the few times homosexuality comes up is in the context of homophobia.)

Overall, it was excellent, but I want a break before I read the next book. Rebuilding humanity always exhausts me.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

This is a great review, but the last line made me giggle ever so.

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yeah, those apocalypses are so exhausting. I've never been able to read any end-of-the-world trilogy back-to-back, though. It's too much for me.

Thanks so much, glad you liked it!

[kynn.livejournal.com]

I am ignorant -- can you explain the difference between how rape was handled in 1987 and in 2007?

I read this book myself some years back and I enjoyed the review, but I don't understand that one sentence you wrote. Thank you, whatever you decide!

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

It's very kind of you to assume it's ignorance on your part rather than a lack of clarity on my part, heh.

Rape is just really present here, as a reality and a threat, and while I think it's a natural extrapolation and something that shows up quite often still in sci-fi and fantasy, I think a lot of female/feminist sci-fi and fantasy writers of later years backed away from it a little bit-- that the threats were varied, and not just rape. I think there's a lot of, er, rape fatigue among younger/newer writers, and in the other book I've read of hers-- Parable of the Sower-- it didn't stick out quite so much (though rape was a very real threat, and IIRC at least one of the characters was raped).

Of course, Lilith had the attempted rape early on in the book so that was pretty foremost in her mind, but it still stuck out at me. And then there's the man who tries to rape one of the women and hooks up with her later-- Butler says no one's held responsible for the wild things they do when they first Awaken, but it still stuck out at me as skeevy, and something a younger writer might not do.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

It's very kind of you to assume it's ignorance on your part rather than a lack of clarity on my part, heh.

Well, I don't know much about how feminist sci-fi/fantasy has handled it either then or now, so I do thank you for the explanation!

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

I am hardly an expert! But it's in my experience, anyway.

homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I adore Octavia Butler and I find the Xenogenesis books endlessly fascinating (especially the complexity of the decisions Lilith has to make), but the rigidity of the sexuality in them always feels off to me. Everyone seems to take same-sex desire as a horrifying prospect, and the Oankali and Oankali-human sexuality is so completely biological it leaves no space for desire that isn't connected to reproduction. I've read a lot of commentary about how queer the books are with the third gender and alien sex, but despite that the biologism always makes it feel kind of heteronormative to me. I've been thinking maybe I should read the books again, since it's been a few years, and see if I still have that impression...

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

(Also, thank you for the review! I have never posted in this comm before so it is probably a little random to just start rambling off on my own train of thought... :) )

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

(This is my first review, so I'm delighted to have some rambling!)

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[sanguinity]

I can see where you're coming from, but the biologism seems very not-human to me. Humans aren't the only species that uses sex for social purposes, but social sex isn't really that common of a trait. Heteronormativity is constructed as if it's biology-centric, but in practice it's so obviously not that it's hard for me to read the Oankali biologism as a similar thing to heteronormativity.

That all the human men in the novel are homophobic about sex with the ooloi strikes me less as "there are no gay men", and more as "emotions are running high, straight men are feeling hugely threatened, and this is a bad time to be out." Plus, maybe, heteronormative selection by the Oankali -- they are the ones deciding who gets to be awake and present, after all. But yeah, that's probably ret-conning on my part as much as anything else, I imagine; just because it can be explained doesn't mean that it wasn't just a plain old oversight on Butler's part.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

I would figure the Oankali would select people who they felt were receptive to their model of family-building, absolutely, but I do think it's an oversight. And in 1987, it was a far more explicable oversight-- I found it far more 'of its time' than deliberately heteronormative. It's amazing how much changed and so quickly, really. (In some respects, at least!)

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, the rigid heteronormativity struck me too. I can believe the Onkali don't have anything equivalent to same-sex relationships since they control everyone's relationships and genetics so closely (and definitely have a sex=reproduction attitude), so you have to wonder how they would feel about it amongst humans.

There's also, as I recall, an assumption that what everyone wants is an identical monogamous lifelong heterosexual(+ooloi) relationship. This prevents not only same sex relationships but polyamory and even short term serial monogamy etc. There's people who clearly wouldn't have stuck with their relationship were it not for the Onkali, but no sense that it goes against their nature (apart from the +ooloi bit), and the people outside the Onkali camps don't seem to have a problem with that aspect.

Have you read any of her other books? "Fledgeling" has a non-gender-specific biological-symbiosis thing, and the immortal shapechangers in "Wild Seed" very occasionally switch to the opposite gender sex (though they're never in a same-sex relationship, even with each other)

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Lilith doesn't even feel fully comfortable holding Joe's hand without their ooloi there.

I have read one other book, but it's Parable of the Sower, which was significantly more reality-based.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, it's hard to compare those books in this regard, especially since I read them first so wasn't thinking about it.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I've read all her other books and could probably provide an encyclopedic rundown of every portrayal of homosexuality in them at the drop of a hat. I will resist, however. :)

Fledgling isn't one of my favourites overall, but I did like the portrayal of sexuality in it. Anyanwu has a female partner that it's implied she's sometimes female-bodied with in Wild Seed, I think?

Thematically I think my discomfort with Xenogenesis comes down to the way Butler applies her fascination with biology, which is central to so many of her books, to sexuality. I can maybe buy that it would be a 1:1 relationship for the alien species, that their norms would be universal, but I know it isn't like that for people and I always want to see how that complexity would play out. Butler deals so beautifully with complex motivations on other grounds, I wish she would in this too.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

Anyanwu has a female partner that it's implied she's sometimes female-bodied with in Wild Seed, I think?

Yes, though it's portrayed in the past tense and rather vaguely.

but I know it isn't like that for people and I always want to see how that complexity would play out. Butler deals so beautifully with complex motivations on other grounds, I wish she would in this too.

Yes.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

the Oankali and Oankali-human sexuality is so completely biological it leaves no space for desire that isn't connected to reproduction.

Yeah. It wouldn't bother me at all if they said, 'hey, you guys have sex for fun, that's weird,' but instead the humans and Oankali alike assume everyone will pair off nicely with opposite-sex partners.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

I'm inclined to think they would have said "Well, that's interesting, but it's going to have to stop now, sorry, unless you want to stay infertile." But yes, it would have been nice if it was at least mentioned.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

unless you want to stay infertile

And also, what if some humans were ok with being infertile, if they wanted to look on their lives as something other than the perpetuation of a species? Would that even be possible? IIRC (and it has been a couple of years) the rebel humans are obsessed with the possibility of making babies. What else might there potentially be for them, I wonder--anything?

(These are longstanding obsessions of mine more than they are critiques of Butler...)

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

That, I think, the Oankali would have tried to breed out/choose properly. Though how you could do that by putting people in featureless cells and questioning them off and on for centuries, I dunno.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

That's a good point, and that assumption that everyone wants kids is a bit of a theme throughout her work as I recall. Though I guess there's a difference between "I won't have children" (which a fair number of people are ok with) and "The human race's reproduction is totally controlled by aliens and they are forbidding me from having children".

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[rydra_wong]

I've read a lot of commentary about how queer the books are with the third gender and alien sex, but despite that the biologism always makes it feel kind of heteronormative to me.

*ponders*

I bet it'd be interesting to look at side by side with Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness and the later crit by Le Guin herself and others on how she'd unintentionally made that world totally heteronormative.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

I have more sympathy with writers who create a new species which is totally heteronormative than ones who act like regular humans are. It is still very problematic though, and it misses out on some interesting possibilities. I would for example be interested to read about the issues facing same-sex couples on the "LHoD" world (or for that matter the "Dark Jewels Trilogy" world, not that I'm equating the two books in terms of quality :D).

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Well, in the LHOD world there is no such thing as a same sex couple... or everyone is a same sex couple sometimes. There is same sex sexual activity in "Coming of Age in Karhide." But if you think about what it would mean to do sexuality in a non-normative way on that planet, all you're left with is the permanently-in-kemmer "halfdead" characters who... do not get a good deal. You could easily say that Genly in LHOD is a queer character from that perspective although he obviously finds the Gethenians to be the queer ones.

I don't have more sympathy with writers who create a new species that is totally heteronormative. Heterosexuality is not more natural than homosexuality; the idea of either one being exclusive is just as much a social construct as monogamy. It's just a question of which social constructs you want to reproduce and which you want to challenge if you're creating an alien race; it's not like it's actually possible to imagine totally away from the human anyway.

I am in danger of derailing this conversation horribly, I'm sorry! I will go away and be quiet now. :)

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[rydra_wong]

I don't have more sympathy with writers who create a new species that is totally heteronormative.

It occurs to me that it could wildly interesting, if you actually worked out what the hell sort of biology you'd need to have a sapient species that could only be heterosexual (given that same-sex sexuality seems to occur in all Earth mammals, many birds, etc., and that non-reproductive sexuality plays a huge role as a shaper and motivator of interactions), and what impact that would have on their society and culture.

You might end up with some very alien aliens. Then make the viewpoint character a queer human ...

Um, derailing, yes. Should we take this elsewhere?

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

Don't do so on my account, this is fascinating!

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[alias_sqbr]

I'm in danger of revealing how hazily I remember LHOD and how shallow my understanding of sexuality is, so I should probably be quiet as well :)

But I will add (similarly to rydra_wong below): if the species is basically "Like humans, but everyone's straight" then I agree it's not better. But if the author actually explores how their sexuality differs and all the knock-on effects in their society that could be interesting. Although off the top of my head I'm having trouble thinking of any stories where the aliens are 100% heteronormative and the humans aren't which is where I think the interesting contrast would come up.

Re: homosexuality in Xenogenesis

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness

Oh, yes. I would love to see what both LHOD and Xenogenesis would look like if the protagonist coming to see the new forms of sexuality were queer. How would they understand themselves in these societies where sexual structures were so rigid? The queer/trans/intersex figures (the "halfdead" "perverts") in LHOD are presented horribly, always less than human, even in the revised vision of "Coming of Age in Karhide" where same sex activity is presented in the kemmerhouse. Le Guin has been the single most influential author on my life and it's painful for me to admit that she doesn't do me justice, but she doesn't really portray queerness well at all. (I just wrote a catalogue of why but I feel like it's derailing to go on about it.)