Octavia Butler - Wild Seed
Feb. 12th, 2009 07:03 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
50books_pocThis is the second of the books I picked up from a rec on this community. It's been strongly recommended by a lot of people, but as I finished it, I still wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I was fairly sure it was a good book, but it left me with an oddly dissatisfied feeling which I'm still working through.
For those who do not know, the plot of Wild Seed is based around two immortals - one who is thousands of years old, and originally hailed from Nubia, in the times when the ancient Egyptians were rising, and the other being around 300 years old in the 17th century and being African. The two meet each other, and their fates become entwined.
Doro, the older of the two, meets Anyanwu, the younger, in Africa and first seduces her and then mostly bullies her into agreeing to come to America with him by threatening her village and family. She goes, as half wife-half slave, and that rather characterizes their relationship from then on in.
Having thought about it, I think in many ways the relationship between the two, plus Doro's absolute lack of redeeming features (an abusive megalamaniacal sociopath? How lovely) is why I wound up feeling quite so ambivalent about the book. I like Anyanwu as a character. I think she's really interesting, but I hated the relationship between the two. It felt like an abusive relationship - I never understood what Anyanwu was getting out of it other than the alleged chance to 'redeem' Doro, and yet at the end she seemed satisfied to welcome him back into her life as a husband? I hated that, especially after all he had done.
Perhaps it is a very realistic depiction of how a relationship between two immortals would go - I think Doro probably was a much more realistic example of how someone would be after 3000 years of immortality, and I liked him for that far more than I like (for example) Anne Rice's millennia old characters - and I think probably it is accurate to say that after 500 years two such people might end up tied to each other, simply because it's the only way that they can find a relationship which won't die. But I still felt odd uncomfortable about the way the book ended.
Re-reading this, I think it sounds as if I liked the book less than I did. I did get very caught up in it, and basically refused to be torn away from it for the last three chapters, because I really wanted to know how it ended. I did find the premise really interesting and the book was very well written and totally engaging. I think, overall, I'm still just struggling with Doro. I think he's a good character, and an interesting one, but he's just so damn evil, and I think Anyanwu deserves better!
For those who do not know, the plot of Wild Seed is based around two immortals - one who is thousands of years old, and originally hailed from Nubia, in the times when the ancient Egyptians were rising, and the other being around 300 years old in the 17th century and being African. The two meet each other, and their fates become entwined.
Doro, the older of the two, meets Anyanwu, the younger, in Africa and first seduces her and then mostly bullies her into agreeing to come to America with him by threatening her village and family. She goes, as half wife-half slave, and that rather characterizes their relationship from then on in.
Having thought about it, I think in many ways the relationship between the two, plus Doro's absolute lack of redeeming features (an abusive megalamaniacal sociopath? How lovely) is why I wound up feeling quite so ambivalent about the book. I like Anyanwu as a character. I think she's really interesting, but I hated the relationship between the two. It felt like an abusive relationship - I never understood what Anyanwu was getting out of it other than the alleged chance to 'redeem' Doro, and yet at the end she seemed satisfied to welcome him back into her life as a husband? I hated that, especially after all he had done.
Perhaps it is a very realistic depiction of how a relationship between two immortals would go - I think Doro probably was a much more realistic example of how someone would be after 3000 years of immortality, and I liked him for that far more than I like (for example) Anne Rice's millennia old characters - and I think probably it is accurate to say that after 500 years two such people might end up tied to each other, simply because it's the only way that they can find a relationship which won't die. But I still felt odd uncomfortable about the way the book ended.
Re-reading this, I think it sounds as if I liked the book less than I did. I did get very caught up in it, and basically refused to be torn away from it for the last three chapters, because I really wanted to know how it ended. I did find the premise really interesting and the book was very well written and totally engaging. I think, overall, I'm still just struggling with Doro. I think he's a good character, and an interesting one, but he's just so damn evil, and I think Anyanwu deserves better!
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Completely Off-Topic
Date: 2009-02-12 08:50 pm (UTC)Re: Completely Off-Topic
Date: 2009-02-12 08:54 pm (UTC)(doesn't stop me loving them both to bits, but the pair of them make me weep at times. And damnit, Black Canary could do better for herself)
Re: Completely Off-Topic
Date: 2009-02-12 09:16 pm (UTC)Re: Completely Off-Topic
Date: 2009-02-12 11:58 pm (UTC)