Clay's Ark, by Octavia Butler (#5)
Mar. 13th, 2009 11:03 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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50books_pocClay's Ark
, by Octavia Butler (Link goes to "Seed to Harvest", the omnibus addition of all four books of the quartet.)
This was a hard book to read. It was rewarding, but oh my goodness, it was hard.
As Blake Maslin and his daughters Keira and Rane travel across the desert of California, they're stopped by armed men. This, while horrible, isn't that unusual a possibility in their dystopian future USA (the setting is some time after Mind of My Mind, but before Patternmaster): in between walled safe zones, extreme gang violence runs rampant, and traveling through those areas -- even armed, in a car -- is extremely dangerous. But the people who stopped them aren't a car family, and their goal isn't robbery, kidnapping, or murder. Instead, the kidnappers take the three back to their farmstead, where they discover what this group really is.
The farm is home to a group of people, small but growing, who were infected by an alien organism. The organism changes them -- enhances them in specifically physical ways. They're stronger and faster than normal people; they have better reflexes; they are physically tough to the point of being extraordinarily difficult to hurt; they have enhanced senses, particularly hearing and smell. But the infection also drives them to spread itself, both by infecting others and by breeding. And yet -- despite the infection that has changed their bodies and that fills them with unbearable, undeniable urges -- they're still people. They still have their consciences, and their memories, and the interests and desires they had before. Their personalities are just overlaid by a set of literally alien and very animal urges.
The bulk of the book is about their conflict, between the undeniable impulse to spread 'their' kind and their desire to remain human, and to avoid spreading the infection to the rest of the world. And that's the most terrifying thing about it: the bearers of the disease, the agents of this change (and indeed of the kidnappings that keep it going) are so sympathetic, they're trying so hard to stay themselves. What hurts the most is watching them fight and fight for their humanity, even as it slowly erodes.
Before going into the spoiler cut, I will say: this book is very depressing, and it's also brutal in places. Horrible, violent things happen; the violence is never glorified, but it also isn't glossed over; it was very difficult going. I warn not because I think people shouldn't read this, but because I was glad of having been warned myself. I think I would have found it impossible in places if I hadn't been prepared for it.
The most horrifying part of the book, of course, comes when Blake and his daughters flee the farmstead -- and are caught by the car gang. And that's one of the things that I thought was very interesting: the car gang are far more brutal than the infected, and without any of the excuse. At the farmstead, the infected do not rape Rane or Keira, and though that may seem like damning with faint praise, the scenes from the point of view of Eli make it clear that it's no small thing: there's a bit in a flashback where he attempts to provoke the farm's dogs to kill him, because he's not sure he can keep from raping a woman and death seems like the only way to prevent himself from giving in to the infection's compulsions. The infection drives him almost to insanity: rape will both spread the disease and will possibly create an infected child. And yet he resists. The car gang, on the other hand, rape and torture and murder for no better reason than their own cruelty, power, and pleasure.
Part of this, of course, is that Eli and the first few people he infects are in many ways profoundly moral -- and they make sure that's true of the people they infect afterward. There's a mention that another infectee, who couldn't control himself and repeatedly attacked others, was killed by the gang (in the initial stages of the disease, the infected are not nearly as strong as those who have been carriers for some time). And, of course, when the car gang becomes infected, they blow up the house rather than let them get away.
So for a little while, for a little while, they maintain, sort of, tenuously, the balance between the infection and their own humanity. Even though their children are distinctly different -- they are quadrupeds, though they still have humanlike hands, and move like cats, or sphinxes -- and they know that the world they're creating is for the benefit of their children, who have nonhuman bodies and nonhuman instincts and desires -- they still try to make a small human world for themselves, despite the extreme and increasing difficulty.
The ending, though, the ending is such a downer. If it weren't enough to read about Rane suffering under the early stages of the disease, and then being repeatedly raped by the car gang, savagely attacked, and then killed by by having her head cut off with a blunt saw, there's the fact that Blake is killed by a man who deliberately runs him down -- and then gives the disease to the driver. Who goes on to infect the rest of the world -- and the rest of the world won't even know what's happening to them, let alone be able to collectively hang onto their ethics, or police those who don't have any. The world ends; the new world, the world of Patternmaster, is born in the fires of rioting, chaos, and the burning of the cities. The infection wins. The world will be populated with people like their quadrupedal children -- and with the psychics. "Normal" people have no chance.
I'd recommend this one, too. But I lined up a comfort reread for after I finished, and I think that might not be a bad idea for others.
, by Octavia Butler (Link goes to "Seed to Harvest", the omnibus addition of all four books of the quartet.)This was a hard book to read. It was rewarding, but oh my goodness, it was hard.
As Blake Maslin and his daughters Keira and Rane travel across the desert of California, they're stopped by armed men. This, while horrible, isn't that unusual a possibility in their dystopian future USA (the setting is some time after Mind of My Mind, but before Patternmaster): in between walled safe zones, extreme gang violence runs rampant, and traveling through those areas -- even armed, in a car -- is extremely dangerous. But the people who stopped them aren't a car family, and their goal isn't robbery, kidnapping, or murder. Instead, the kidnappers take the three back to their farmstead, where they discover what this group really is.
The farm is home to a group of people, small but growing, who were infected by an alien organism. The organism changes them -- enhances them in specifically physical ways. They're stronger and faster than normal people; they have better reflexes; they are physically tough to the point of being extraordinarily difficult to hurt; they have enhanced senses, particularly hearing and smell. But the infection also drives them to spread itself, both by infecting others and by breeding. And yet -- despite the infection that has changed their bodies and that fills them with unbearable, undeniable urges -- they're still people. They still have their consciences, and their memories, and the interests and desires they had before. Their personalities are just overlaid by a set of literally alien and very animal urges.
The bulk of the book is about their conflict, between the undeniable impulse to spread 'their' kind and their desire to remain human, and to avoid spreading the infection to the rest of the world. And that's the most terrifying thing about it: the bearers of the disease, the agents of this change (and indeed of the kidnappings that keep it going) are so sympathetic, they're trying so hard to stay themselves. What hurts the most is watching them fight and fight for their humanity, even as it slowly erodes.
Before going into the spoiler cut, I will say: this book is very depressing, and it's also brutal in places. Horrible, violent things happen; the violence is never glorified, but it also isn't glossed over; it was very difficult going. I warn not because I think people shouldn't read this, but because I was glad of having been warned myself. I think I would have found it impossible in places if I hadn't been prepared for it.
The most horrifying part of the book, of course, comes when Blake and his daughters flee the farmstead -- and are caught by the car gang. And that's one of the things that I thought was very interesting: the car gang are far more brutal than the infected, and without any of the excuse. At the farmstead, the infected do not rape Rane or Keira, and though that may seem like damning with faint praise, the scenes from the point of view of Eli make it clear that it's no small thing: there's a bit in a flashback where he attempts to provoke the farm's dogs to kill him, because he's not sure he can keep from raping a woman and death seems like the only way to prevent himself from giving in to the infection's compulsions. The infection drives him almost to insanity: rape will both spread the disease and will possibly create an infected child. And yet he resists. The car gang, on the other hand, rape and torture and murder for no better reason than their own cruelty, power, and pleasure.
Part of this, of course, is that Eli and the first few people he infects are in many ways profoundly moral -- and they make sure that's true of the people they infect afterward. There's a mention that another infectee, who couldn't control himself and repeatedly attacked others, was killed by the gang (in the initial stages of the disease, the infected are not nearly as strong as those who have been carriers for some time). And, of course, when the car gang becomes infected, they blow up the house rather than let them get away.
So for a little while, for a little while, they maintain, sort of, tenuously, the balance between the infection and their own humanity. Even though their children are distinctly different -- they are quadrupeds, though they still have humanlike hands, and move like cats, or sphinxes -- and they know that the world they're creating is for the benefit of their children, who have nonhuman bodies and nonhuman instincts and desires -- they still try to make a small human world for themselves, despite the extreme and increasing difficulty.
The ending, though, the ending is such a downer. If it weren't enough to read about Rane suffering under the early stages of the disease, and then being repeatedly raped by the car gang, savagely attacked, and then killed by by having her head cut off with a blunt saw, there's the fact that Blake is killed by a man who deliberately runs him down -- and then gives the disease to the driver. Who goes on to infect the rest of the world -- and the rest of the world won't even know what's happening to them, let alone be able to collectively hang onto their ethics, or police those who don't have any. The world ends; the new world, the world of Patternmaster, is born in the fires of rioting, chaos, and the burning of the cities. The infection wins. The world will be populated with people like their quadrupedal children -- and with the psychics. "Normal" people have no chance.
I'd recommend this one, too. But I lined up a comfort reread for after I finished, and I think that might not be a bad idea for others.
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Date: 2009-03-14 06:58 am (UTC)I second the recommendation/warning to prepare a comfort reread for after Clay's Ark. I am glad I read it, but this book flayed me.
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Date: 2009-03-14 07:10 am (UTC)Reading them in publication order, it's really interesting to watch her deconstruct the tropes of Patternmaster by exploring the origins of the two sides of the conflict -- the very physical clayarks, and the very mental patternists, and the way their societies are locked in constant struggle. But the deconstruction of the tropes leads to hard stuff, and oh, lord, is it rough, rough going. Not books I'm going to reread very soon, even though I'm really glad I read them. (And I am glad I read them.)
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Date: 2009-03-14 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 12:39 pm (UTC)This simultaneously makes Patternmaster make so much more sense, and makes me shiver. I don't know if I *can* read this one.
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Date: 2009-03-14 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 02:49 pm (UTC)~
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Date: 2009-03-14 06:33 pm (UTC)I think this one would have been very offputting for me if it had been the last one I read. It was really hard going as it was!