Octavia Butler

Kindred

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 22:02 on 30 November 2018

This is another Caltech Bookclub read, I started reading it way behind the rest of the readers, so spent much of today reading to catch up. Aaaaaaaaaand, finished it in a day. I do like reading while treadmill walking.

Butler grew up in Pasadena, which is the connection to Caltech for the book club. Previous books were about Caltech scientists or Caltech research or by Techers. This one has a lot of Pasadena in it. It was neat to know where she was describing, even if the Pasadena and Altadena even I knew are as gone as hers.

Butler is known as a science-fiction author. While this book has unexplained time travel as a plot mechanism, no time is spent exploring the phenomenon, making this book not really science fiction in my categorization. It is, however, a seriously good commentary on human nature.

The main character, Dana, is transported back to early 1800s American South. As Dana is black, we read about the atrocities of slavery, as told from a modern person transported back to the brutality of the era. We see how we normalize horrible behaviours, often to survive. We see how we assume power, even when we are one of the powerless. We see how we don't see our own privilege, how seeing another's view is difficult, it not impossible.

I think what's lingering with me most, however, is the slow descent into acceptance that Butler weaves into the story. It reminds me a great deal what Mistakes We Made (but not by me) discusses about human nature: we are all frogs in the pot about to boil.

Parable of the Talents

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 21:58 on 2 September 2017

After Parable of the Sower, I don't know, I think I was expecting some sort of feel-good book as a follow up.

This is not a feel-good follow up.

Instead, this is a dystopian nightmare that, well, let's be frank here, is completely and totally plausible given the state of the U.S. federal government these days. I do not know how we will last four years with the liar and incompetent existing in the executive office.

Anyway, this book just screams "holy crap" given its parallels to today's politiics. The brother parts, and the lack of resolution at the end of the book (nope, didn't give anything away there) just screams "holy crap" given its parallels to my family situation.

As difficult as I found the last book to read, this one was more difficult and more worth reading because of the discomfort.

All things change, but all things need not change in all ways.
Page 46

Earthseed is Olamina’s contribution to what she feels should be a species-wide effort to evade, or at least to lengthen the specialize-grow-die evolutionary cycle that humanity faces, that every species faces.
Page 46

A woman who expresses her opinions, “nags,” disobeys her husband, or otherwise “tramples her womanhood” and “acts like a man,” might have her head shaved, her forehead branded, her tongue cut out, or, worst case, she might be stoned to death or burned.
Page 50

Parable of the Sower

Book Notes kitt decided around 03:06 on 30 August 2017 to publish this:

Yes, I finished this book at 3:06 in the morning.

This book has been on my to-read stack for a while, mostly on Claire's recommendation. Claire's recommendations haven't been off yet, so I picked up this Butler book, and was more than a little stunned at how, well, prophetic Butler was.

The first part of the book, the set up for the disaster and the plot that follows, reminded me of just how unprepared I am for a disaster (human-made or otherwise). The world we live in is more fragile than we think.

It is also more resilient than we realize. Even as things go bad, and the world becomes more and more authoritarian, Butler doesn't see it as falling apart. There is some level of civilization and technology, unlike, say, A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Other aspects I found interesting was the assumption of commonplace violence. These days, we are still horrified by casual violence. In this book, few people are, it is so integrated into the world.

I wrote a couple more notes when I was reading the book. The corporate take-over of communities, and the disparate levels of protection (if you pay, the police will actually investigate, otherwise, you're out of luck) really aren't that difficult to see from our current society.

The part that struck home, however, is the understand that water is a scarce resource. That. Yeah.

This book is way worth reading, not only because of discomfort revealed in the dystopia that Butler describes, but for the warning that comes with that world. One almost wishes the religion Butler describes could exist.