posted
Anybody read Octavia Butler's Clay's Ark? It's a pretty early novel of her's, having been written in 1984, and I remembered it as being fairly weak in comparison to her later stuff (althoug better than all of the Patternmaster series except the much later written Wild Seed).
I reread it last night on a whim, and was surprised to find it to be much better than I remembered it, although still not in a league with her later work. What's interesting about it, though, is that you can see virtually all of the themes that she develops in all of her later novels embodied in this book. The state of the country, with it's orderly walled enclaves standing like islands in a sea of social choas is further developed in her Parable series. The idea of biological compulsion causing one to behave differently than one's rational self would dictate is remeniscent of the Xenogenesis trilogy, as it the whole question of what it is to be human and the theme of characters struggling to remain human after having been changed by an alien organism into something that isn't biologically H. sapien any longer. The only thing that's missing is the Lilith type character, and even there I think that you can see the germ of her in Rane, possibly in both Rane and Kiara. This Lilith type that I'm talking about has always struck me as being Butler inserting herself, or maybe an idealized version of herself, into her novels, but since I don't know all that much about her as a person I could easily be wrong.
Most of these themes are explored in one way or another in her short stories as well, but it's been too long since I've read her short stuff to be able to intelligently link them into this.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's been a few years since I read it, but I think I remember it fairly well.
I read Clay's Arkafter I had read the Oankali trilogy, Wild Seed, and several other of her later books; but I think it was before I read Patternmaster and Mind of My Mind.
I think that while her brilliant writing style is evident even in her earlier books, it definitely became far more subtle and even with each succeeding novel. I do like how each of the Pattern books that came out after Patternmaster added layers of meaning to the events of that first book.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's been at least a decade since I've read the Patternmaster series. My parents are going to be visiting me over Thanksgiving, and will be bringing up all of my books (yay!). I think it might be time to reread them.
You know, I can't even begin to express how cool it is that I can start a thread about a book as obscure as Clay's Ark is, and within a few minutes someone else who has read it has written a reply. This really is a fantastic community. I feel much less alone than I would without it, I think.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I also have read it, and enjoyed it a lot. She's one of my favorite SF writers. I love how she shows outcomes that are terrible, unthinkable, very very nothappyending type outcomes, but then her characters seem to adjust to them and find some new way to live, some new way to be happy that was inconceivable before. I think she's an awesome writer. Clay's Ark was very good, I thought, but my favorite of hers is still Wild Seed.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, and Noemon, I agree about hatrack. It is so great! It's really become a part of who I am. Remember back when there was nobody to talk to about stuff like this? Imagine!
posted
Wild Seed is far and away my favorite of her books also! It would probably be in my top 5 books list, were I to have to make one.
Anybody else find her Parable books to be almost painful to read? I mean, yes, the Lilith character adapts, and eventually perseveres, but the travails she expereinces are so well and vividly drawn that reading those two books was almost physically painful.
I wonder what she's working on these days. I've done a little digging trying to find out online, but she doesn't seem to have much of an Internet presence, and I haven't been able to turn up even a rumor. I have read a new short story by her fairly recently; anybody else read it? I'm drawing a blank on the title, but the story is about a woman chosen by god to pick how the human race's character will be modified, in order to save it. Great stuff.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I actually rather liked the Parable books, especially the second. As in many of Butler's books, deciding which (if any) view of what occurred is true is half the battle. But I'll admit I had to look up reviews just now to confirm that I had read them -- they're just not as memorable as the Pattern or Oankali books.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Space Opera--right, I know that. I use the term "Lilith character" in the same way one might use "Hemmingway hero". It seems to me that with a few exceptions, Butler's protagonists share a constellation of characteristics that together make up what I refer to as a "Lilith character" (the name being taken because I think that Lilith is perhaps the best drawn of these protagonists.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Noemon -- I had a hard time with the Parable books too. I liked them... but I tried reading the 2nd book too soon after reading the first one, and had to stop, I couldn't handle so much misery. I'll go back to the 2nd book again someday, just not yet...
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Glad to know I'm not the only one. Ever read any of James Morrow's stuff? The man is an amazingly skiled writer, but reading most of his books is way too painful for me, these days. At one time he was one of my favorite authors, but now his novels are just too much for me. Well, some of them anyway. His early stuff, like The Wine of Violence is bearable, and Towing Jehova wasn't painful for me particularly, but pretty much the rest of his novels are. He can pretty much be counted on to create characters that I fall deeply in love with, and then proceed to do horrible, horrible things to them. I can take some of that--I love George R. R. Martin's stuff--but I get the impression that Morrow is translating his own pain into the written word, and it's just too harsh to take. If I had to guess, I'd say that he hadn't particularly wanted children, and then found himself with a daughter that he found himself just head over heels in love with; she transformed his life. And then she died. It's the only reason I can think of that he'd return to that theme over and over again, in book after book.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Noemon, you're totally right about the Lilith-characters. I've noticed that as well. Butler's main characters tend to be strong black women. They also tend to be tall and physically strong as well, which I just love. I've seen Butler and have to wonder if she's modeled them somewhat on herself.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I just wish I were going to be seeing all of MY books sometime soon.
