Conversations With Octavia Butler by
Conseula Francis
I have to thank my friend Tracie for recommending
Octavia E. Butler to me. I started with her
Xenogenesis trilogy, and have been slowly building my collection since. Every time I read a book by Ms. Butler, I find myself wishing I could get inside the her mind. Her works are so far from the typical science fiction, dystopian stories and they share the constant theme of forcing us to question our humanity and society and the rules we adhere to and the many, many prejudices that we are never able to leave behind. With Butler’s passing in 2006, it seemed I wouldn’t have that opportunity, but apparently, Conseula Francis had the same idea and put together this collection of interviews.
Ms. Butler’s target readers are classified as Blacks, feminists and science fiction fans – but these are labels that people have stuck on her work. She did not like labels, though she appreciated their value, especially to a publisher, and understood the human need to categorize everything. Her works do fit into these very basic categories, but what fascinates me most about her books is the way they move so far beyond. “Thinking outside the box” does not even begin to cover it! Her books deal with so many issues and often do so in a way that crosses far into our comfort zones as they hold up a mirror to our humanity, warts and all. I recommend her books to many people, but warn not to expect a happy ending. Her books are realistic – perhaps too much so for some readers. I most recently read
Parable of the Talents
– a book some readers consider prophetic, though Ms. Butler stressed it was a cautionary tale – and couldn’t help comparing it to the volatile American political and religious situation at the time. Even when her books are dealing with aliens and vampires and mutation, I’ve found her approach to the subject matter makes it seem as though these things really could come to pass, if they have not already. But it is the honest and often harsh way she presents our humanity to us that is what really can get under your skin. Taboo topics like incest, slavery, racism, sexism, rape, pedophilia, religious fanaticism, addiction, hierarchy, genetic engineering, violence and more are often a part of the protagonists’ struggles.
Before this ends up as a “Why You Should Read Octavia E. Butler’s Books,” let me try to focus on this book, specifically.
Conversations with Octavia Butler is a collection of interviews with the prize-winning author. There is a reasonable and expected amount of repetition from interview to interview, but some interviewers are more insightful and involved than others. Ms. Butler’s responses to some interviewers could be brief or even impatient in one case where the interviewer perhaps did not do his homework, but in others, she eloquently detailed various topics. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Charles Rowell where her responses to each question could go on for a page or more as she passionately spoke about writing, advice for writers, her inspirations and more.
Her words revealed her enthusiasm for writing and what she wrote revealed her passion for all sorts of topics. Her explanation of her writing process – which involved reading and listening to everything! – was fascinating. I respected how adamantly she defined science fiction and researched her own works accordingly. Simply put, she believed science fiction stories ought to involve actual science. A reader during a radio interview noted that Ms. Butler’s works touch on so many different forms of “science,” from biological, to technological to social to political science, but even when they involve fantastical elements, there is always a grounding that is a reflection of the research she put in.
Being, at the time, the only Black female author in the science fiction genre, writing about Black female characters in a genre that usually featured 30 year old White men, racism and sexism unsurprisingly came up with some of the interviews. Ms. Butler did address the topics, but it becomes clear that she never wrote with an agenda with the specific intent to deal with prejudice. She stressed that she simply wanted to write and initially, she did write about those 30 year old White guys until she realized those early writings were “garbage” and instead started writing herself for herself. The main characters are Black females because that’s what she was. From there, the personalities of the characters grew from her own feelings on certain issues or a desire to explore other issues.
This is something that I really love about Butler’s work. I can’t help but be pleased to find stories that I can relate to with characters that more accurately reflect my own multicultural environment and upbringing. I loved that none of the characters’ race or gender existed out of context or were a case of tokenism. Certainly there was prejudice against characters because of their race or gender, but the characters weren’t simply created Black and/or female specifically to address the topic of racism and/or sexism. Not even in
Kindred
, where a Black woman is transported to the past where she must deal with the reality of slavery and save her White slavemaster. This could be overlooked as simply “another book about slavery,” but it was fascinating to find out what inspired her to write
Kindred. It’s one of the many tidbits I learned about Butler and her work by reading
Conversations.
Most of the interviews in
Conversations were one on one with Ms. Butler, but the MIT Cultural Studies Project was a highlight, as it featured several other prominent authors and covered some very interesting and still relevant thoughts within the topic of literacy and more.
My only disappointment is that the majority of the interviews focused on
Kindred and
Parable of the Sower, with some
Xenogenesis and
Patternmaster in the mix. I would have liked to learn more about
Parable of the Talents and
Fledgling
. I also learned from this book that she had been working on a third part in the
Earthseed series,
Parable of the Trickster, which would have dealt with the Earthseed colonists struggling to survive their destiny in space. In one of the final interviews, Ms. Butler explained that she intended the colonists’ struggle to be with themselves, not with aliens or galactic conflict. In other words, no matter where humanity goes, the best and worst of us does not change.
I still have a few more of Ms. Butler’s books to read and this book certainly inspires me to get on with that. Reading this satisfied my desire to know more about Octavia E. Butler’s captivating mind, but, especially now that I know about
Parable of the Trickster, it saddens me to know that there won’t be anymore conversations.
4 of 5 stars
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