Butler, Octavia: Lilith's Brood
Lilith's Brood
Writer: Octavia E. Butler
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 746
Of all the fiction I chose for my required reading list this term, Lilith's Brood is the least like anything I'm trying to accomplish in my own novel. Why pick it? For starters, it's Octavia Butler. You just can't say no to Octavia Butler. Butler always manages to explore the social implications of science fictional ideas and tropes in her work. I knew that Lilith's Brood explored gender, sexes, and human identity all with an alien and genetic backdrop. So while on the surface, it doesn't appear to relate to my own novel, its themes and ideas relate quite nicely, and I wanted to see what Butler was doing and how she was doing it.
In some ways, I bit off more than I could chew, even though I knew what I was getting into when I chose this book for my list. Why? Because Lilith's Brood is actually three novels in one: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. Not that I mind all that much. I might as well get the full story, and the trade was too pretty to pass up.
For the sake of my memory, I'll divide the review into three parts: one each per "original" book. This way, the individual books don't bleed into each other, and I'll get the chance to examine each book on the whole.
Dawn
We start out with Lillith Iyapo, a woman waking from an extended sleep into a blank room with just a platform for a bed, a table, and a bathroom. She's thrilled to have clothing this time around, and eats the stuff that passes for food while she reminisces on what's happened before. There's a difference between waking and Waking, the latter being the sense that one's been in a far deeper and longer sleep than usual. We learn she has no idea who her captors are, only that a disembodied voice asks questions but won't answer hers. She never sees another human being until a boy child is brought to her, but even their time is short. He's taken away and she's thrust back into isolation, which is only broken by the sudden and horrifying presence of her captors--an alien named Jdahya, one of the Oankali.
The Oankali are a race of traders: they survive by capturing/resucing other races and exchange genetic material so that both races are transformed and better than they were. Humankind has destroyed itself in a nuclear war, and the Oankali have rescued the survivors, studied them, and healed Earth. They want to integrate Lilith into their society so that she, in turn, can Awaken other humans and teach them to live on this new Earth.
The price? Genetic material. Sexual reproduction will never be the same again, and neither will Lilith's future children.
There are three sexes in the Oankali race: male, female, and ooloi. Ooloi are essentially the missing link between males and females. Sexual reproduction among the Oankali are not possible without the Ooloi taking the genetic material and examining all possible combinations for a child and selecting the one that is most necessary. All of their genetic work is done within their bodies, and for that matter, every part of their world is some kind of living thing. They rarely use items made from non-living material.
Lilith struggles the entire book to not only understand her life and her role among the Oankali and the human race, but also to come to terms--if possible--what the future of the human race will really be, if it'll exist at all. It's hard to see the Oankali as truly grotesque creatures, even though they are described as truly alien. They almost always speak with kindness, and the relationships Lilith builds with them are truly realistic and touching, so much so that when it's her turn to Awaken more humans, it's hard not to side with the way of the Oankali, rather than the human need to preserve their own kind no matter what the cost.
There's so much in this book that is touching, and like all of Butler's books, the end is truly bittersweet. There is love and loss, and there are never any easy answers. At this point in the trilogy, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be siding with--humanity or the Oankali (and the future of humanity)--but then again, I'm not sure if that's Butler's fault or my own. My own views tend to be rather misanthropist, so the ideas and concepts in this book are not only fascinating to me, but they also present a plausible future that would reasonably scare most people, just not me. Maybe it's because like the Oankali, I see humanity as something that is flawed and needs to be fixed?
But there's so many larger issues at stake here. Is it right to step in and intervene on a species' survival? So often, Lilith feels as though she's an animal in a zoo, or a lab, or at least someone else's pet. The parallels between the Oankali's study of her and other humans is quite obvious with the parallels between humanity's study of animals in controlled environments. Maybe that's another reason why it's so easy to sympathize with the Oankali: perhaps what they're doing is terrifying from the human point of view, but in the end, it's about survival, and the Oankali don't want to destroy humanity, they want to help it. They want to save it. They want to make it better.
In my mind, you can't point fingers at the Oankali and say what they're doing is wrong without taking a seriously close look at what scientists do to animals in order to improve the quality of human life (and the animals, in some cases, like zoology and the need to save and protect endangered species). I think that's why the issues fascinate me so, because for once, humans aren't on the top of the ladder, but those on top truly aren't trying to destroy us. They're trying to help.
And of course, there's the larger question--no doubt to be pursued in the other two books--of what it truly means to be human. What makes a human a human? Is it the form? Is it capability? When Lilith is teaching the first group of human settlers, the question is raised over and over again because she has abilities they do not. It marks her as a possible traitor and someone not to be trusted. The phrase constantly used: "Judas goat."
Examining the definition of humanity is something I haven't touched on very much in my own thesis, but in hindsight, I should. Perhaps it's something I can include in the revisions of the book, or maybe it's something I can explore in later volumes of whatever grows from this one manuscript. But the idea of examining what makes humans human is a fascinating one, one that draws me to science fiction in the first place. Lilith fears what's coming in the future, but whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know. I'm looking forward to finding out.
Adulthood Rites
This book focuses on the tale of Akin's, Lilith's only son, as well as the first human-born male of the constructs (beings of both human and Oankali genes). There's a reason he's the first, and that's because the Oankali worry about the Human Contradiction (humanity's two great flaws--intelligence and hierarchy combined). They don't know how to raise human male children, so until they get the mix just right to keep the contradiction from rearing its ugly head, the only males that are allowed to be born are to Oankali.
Until Akin. Lilith's son looks human enough except for his tongue, which is his only sensory organ. He's uncannily smart, starts talking almost immediately, and remembers everything. This abilities contradict his small size, which becomes a problem when he's kidnapped by resisters (humans who deserted the Oankali once reaching Earth in order to rebuild their own lives). Resisters are unable to have children, and therefore result to stealing those construct children who LOOK human. When Akin is finally "bought," we meet a pair of familiar faces: Gabe and Tate from the previous book.
Akin's story is an interesting one. We learn, through Akin, what it's like to have both Oankali and human senses. We see humans through his eyes and his intelligence and understand humans from an Oankali view. But we also come to understand and sympathize with their plight: humans just want to be humans, but humanity is breaking down without the hope of children to carry the species forward (sound familiar, Children of Men? *coughs!* At least we know with Butler's work WHY people can't have kids!). Akin's story becomes one of salvation, which is a contradiction in and of itself: by human rights, he's saving them with his offer to transform Mars and make sure fertility is returned to them, but by the Oankali, he's dooming them to extinction, because the Human Contradiction will eventually drive them to destroy themselves sooner or later, just like it did before the Oankali rescued them.
It was cool to see the characters of Tate and Lilith again, to see how similar they are, and how in many ways, both women made choices they regret. Both wishes to be on the "other" side of things, but their devotion to their mates (or in Lilith's case, to Nikanj, who is kind of a mate) dictate otherwise.
There's a lot of meat to this book that's not immediately obvious, in terms of a race deciding what's right for them and enforcing that decision on others. That was a surprise to me, because it's a theme that relates to my own book, and again, a theme that deserves exploration. It was fantastic to see it here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Butler handles it in book three.
Imago
Of the three books that comprise this trilogy, Imago is my favorite. And that's funny in some ways, because of the three, it has the least amount of tension. But what makes this one so fascinating is the fact that it focuses on the first human construct ooloi, and the reader finally learns what an ooloi is from the ooloi POV. Most everything falls together in such a way that it makes sense. We learn about the absolute need ooloi have for mates, and Butler manages to bridge the gap between human and Oankali.
Jodahs is at the cusp of its metamorphosis, but even though it always thought it would be male, it realizes that it's turning into ooloi instead. This is a problem, because there aren't supposed to be human-construct ooloi, and Jodahs must be exiled to the ship to make sure he doesn't destroy anyone or anything on Earth with his new abilities. It and the family won't have it, so they leave to the mountains in exile. Jodahs learns it cannot control its body, as it transforms at will to adapt to whatever environment it's in. Except when it's around unmated humans, and during that time, while it's healing those people, its body transforms into whatever pleases that human most. The only time Jodahs is stable is when it is around humans.
When its paired sibling, Aaor, goes into its metamorphosis, another conflict arises. It, too, is becoming ooloi. Jodahs starts leaving the camp for longer periods of time, getting one last taste of Earth before it will be exiled to the ship, when he meets Tomas and Jesusa--two fertile humans who are diseased and crippled due to inbreeding.
Butler never gives the reader a satisfying explanation for HOW the first mother became pregnant to begin with, not in terms of sex (well, she was raped), but in terms of how she and the "father" weren't sterile. Whatever the reason, there's a settlement of fertile humans that've sprung from this first mother, and Tomas and Jesusa (brother and sister) are a part of that community.
Jodahs is fascinated with them, and in time, they all become mates. When Aaor comes out of metamorphosis with the same disabling hunger for human mates that Jodahs had, they go to the mountain community of fertile humans, and from there, the bridge between human and Oankali is built.
Not that it's easy, of course, and to my surprise, this book didn't end with the bittersweet sucker-punch I've come to associate with Butler's work. By all rights, this book has a rather happy ending. There's so many interesting things brought up in this book, many of which are intuitive. Little things, like the naming of Jodahs (Judas), Tomas (Doubting Thomas) and Jesusa (do I need to explain that one) and how Butler plays against expectation. It isn't Tomas who doubts his place with Jodahs, but Jesusa. And Jesusa is a woman of very little faith and peace, despite her namesake. She's no savor, but Jodahs in many ways is. And of course, Jodahs is a betrayer in some ways (he doesn't tell Tomas and Jesusa that if they stay with him through the second metamorphosis, they won't EVER be able to leave him), but in reality, it's Tomas and Jesusa who are the betrayers, because they take Jodahs and Aaor to the mountain community of fertile humans knowing that the Oankali will soon follow.
Also interesting to reflect upon is that there are three different types of Oankali, and now there are three different types of humans. And when you look at it, each book of this trilogy illustrates and shows the birth of each "new" human race. Dawn shows the Oankali/human branch with Lilith and Nikanj; Adulthood Rites shows the "pure" human branch with Akin and the resisters and the plan to Mars; and Imago shows the human/construct ooloi branch with Jodahs and Jesusa and Tomas.
Imago ends with a certain kind of hope. At the start of the trilogy, humanity had no choice but to accept its fate and/or "learn and run." Now human kind has three choices: to stay completely human and fertile but leave Earth to start a new life on Mars; to accept the Oankali ooloi and survive in that five-person family; to accept the construct ooloi and survive in THAT five-person family. The difference between ooloi (Oankali, which are frighteningly alien and construct, which can mold their bodies to suit the partners' needs) is all the difference in the world.
But what surprised me most about this particular volume are the ideas that Butler uses that I've also explored (not fully enough) in my own book. Reading this makes me want to REALLY play up the relationship and dependence between my characters who are "bonded," and I also marvel at other little similarities which are too many to name. It's cool to see myself accidentally following in the footsteps of one of the greats, but like my experience with reading C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen, I know just how much work really needs to go into my own book before it's truly ready for publication.
But it's cool to know that she's examining the same issues as I: the difference between love, need, and dependence. The sometimes frightening choices people will make in order to have children. The pure conflict between two groups of people who both believe that their choice for the race is the right one, when both sides are right AND wrong at the same time.
Good, good stuff. I didn't expect this book to be such an inspiration for my own novel, and now I'm wishing I'd read it before I'd started the second draft. Oh well. That's what the third draft is for.
Overall, I found myself very engaged in each of the three volumes, though Adulthood Rites held my attention the least. Partially because it did not explore sexual mating rites in it's characters, but also because the story felt incomplete in that we don't see Akin's plan in action. We only know it's there and it's working. Dawn is probably the most complete and tense book of the three, but Imago is easily my favorite for so many little reasons. Lilith's Brood as a whole is a good book and worth reading, especially for Butler fans. It's funny, because there's much of this book that I would consider feminist, but of all the feminist criticism I've read, I don't recall reading much analysis of this particular book. I may have and simply forgot, but there's a lot examined in this book that deserves a critical eye, and perhaps a feminist one as well. If Butler teaches us anything, it's that there are no right answers for sexuality and relationships and the progression of the human race. That what we want and what we need isn't always the same thing, and sometimes choice is taken away because of that conflict. And she successfully shows the reader what a true unsexed being might really be like and provides a convincing portrait of its role in society.
The book, on the whole, is fascinating. It's definitely not an action-packed read, but there's so much food for thought that you can't help but be engaged. The characters are compelling, the choices they make or loose can be heart-breaking, and through it all, Butler still gives her characters hope. Good stuff.
Next up: Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew by Ursula K. Le Guin