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Fledgling - Octavia Butler
27/5/10 14:59Sunday was the last ‘Not the TV Book Group’ discussion (for now at least, I see mutterings at Savidge Reads about a potential summer project) and people from all over blog land turned up at kimbofo’s place to discuss ‘Fledgling’ by Octavia Butler. You can check out the comments on the discussion post (including mine) and gaze at the beautiful pictures of the park we imagined ourselves in.
There was some interesting discussion about the book going on, as the book is full of ideas to explore. Let me be the first to say that while I was reading, I had absolutely no idea what kind of point Butler was trying to make with her novel. I saw flashes of possible interpretations, but I get the feeling that Butler wanted her novel to be more than straightforward and symbolic, with plenty of ambiguity mixed in. That fitted in nicely with snippets I seemed to keep coming across in all kinds of places last week, about how it is misguided and rather detrimental for readers to approach all novels looking for concrete symbols and corresponding, definite meanings. So I was ready to go with the flow in this case and look for meaning, but not struggle too much if I couldn’t make one idea fit the hole.
Quick summary: Shori begins the book a severely injured black girl, who we soon discover is part of the Ina species, a race with many similarities to vampires. Shori has no memory of her family, or Ina culture and must try to rebuild her life with the help of relatives. But someone is targeting those close to Shori, determined to destroy her support network.
When Shori first appeared, I felt an immediate connection with her. There are all kinds of ways that Butler tries to get us to connect with Shori. She’s first presented as severely injured, then turns out to look like a young girl, who is all alone and later can be seen as a vulnerable young girl quickly caught in a relationship built on sexual exchange with an older man. However, all those aspects of her character that are designed to make her sympathetic are almost cancelled out, by what Shori does later. After finding her injured, she shows she is powerful enough to hunt and kill a medium sized animal. She eats the animal’s flesh raw, which suggests she is somehow monstrous. Then she seems to be similar to a vampire, as she bites the first human she meets. She soon discovers that the animal she ate was actually a human, a human who she had some close relationship with. That should be enough to keep anyone from connecting with her.
So, while it can be argued that Butler encourages sympathy by making Shori a vulnerable character, I don’t think that this is enough to explain what made me so deeply interested in Shori. I’d guess that part of my feeling for her comes from how much I like first person narrators. I’d also guess that my connection with Shori and the story comes from the gravitas of the writing throughout the book. There’s something slow, rolling and solemn about the rhythm of the writing that I enjoy. Possibly the rhythm linked with the plainness of the language and the controlled speech used to describe even the strongest emotions is what made this book so emotional for me:
‘I stood for a long time, staring at the spots where the two men had died. I had not known them, but they ahd been healthy and alive only a week before. They had welcomed me, had been friendly to Wright. It did not seem possible that they were dead now, reduced to two smudges of burned flesh that smelled of Iosif and of their individual human scents.’
Those lines aren’t trying hard, they’re not angst-ridden, or flashy, but they do speak of genuine pain. Shori’s emotions become more tempered by control throughout the book, but the pain remains. There’s something about the combination of the rhythm and the plain language that emphasise just how much there is a constant deep, sounding pain throughout the book that comes from losing people and having no memory of those you’ve lost. I loved kimbofo’s point that Butler might be talking about lost cultural histories. I so agree that she’s concerned with loss of culture and the importance of people passing on the knowledge of that culture, as this quote illustrates:
‘Iosif stared at him with an expression I couldn’t read. “And you will teach her about her people and their ways?” he said. “You’ll teach her her history, and help her into the adulthood she is approaching? You’ll help her fid mates and negotiate their family when the time comes?” He stood straight and gazed down at Wright. He wasn’t that much taller than Wright, but he gave the impression of looking down from a great height. “Tell me how you will do these things.” he said.’
Sometimes that tone of gravitas can tip over into the ridiculous, when applied to the most mundane day to day activities and the most solemn occasions. When Shori insists on describing exactly what her symbionts are eating in the same kind of spare writing, which seems to emphasise the importance of every detail, that’s a little laughable. When Shori is introduced to a mass of new Ina and they are introduced separately, with detailed reference to their backgrounds, appearances and geographical location it feels overly solemn and formal. When we move on to a trail among the Ina and all the characters keep the same formal, calm language going it feels a little...well a little Vulcan if you’ll pardon the sci-fi mash up. A little over-serious and ripe for parody.
At the same time it felt like these kind of passages, or the overly explanatory introductions at least, were Butler using epic fiction tropes that is often present in older fantasy adventure novels and may have been widely used in older sci-fi (I have no idea can someone enlighten me?). You can see me discuss this idea in the discussion comments but the detailed roll call of new Ina really reminded me of passages from Greek epic classics like ‘The Aneaid’, where the author insists on listing everyone who was called to fight and who they were begat from before getting down to business (and no I never finished ‘The Aneaid’, because of passages like that). Also, older fantasy adventure books often paused to discuss in detail the food being consumed. Coupled with the idea I saw in the discussion comments that Butler wrote this book ‘for a laugh’ I wonder if she is having a bit of a joke at her genre’s expense.
Does that make these passages any more pleasurable for a modern reader? Not really and I understand why some people involved in the discussion referenced these kind of passages as part of the reason why they were disappointed in the writing. I’d really like to hear about her general writing style from readers who’ve read other books by Butler, so we could do a bit of a compare contrast between ‘Fledgling’ and her other work.
These passages were stumbling blocks and the trial felt like a very heavy handed criticism of the justice system considering how subtle Butler is when commenting on other aspects of society. However, as I felt a connection with Shori’s struggle and her symbionts (who make a massive impact considering that Butler uses the barest emotional indicators to describe their state of mind) they were blocks I got pulled around. If you don’t feel that connection I imagine the writing ticks would bug you.
On a quick sidenote the other day I decided to look for some criticism of ‘Fledgling’ and I came across this essay called '"Every age has the vampire it needs": Octavia Butler's vampiric vision in Fledgling’ which among other things, talk about Shori’s status as ‘hybrid figure opens up a space of cultural uncertainty and instability’. I love this interpretation of Shori, does anyone else?
There was some interesting discussion about the book going on, as the book is full of ideas to explore. Let me be the first to say that while I was reading, I had absolutely no idea what kind of point Butler was trying to make with her novel. I saw flashes of possible interpretations, but I get the feeling that Butler wanted her novel to be more than straightforward and symbolic, with plenty of ambiguity mixed in. That fitted in nicely with snippets I seemed to keep coming across in all kinds of places last week, about how it is misguided and rather detrimental for readers to approach all novels looking for concrete symbols and corresponding, definite meanings. So I was ready to go with the flow in this case and look for meaning, but not struggle too much if I couldn’t make one idea fit the hole.
Quick summary: Shori begins the book a severely injured black girl, who we soon discover is part of the Ina species, a race with many similarities to vampires. Shori has no memory of her family, or Ina culture and must try to rebuild her life with the help of relatives. But someone is targeting those close to Shori, determined to destroy her support network.
When Shori first appeared, I felt an immediate connection with her. There are all kinds of ways that Butler tries to get us to connect with Shori. She’s first presented as severely injured, then turns out to look like a young girl, who is all alone and later can be seen as a vulnerable young girl quickly caught in a relationship built on sexual exchange with an older man. However, all those aspects of her character that are designed to make her sympathetic are almost cancelled out, by what Shori does later. After finding her injured, she shows she is powerful enough to hunt and kill a medium sized animal. She eats the animal’s flesh raw, which suggests she is somehow monstrous. Then she seems to be similar to a vampire, as she bites the first human she meets. She soon discovers that the animal she ate was actually a human, a human who she had some close relationship with. That should be enough to keep anyone from connecting with her.
So, while it can be argued that Butler encourages sympathy by making Shori a vulnerable character, I don’t think that this is enough to explain what made me so deeply interested in Shori. I’d guess that part of my feeling for her comes from how much I like first person narrators. I’d also guess that my connection with Shori and the story comes from the gravitas of the writing throughout the book. There’s something slow, rolling and solemn about the rhythm of the writing that I enjoy. Possibly the rhythm linked with the plainness of the language and the controlled speech used to describe even the strongest emotions is what made this book so emotional for me:
‘I stood for a long time, staring at the spots where the two men had died. I had not known them, but they ahd been healthy and alive only a week before. They had welcomed me, had been friendly to Wright. It did not seem possible that they were dead now, reduced to two smudges of burned flesh that smelled of Iosif and of their individual human scents.’
Those lines aren’t trying hard, they’re not angst-ridden, or flashy, but they do speak of genuine pain. Shori’s emotions become more tempered by control throughout the book, but the pain remains. There’s something about the combination of the rhythm and the plain language that emphasise just how much there is a constant deep, sounding pain throughout the book that comes from losing people and having no memory of those you’ve lost. I loved kimbofo’s point that Butler might be talking about lost cultural histories. I so agree that she’s concerned with loss of culture and the importance of people passing on the knowledge of that culture, as this quote illustrates:
‘Iosif stared at him with an expression I couldn’t read. “And you will teach her about her people and their ways?” he said. “You’ll teach her her history, and help her into the adulthood she is approaching? You’ll help her fid mates and negotiate their family when the time comes?” He stood straight and gazed down at Wright. He wasn’t that much taller than Wright, but he gave the impression of looking down from a great height. “Tell me how you will do these things.” he said.’
Sometimes that tone of gravitas can tip over into the ridiculous, when applied to the most mundane day to day activities and the most solemn occasions. When Shori insists on describing exactly what her symbionts are eating in the same kind of spare writing, which seems to emphasise the importance of every detail, that’s a little laughable. When Shori is introduced to a mass of new Ina and they are introduced separately, with detailed reference to their backgrounds, appearances and geographical location it feels overly solemn and formal. When we move on to a trail among the Ina and all the characters keep the same formal, calm language going it feels a little...well a little Vulcan if you’ll pardon the sci-fi mash up. A little over-serious and ripe for parody.
At the same time it felt like these kind of passages, or the overly explanatory introductions at least, were Butler using epic fiction tropes that is often present in older fantasy adventure novels and may have been widely used in older sci-fi (I have no idea can someone enlighten me?). You can see me discuss this idea in the discussion comments but the detailed roll call of new Ina really reminded me of passages from Greek epic classics like ‘The Aneaid’, where the author insists on listing everyone who was called to fight and who they were begat from before getting down to business (and no I never finished ‘The Aneaid’, because of passages like that). Also, older fantasy adventure books often paused to discuss in detail the food being consumed. Coupled with the idea I saw in the discussion comments that Butler wrote this book ‘for a laugh’ I wonder if she is having a bit of a joke at her genre’s expense.
Does that make these passages any more pleasurable for a modern reader? Not really and I understand why some people involved in the discussion referenced these kind of passages as part of the reason why they were disappointed in the writing. I’d really like to hear about her general writing style from readers who’ve read other books by Butler, so we could do a bit of a compare contrast between ‘Fledgling’ and her other work.
These passages were stumbling blocks and the trial felt like a very heavy handed criticism of the justice system considering how subtle Butler is when commenting on other aspects of society. However, as I felt a connection with Shori’s struggle and her symbionts (who make a massive impact considering that Butler uses the barest emotional indicators to describe their state of mind) they were blocks I got pulled around. If you don’t feel that connection I imagine the writing ticks would bug you.
On a quick sidenote the other day I decided to look for some criticism of ‘Fledgling’ and I came across this essay called '"Every age has the vampire it needs": Octavia Butler's vampiric vision in Fledgling’ which among other things, talk about Shori’s status as ‘hybrid figure opens up a space of cultural uncertainty and instability’. I love this interpretation of Shori, does anyone else?
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