Alien-induced Stockholm syndrome is not ever going to be , through no fault of Octavia Butler’s. Eventually I developed somAlien-induced Stockholm syndrome is not ever going to be , through no fault of Octavia Butler’s. Eventually I developed some respect for her, she’s exploring the story along with us her readers. But her methodology is very flawed. She does not--cannot--commit to a point-of-view, or any synchronous themes. She will not answer any moral questions. There’s considerable disconnect between what the characters do, and how the narration portrays them. Let me explain.
The main character, a Nigerian-American woman, is held captive by irreconcilably nonhuman aliens against her will. The prose is rather dry and simplistic, for a start. But my main issue is with the aliens: the Oankali, the gene-trading, super advanced extraterrestrials come to save humanity.
The Oankali have identified our fatal flaw, how fortunate for us. We are intelligent as well as hierarchical. According to them, these two combined traits make us unviable as a civilisation. Case in point: we have managed to bomb ourselves into oblivion. They are themselves nonhierarchical and peaceful. (And vegan. They don't kill. Yay!)
This is a blatant lie. The narrative barely acknowledges this, then moves on.
The Oankali culture is designed around propagation, and nothing else. I’m not being hyperbolic here, an Oankali family consists of a male, a female, whatever the alien species� core mating units are as an adjunct, and an ooloi: essentially a portable, sentient gene manipulation lab. They are called “it�. And they are the fulcrum of Oankali society. Yes, the aliens might have a consensus that gives the appearance of democracy. But the ooloi are the only ones with any ability and drive to do, well, anything. It is also terribly creepy how ooloi are pushed into another predetermined family unit as soon as they’re sexually mature, but not at all surprising. Not hierarchical? If you say so. (At this point I started to annotate the book with “hierarchy!� every time the Oankali flexed their authority.)
Being the human-centric primitive I am, it’s most disturbing to me how they treated the protagonist. Lilith, you understand, has next to no agency. For a time she cannot feed herself, is not free to wander, or even open doorways. She’s not free to make choices in her dealings with the Oankali. At one point she likens herself to a house pet for her alien family. Crucial information is witheld from her, they don’t deign to answer or acknowledge inconvenient questions, she’s drugged, coerced and violated. As a human, she seemingly doesn’t deserve the benefits of a non-hierarchical existence. Curious.
She barely even challenges any of it. Not even the aforementioned violation. Here I have to mention the horrifying, insidious sexism of this book, and I’m not usually inclined to sling that accusation casually. If this were written by a man, and had a male main character, I’m convinced it could not attain the acclaim that it enjoys. (view spoiler)[The men that Lilith Awakens have a very nasty reaction to being raped by the ooloi. They panic, they’re filled with horror and disgust at “being taken like a woman.� They’re instantly violent and some end up killing themselves by accident. The women’s reactions are either subdued, or basically nonexistent. So then: it is women’s lot to be violated? They will keep silent and not act, to preserve themselves? That perhaps this is our natural state... Why are they not going completely ballistic like the men? Only one female character even expresses revulsion at the Ooloi-mediated sexuality! This is extremely regressive for 1989. It is extremely unrealistic for any point in time. And the implication that people will instantly pair up, women latching onto the nearest man able to act as protector (as with Curt and Celene, Peter and Jean) within a day... just on its own it’s very troubling. But the book is hilariously obsessed with procreation, so I have to roll my eyes and move on. You’re incomplete without somebody to bonk! As a coup-de-grace, Lilith is made pregnant against her wishes, with her dead lover’s child PLUS some choice Oankali DNA, by her one trusted friend among the extraterrestrials. Because she is “ready�, whatever that means. I guess she’s brainwashed enough? Alright then. (hide spoiler)]
A friend raised the possibility that all this may point to a satire of patriarchy and colonialism. If this is the case, it's either buried deep, or it really hits in the subsequent volumes. In Dawn, the scathing stealth parody is hidden damnably well, if indeed this is the case.
The fact that Lilith goes back and forth in her responses to the Oankali doesn’t endear her as a character, something obviously necessary for the reader to connect. There’s nothing believable in her coming to resign herself to the Oankali—not accept, resign, as she’s not given any choice if she is to survive.
It's a very awkward read for all of these reasons. Did she intend any commentary on colonialism or slavery? I see there's something about racism, but virtually everything in the book reinforces the Oankali as sinister and callous, and the view of humanity as competitive, hierarchical and violent comes off as a baseless accusation, seeing that all humans in the novel are under extreme distress. Their propensity to violence against one another is clearly nonsensical, but it doesn't happen unless one is under the impresssion that they're threatened by something not of their own. The trouble is, the Oankali are not written in a way that fosters common ground between them and humans, and so their status as innate threats never disappears. (I believe this is partly due to Butler’s unwillingness to engage emotionally with the reader—her characters remained always just “some woman� or “those other people� to me, that I didn’t care whether lived or died.) The Oankali’s drugging, their manipulation and flat refusal to consider another's consent gets in the way of any charitable feeling on the humans� part. All except Lilith, and we’ve been reading about her methodical coercion and manipulation. Even her one friend/ally/lover among the aliens began as a strong suggestion.
Those who rebel against the Oankali mandates are invariably portrayed as in the wrong, morally and socially underdeveloped. So perhaps Lilith chose entirely the wrong sort of people to Awaken?
The rebels, the clever women not content to be merely acted upon and the awful, primitive men who physically lash out to protect themselves really were the only people I could sympathise with. I mean, I don’t need to really sympathise with characters, don’t get me wrong. I can enjoy a book because I’m very interested in the premise instead. But as I said in the first line of my rant review, this is a very audience-alienating premise, what you find when you open the book, the dry, clinical prose, the complete lack of emotional relatability and the endless tentacles gives you practically nothing to hold onto. For me it made for an intensely unlikeable read. Though pleasantly not a slog, it’s very short and easy to digest.
The good news though is that it will make for very lively discussion in our tiny book club. Oh yes, I read this for a book club. Supposed to be the 700+ page omnibus too, but the English language copy I have is only this one volume. I’d rather not put myself through more of it....more
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