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Jennifer Theriault's Reviews > Dawn
Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1)
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** spoiler alert **
This started out awesome! Lilith wakes up from a long sleep in some kind of prison, and must cooperate with her grotesque alien captors, the Oankali, and figure out what they want from her. Turns out they want to repopulate the newly-rebuilt Earth with human alien hybrids! It had the stuff I personally love: gripping conversation between fascinating characters who are learning about each other. Despite their being no real action in the first half of Dawn, it was carried quite nicely by these conversations. Yes, I guess I am a giant nerd that way.
But once Lilith begins Awakening other humans to begin teaching them how to survive on Earth once more, everything takes a huge nose-dive.
Can I just say it? Most of the humans are assholes. There are about 40 of them, and Butler can't possibly characterize them all successfully in such a short time (and she does not). So the story goes from an intimate character-driven one between the fleshed-out Lilith and aliens Jdahya and Nikanj as she gets used to life with the Oankali, to a more action driven one with 40 extra assholes dumped into the mix. The humans are all cowardly, tribal, suspicious, dense, selfish, and violent. Ok, maybe not all. Joseph, Lilith's blander-than-bland love interest, is not like that, and Butler goes to great lengths to let the reader know how special he and Lilith are. But what do they get for their trouble? He dies. Killed by the most violent alpha-male of the group. And Nikanj the alien ends up keeping Lilith on the ship in the end, rather than on Earth with the humans she has trained, because it says the other humans would have definitely plotted to kill her. This fatalistic attitude about humans permeates the book and is unrelenting!
But there are other, even deeper problems, with Dawn. I picked up this book because I'd heard that Octavia Butler was a highly-regarded feminist writer. As a feminist-minded reader, I seek these stories out because feminist writers are more likely to have fully realized female characters, less sexualized violence, and something interesting to say about sex and gender roles (or at least they don't tend to fall back on old gender cliches). But some of the ideas in this book are so regressive I wondered if this was written in the 60s. (Nope, 80s!)
First off, Butler's men, with the exception of Joseph, are all violent and/or petulantly anxious about their masculinity. The Oankali pretty much rape all the humans, let's be honest. It's not graphically presented, and it's of the mind-sex variety, but still, it's awful. These aliens have no concept or respect for wishes of consent from their human captives. They use drugs and chemicals to "bond" the raped humans to them in a horrific version of Stockholm Syndrome. HOWEVER, only the men are driven to violence by these rapes. Peter and Curt turn murderous at being "taken like a woman" (quote from the book!). The women seem to suffer no ill effects, and indeed a few of them cling to these violent men, and it strikes me as very disturbing for a "feminist" writer to present. As if being raped was woman's natural lot, and women are not inherently violent (ha!), but rape a man and watch out! Even the kick-ass scene where Lilith saves a human woman from being raped by a human man can't override the message. I wouldn't even mind if Butler had had some commentary about this; if maybe she had condemned the underlying homophobia and misogyny, taught by culture, that drives some men to murder anything that taints their dominant masculinity. (It reminded me of the appalling "trans-panic" defense and left a bad taste in my mouth.) But she just presented it as how Things Just Are. Like the humans are just biologically like that, and not shaped by the vestiges of thousands of years of patriarchy. I'm not sure what kind of feminist Butler is, but I know *I* am not the kind that thinks all men are inherently Cavemen, and all women are cowering, helpless children.
And speaking of homophobia, this book is *painfully* heteronormative. And monogamous. The Oankali are a 3 gender race: male, female, and the sexless "ooloi". Ok, but there is never any deviation from this relationship model. There are no gay Oankali, Oankali divorces, affairs, or even happily single Oankali. There are certainly no gay humans! They all pair up very quickly into straight, extremely monogamous couples (and later, 3somes with an ooloi). For someone who tries to be edgy by creating a 3 gender race, there is something that smells very traditional and conservative about the Oankali. Their sex is mind-sex, a kind of sexless, dispassionate, sanitized sex. Procreation is at the forefront of all their relationships. (Gee, this is sounding so familiar!) It is stated that the male and female Oankali never touch each other sexually, oh no! Butler even goes to great lengths to explain how Oankali are practically slaves to their chemicals and drives, and that being gay or even single is just not thought of or mentioned. And personality and compatibility isn't even a factor; just get the right chemicals flowing and the male, female and ooloi form an unbreakable bond! But with boring-ass "sex"! Biology is destiny for Butler. Isn't this a line of thinking most modern feminists are *against*? I know I am!
I don't know. I'll probably read the rest of the trilogy, because I got all three for free in the same volume. I really hope Butler has something to say about all this in her next books, because if not, I'll be really disappointed!
But once Lilith begins Awakening other humans to begin teaching them how to survive on Earth once more, everything takes a huge nose-dive.
Can I just say it? Most of the humans are assholes. There are about 40 of them, and Butler can't possibly characterize them all successfully in such a short time (and she does not). So the story goes from an intimate character-driven one between the fleshed-out Lilith and aliens Jdahya and Nikanj as she gets used to life with the Oankali, to a more action driven one with 40 extra assholes dumped into the mix. The humans are all cowardly, tribal, suspicious, dense, selfish, and violent. Ok, maybe not all. Joseph, Lilith's blander-than-bland love interest, is not like that, and Butler goes to great lengths to let the reader know how special he and Lilith are. But what do they get for their trouble? He dies. Killed by the most violent alpha-male of the group. And Nikanj the alien ends up keeping Lilith on the ship in the end, rather than on Earth with the humans she has trained, because it says the other humans would have definitely plotted to kill her. This fatalistic attitude about humans permeates the book and is unrelenting!
But there are other, even deeper problems, with Dawn. I picked up this book because I'd heard that Octavia Butler was a highly-regarded feminist writer. As a feminist-minded reader, I seek these stories out because feminist writers are more likely to have fully realized female characters, less sexualized violence, and something interesting to say about sex and gender roles (or at least they don't tend to fall back on old gender cliches). But some of the ideas in this book are so regressive I wondered if this was written in the 60s. (Nope, 80s!)
First off, Butler's men, with the exception of Joseph, are all violent and/or petulantly anxious about their masculinity. The Oankali pretty much rape all the humans, let's be honest. It's not graphically presented, and it's of the mind-sex variety, but still, it's awful. These aliens have no concept or respect for wishes of consent from their human captives. They use drugs and chemicals to "bond" the raped humans to them in a horrific version of Stockholm Syndrome. HOWEVER, only the men are driven to violence by these rapes. Peter and Curt turn murderous at being "taken like a woman" (quote from the book!). The women seem to suffer no ill effects, and indeed a few of them cling to these violent men, and it strikes me as very disturbing for a "feminist" writer to present. As if being raped was woman's natural lot, and women are not inherently violent (ha!), but rape a man and watch out! Even the kick-ass scene where Lilith saves a human woman from being raped by a human man can't override the message. I wouldn't even mind if Butler had had some commentary about this; if maybe she had condemned the underlying homophobia and misogyny, taught by culture, that drives some men to murder anything that taints their dominant masculinity. (It reminded me of the appalling "trans-panic" defense and left a bad taste in my mouth.) But she just presented it as how Things Just Are. Like the humans are just biologically like that, and not shaped by the vestiges of thousands of years of patriarchy. I'm not sure what kind of feminist Butler is, but I know *I* am not the kind that thinks all men are inherently Cavemen, and all women are cowering, helpless children.
And speaking of homophobia, this book is *painfully* heteronormative. And monogamous. The Oankali are a 3 gender race: male, female, and the sexless "ooloi". Ok, but there is never any deviation from this relationship model. There are no gay Oankali, Oankali divorces, affairs, or even happily single Oankali. There are certainly no gay humans! They all pair up very quickly into straight, extremely monogamous couples (and later, 3somes with an ooloi). For someone who tries to be edgy by creating a 3 gender race, there is something that smells very traditional and conservative about the Oankali. Their sex is mind-sex, a kind of sexless, dispassionate, sanitized sex. Procreation is at the forefront of all their relationships. (Gee, this is sounding so familiar!) It is stated that the male and female Oankali never touch each other sexually, oh no! Butler even goes to great lengths to explain how Oankali are practically slaves to their chemicals and drives, and that being gay or even single is just not thought of or mentioned. And personality and compatibility isn't even a factor; just get the right chemicals flowing and the male, female and ooloi form an unbreakable bond! But with boring-ass "sex"! Biology is destiny for Butler. Isn't this a line of thinking most modern feminists are *against*? I know I am!
I don't know. I'll probably read the rest of the trilogy, because I got all three for free in the same volume. I really hope Butler has something to say about all this in her next books, because if not, I'll be really disappointed!
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Dawn.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 29, 2012
–
Finished Reading
June 2, 2012
– Shelved
June 14, 2012
– Shelved as:
hard-sci-fi
March 23, 2017
– Shelved as:
gender-woes
Comments Showing 1-22 of 22 (22 new)
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Absolutely in agreement with you. This book started out so well and I couldn't put it down. And then....... the mass Awakenings. Sigh.
I felt that everything completely crumbled from there. Every single page seemed to be the same page: "Okay, so-and-so's awake now, they're an angry and suspicious asshole, and they hate Lilith." Well, by that point in the novel, I was beginning to hate Lilith too and didn't blame them! I was tired of her and the same argument she seemed to wage in her head. She didn't have much of a personality either. For someone who was once so well-travelled on Earth, she's rather close-minded. At least, I found that. :I
And what's more! Her transition into acceptance of the Oankali seemed instantaneous. Boom! Just like that. She went from being scared, suspicious and a bit of an asshole herself (although, her assholism was more understandable than Peter and Jean and the rest of the "gang"'s), to a honourary Oankali.
To me it seemed like Lilith just started waking people up so quickly because there was a page limitation, not because it helped the plot along in any real way. I feel that Butler could've at least concentrated on just three new characters for a while, and then went on from there by mentioning others who came awake. Instead, you're right, the reader's pummeled by a group of 40 spiteful and unlikable nobodies who suddenly dominate the storyline. Also, Joseph, her "mate", was dry and flat and there was nothing likeable about him, in my eyes.
I'm so disappointed with this book. I don't know if I'll read the others... Anyway, great review. I didn't mean to type this much!
I think drugged and forced to mate, have sex with aliens would piss anyone off. They weren't given a choice, even if it was mind sex, it was rape. they couldn't even mate with their chosen human without those disgusting aliens being there. They didn't personally destroy the earth so how is sex with those things will help. All I say was the aliens wanting to keep control by forcing them to have kids mixed with their blood, and it's not like anyone of them could say no, they were drugged into compliance.In this I was totally against Lilith and the aliens, wanted to see them all die.
Those others had a right to be pissed off, rape is rape when free will is taken away.
Please believe me I'm not trying to be rude, but to use rape as a solution to anything rubs me the wrong way.
I hope you have a nice day:)
Oh I agree. It's just that the humans' violent behavior was not portrayed as being righteous fury due to the rape. It was more presented as the natural state of humans. Tribal, bloodthirsty, prejudiced. The fact that the only ones who had a problem with the rape were the males made the rape more about their damaged male pride that the true horror of the violation.
thanks for saving me the time to write this review...you nailed it for me on every single point!
Jennifer, I see what you're saying and I totally agree with you there.
I agree with you that the characters introduced later are extremely unlikeable, and the book becomes unenjoyable after that point. But I don't agree that the book is regressive or anti-feminist.First, feminists can and do disagree about which of the behavioral differences between the sexes are due to nature vs nurture. But more importantly, the men in the story were nurtured in present-day (or rather, 1980s) misogynistic culture. So of course many of them will act in stereotypically "masculine" and heteronormative ways. That's how most people are taught to behave, and it's not anti-feminist to acknowledge this and portray people in a realistic way. Just like it's not always racist to include bigoted characters in your story.
I would say, though, that the characterization is not entirely realistic. The people are just angrier than most real people would be in their situation. They've been saved from certain death by the Oankali, they're going to live for hundreds of years, their world has been brought back to live. Their reaction to this is bizarrely spiteful and ungrateful (although I agree with you that they are right to be angry about their rape by the ooloi--but they were already strangely angry before then).
Butler's narrative itself doesn't say anything about the mens' actions. While the narrative certainly doesn't *support* their behavior, it doesn't condemn it, either. It just sort of...is. And I found it disappointing, as I had heard that Butler was the kind of author who had a lot to say about gender roles and how society shapes gender identities. So I stand by my criticism. It's one thing to have stupid/violent/sexist characters, but when the narrative itself seems to condone it, it doesn't sit well with me. And I agree with you about the humans seeming ungrateful and needlessly spiteful. Perhaps I am an idealist, but I didn't like the fact that Butler's entire reason for writing this was to show us that, in her opinion, humans are so ridiculously stupid and irrational that they will destroy themselves, even when the perfect life and immortality are handed to them on silver platters.
I just finished Dawn and came looking for comments like these to help come to terms with the story. I was very much pulled through it, but the lack of consent in particular stuck out to me. My thought is that perhaps the Oankali are under the lens as much as the human characters-- while they seem "superior" to the tribalness of the humans, they are repeatedly unaware of the harm they cause (Nikanj with Joseph, for instance). Rather than just a Hobbesian view of humanity, I think the story is more exploring the nature of the power dynamic with such a clearly dominant partner-culture. Even considering how violent (to the point of caricature) the humans are, the Oankali are wrong to ignore consent and treat them like confused children. It could have just been my own read, but the discomfort at Joseph's lack of consent (or that whole drugged-mating scene) felt very intentional. Even if the Oankali are offering perfect life and immortality on a silver platter, by ignoring the autonomy of the individual (impregnating Lilith because she is "ready"), they are a sort of villain as well. It seems to be, among other things, a commentary on the sort of "missionary mindset" not uncommon in the west today.
Yeah, I read a review that said the book is best understood as an allegory to the relationship between the colonizing West (Oankali) and Africa (the humans). This made me like it more in retrospect, because I think it works on that level--although perhaps it's too generous to Westerners seen this way, because the colonizers and slavers were much less beneficent than the Oankali are in the book. But there is some interesting stuff here about cultural assimilation.On this point of Jennifer's:
>While the narrative certainly doesn't *support* their behavior, it doesn't condemn it, either. It just sort of...is. And I found it disappointing, as I had heard that Butler was the kind of author who had a lot to say about gender roles and how society shapes gender identities.
I'm not sure the narrative needs to do much to explicitly condemn the men's actions, because they're so obviously wrong it sort of goes without saying. It sort of fits with Lilith's integration into the Oankali for her to watch this behavior in a detached way, because the Oankali are very pragmatic. Their reaction to wrongdoing is to try to prevent harm without exacting retribution or becoming angry. And in the latter half of the novel, Lilith is becoming like them.
Yeah. I just got to the part where she's waking people up. What struck me was not so much that they are assholes, but that Lilith suddenly becomes a massive asshole towards the people she's waking up. Considering all the time and patience she required to adjust, it's amazingly blind of her to just yank people out, give them a couple of days or less, and expect them to believe and absorb everything she says. She doesn't even seem vaguely interested in bonding with or forming relationships with the new people. Whereas the whole reason she herself was able to adjust was by spending a lot of time bonding with Oankali. The hypocrisy is really problematic for me.Every time I read Butler I think 1) wow! this is such a cool premise! 2) wow! your main character is so smart and interesting 3) wow, your main character really sees herself as superior to everyone around her and is therefore shitty to all of them unless they are in immediate danger. and you seem to be structuring every single surrounding character to justify this. 4) wow, you are really, really, really straight, aren't you? You do know non-straight people exist in the world, right? No? Ok, well, they do, FYI.
I often get the impression that her main character has spent so much empathy and patience navigating relationships with those in a position of power over her that she has nothing left for people who could be her peers or mentees. This is my third Butler novel and this issue with her main characters is totally consistent so far.
Thank you for a great review and some good comments showing that I'm not alone :)My main problem with the book is that I get this strong feeling that Butler simply cannot relate to people or understand anything beyond the most primitive feelings and normalise ice cold calculative manipulation as the only way to rise above aimless brutality.
My review with some more stuff:
/review/show...
I couldn't have summed it up better myself; the book is basically biology=destiny, Women-meek, Men-aggressive, human collectivism always end up evil. I burned out on it too despite what started out at a great premise.
I take all your observations and just would like to say a couple things Octavia deals with the idea of consent in a very forward way and gives you lots of conflict in your resolve , on one hand lillith should not be forced to do anything on the other hand she has been saved kept and loved by these aliens, Lillith had a choice and from the other humans in the book you see that they can walk away and choose things other than the Onakali. She did not have to stay with Nikanj during its metamorphosis, that was lilliths own outward choice to be used by these Aliens there is the first turning point of the book you know she is staying. In the later books you realize that she does not regret her choice but comes to resent the hold her ooloi has on her. In addition I believe Octavia meant for the ooloi to embody all of those things, LGBT relationships and bring out the issues of internalized homophobia, hypermasculinity and sexism. The ooloi in term represents all those who are gay bi gender non conforming etc some humans accept them and some don't. In looking at the book it places two species against each other and does not take sexuality in the normal human way, the abnormal or LGBT are the Oankali . They are other and separate sometimes scorned(sound familiar?) but some people choose them anyway they cannot help it , it is how their bodies respond. With the humans butler showed how we can go back to our primitive fight or flight when we seem threatened the men have a more overt and violent reaction. The women rebel in ways they know will hurt more than physical damage(leaving their ooli behind) I don't think Butler meant to portray men as cave men but shows that when confronted with difficult situations Humans tend to break down , as much as we dont want to admit it most do. Some rise above (Lillith and Joseph) some go fight or flight and others are sheep who follow the masses. There are some flaws errors etc but i think its a very forward book with multiple layers that we only perceive a couple at a time. This is my second time reading it and I picked up many different things hat i did not get the first time around
I think I enjoyed this book more than you did, but your review does raise many excellent points about its problematic aspects.
This review is interesting to read... I feel like I share some values and dispositions with you but my experience of this novel is very different. What you see as fatalism, I see as a frank appraisal of the challenges for human survival, which I don't take to mean that "human survival is impossible" or something. The reading that the Oankali are just straightforward victimizing the humans doesn't seem quite sustainable to me, I think it misses how the humans seem to be having a trauma response in many instances to the Oankali where their Earthbound experiences of coercion, manipulation, and oppression give them no frame to understand the Oankali's actions besides attack and control. And, related, how they instinctively view the Oankali as repulsive, and desperately defend the idea of a pure untainted humanity--this seems to me to have clear resonances with white supremacy & ableism in our culture, in which certain forms of difference are automatic grounds for rejection. remember, the Oankali perceptively state that humans are both intelligent and have a tendency toward hierarchy. consent simply isn't going to look the same in this setting, because if the Oankali are just like "wanna hang out with us?" the humans will be like hell no! -- but that's their only chance for survival. I think that's the theme in a lot of Octavia's stuff, is how much discomfort survival can really take. she takes that to an extreme here--what if, to survive, we can't retain our ideas of ourselves as we have them now? what if we have to become hybrid? this is relevant to the monogamy question, which it's a little confusing to me to critique this book for. it seems clear that some of the humans are having intense negative reactions to the idea of untraditional, nonmonogamous relationships, but those reactions are portrayed as limiting and counter to human survival. this is a theme that comes up in her book Fledgling as well. the heteronormativity critique also seems kind of thin here--it doesn't check the box of having a queer character, sure (or at least one that's easily legible to us as queer), but the book with the compelling representations of group alien sex does not strike me as being especially interested in maintaining sexual conventions. idk how to respond to the idea that the sex is portrayed as dispassionate except to quote from those scenes at length? I feel as if this review is expecting this book to just like confirm what 21st century feminists think in story form, but I think the book's approach is really challenging and provocative in ways that are more generative than that would be
Thanks for your review! You worded some of my issues with the book really well.
Yes to everything you said. I honestly feel sickened by having read this book. It reduces humanity to toys to be played (and raped) with. Yuck
Loved your review, very astute! Like you, I loved the first half of the book, and was so horribly disappointed by the second half� I’m pretty sure it even turned me off this author completely! It’s like we are given this great promise of awesome conversations and debates to come with the story, but then it turns out� No. Like when you’re seeing food from afar and you think it looks like the tastiest food ever but when you come up close, it’s all rotten and disgusting. Huge disappointment.
commenting on this review so that I can find it and discuss it later with my partner when he finishes the book. (I disagree with you resolutely btw)
Despite agreeing with ALL your critiques... I still enjoyed the books. Tough to hold it all together in my head, and also to wonder what on earth Butler was doing. (I hear her other stuff is less essentialist.) On one level, this whole trilogy reads as "Humans are irreparably fucked up and beyond hope. Only a miracle species sent from outer space could save us from ourselves." A pretty bleak view of life, to be sure...