Ep. 330 Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler — The Stacks Book Club (Emily Raboteau)

Written By Megan Caballero
Ep. 330 Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler — The Stacks Book Club (Emily Raboteau).jpg

It’s The Stacks Book Club Day, and we are discussing the classic post-apocalyptic novel Parable of the Sower, which is set now, in July 2024. We’re joined again by Lessons for Survival author Emily Raboteau. We talk about what we think of Lauren, the book’s main character, and what we make of the religious and romantic elements in the story. We also contextualize the book’s iconic author, Octavia E. Butler.

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our August book club pick will be.

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
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Traci Thomas 0:09

Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Traci Thomas and today is The Stacks book club day. We welcome back Lessons for Survival author Emily Raboteau. Emily and I are here to discuss the classic speculative fiction novel Parable of the Sower. The book was released in 1993. It is by Octavia E. Butler. It is set in a post apocalyptic United States and starts in July 2024. Sound familiar? It follows the journey of Lauren who is a teenager who has to find a new way to survive and thrive in a place that is plagued by climate change, poverty, political dissonance, violence and so much more. Again, sound familiar? Emily and I talk about the religion at the center of this book, how Lauren and Octavia Butler mirror one another and what we think of the central relationship in this book, there are spoilers in today's episode. Listen through to the end of today's episode to find out what our August book club pick will be. And quick reminder, everything we talked about on each episode of the podcast can be found in the link in the show notes. Alright, now it's time for my conversation with Emily Raboteau about Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler.

Alright everybody it is The Stacks book club day. It is July, the last day of July and we are talking about Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, I am joined again by the amazing Emily Raboteau. Emily, welcome back.

Thanks, Traci. It's great to be back.

I'm really excited to talk about this book. For folks who are listening, we will spoil this book we are going to talk about the beginning, the middle the end, everything that happens. So if you're not finished, or if you've never read the book, you should pause and read the book. If you're a person who cares about spoilers. Okay, that is my legal liability. We can talk about the book now. We always start here, which is sort of generally what did you What do you think of the book? What was your experience with the book?

When Parable of the Sower came out in 1993, I was a junior in high school. So I was really close in age to the protagonist. She's 15 At the start of the book. I was maybe a year older than Lauren, the protagonist Lauren Olamina is a teenager. And so I was kind of hooked by her. Not only by like the darkness of her predicament, maybe I should explain what kind of teenager I was. I was like, I was like, kind of an emo teenager. I like to wear a lot of black. I had my head but my hair was really short like Sinead O'Connor. I wore like combat boots, and I like to hang out in the graveyard and write really bad poems. So, um, this explains, I think, a little bit of why I was hooked by this dystopian book because she's a hyper empath. And it's, it's described like at first as a disability like, right, so I should explain like so hyper empath. She can feel what other people can feel. And it's like her dad who's a preacher thinks it's a disability, because she literally will be in pain if she sees somebody else, for example, being cut. So I kind of felt as somebody who was a real emo kid, like a sense of kinship with that experience, even though I didn't have that actual disorder or a special ability, whatever, however you want to think of it but I liked that quality of hers. It kind of becomes the source of her strength and leadership because she she has she becomes a leader and I love that too, that she's a teenage Black girl who becomes a leader like she has to protect her loved ones including her dad and her family and her neighbors from imminent disaster in this really small gated California community that she lives in when global climate change and economic crisis lead to chaos, and her world is really full of dangers, including anarchy and marauders. And the adults in her life are like, we just need to stay behind these walls. And she she actually has, I think, a deeper wisdom that they need to actually work to, to confront and survive the fallen world that they live in, in a different way. And she winds up birthing a new faith, and she has a vision for human destiny. So she, she becomes this heroic character. And I really love that as a teenager. And I like this book for different reasons now that I'm a middle aged lady.

That's what I'm really curious about with you, because I know that you love this book, and that you've read it many times throughout your life. And I'm curious how it like changed for you.

And I have taught this book too. I teach it in a climate writing class. But before I get to that, I know last time we talked Traci, you mentioned that the first time you read this book, you weren't feeling it that much. And that may be true for other readers in the group.

Okay, I'll give my feelings. So this is my second time reading the book. I read it for the first time in 2021. And I didn't love it and 2021 and I am not a fan of Lauren. Lauren annoys me. And I can't tell if I'm supposed to like Lauren, or if I'm supposed to be annoyed by her because she's like sort of a naive, idealistic 15 16 17 and 18 year old by the end of the book, and she annoys me a little bit. And also I'm not super into religion. And the religion is such a huge part of the book. And as I'm reading the book, I'm just like, this is a cult. This is cult-like. So I think that I read I read this book with a slightly more skeptical lens having come to it later in life. That's not to say that I'm not like super impressed by the world building and like the foresight of Octavia Butler. And just like the way that the book is broken into these like two parts one is like the at home struggle and then it's like on the road out venturing like all of the story of it. I really love. So like I enjoyed reading it. I read it in two days. I was with it. But Lauren annoys me like I just cannot with Lauren. Which is that is neither like a pan or a rave of the book. I think the book is fantastic. But I think Lauren is not my favorite person to spend time with.

Fair enough. It makes me wonder Traci if like we were in high school together, if you would have found me annoying or not.

Maybe you probably would have found me annoying too. Like, I don't think that Lauren would want to hang out with me either. I don't know. But also I don't because like I'm sure if I met Lauren in real life or you in our pasts. Like she wasn't telling everyone all the stuff she was writing in her journal, so maybe I would have been cool with her if she kept her little secrets. But if she was like proselytizing to me in high school, I would be like Lauren, baby. Okay, God is change. Can you leave me alone?

Traci, did you keep a journal in high school?

No, I'm not a journaler.

Alright, wonder feel like maybe stopped along the way because you and I are different generations. But I am sure that if I reread journals I wrote when I was that teenager I described I would now find them insufferable. And it is about this book. The great portion of it is that we're accessing and reading her diary entries. And if let me ask you just a followup question as a reader though, are you are you like into dystopian fiction like this along sort of in the wheelhouse I would say with 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale.

Yeah, so that's not my go to but every time I read it, I do really like it like I love Never Let Me Go. I love books. I don't know that I could go full deep dystopian, but I do love like Station Eleven I like it when it feels very close to reality. And some things are off. I think when it's like full other world, I struggle. So I do really like dystopian, like, I actually I shouldn't say I don't like it. I really do. Like I loved Severance. I'm reading the New Mateo Askaripour poor book, this great hemisphere, which is a little more sci fi like it's a whole other world and people are invisible in that book. But it's tied to it's like 500 years in the future, but they reference like now and so. I do sort of like that stuff.

And I think I do. back to your earlier question like What do I like about this? Now I think one reason I find affinity for dystopian books in a different way now that we're living in what fields are living in. But I did want to say for readers who because some leaders, including students of mine have almost I would say, like an allergy for dystopian fiction because maybe they're having a lot of anxiety about how dystopian things feel politically and ecologically. Yeah. And I did want to share that for anyone listening who has that feeling, which I can also kind of respect sometimes you want to read something that doesn't feel so close. Yeah, the hard times were in and you want to read something that feels like more of an escape. I just want to say another book by this. This author Octavia Butler, whose biography I also want to talk about. Yeah, is a book she wrote years earlier in 1979. And that's Kindred, which I love.

Yes. Love that book.

It follows a black woman. She's wrenched backwards in time. It's not sci fi in that it's not like a future vision.

Yeah. It's a reverse sci-fi.

Right. There is time travel. She's wrenched back to live with her enslaved ancestors. So like you say it's, it's historic is a historical novel. And it just a little tidbit that I find interesting about Octavia Butler is that when she was working on that book in her late 20s, and early 30s, she was even considering becoming a historian. But she really her passion was speculative fiction. And there's an article that I read in anticipation of our conversation that I recommend by the writer Taya miles, whose work I also love that it's in the Atlantic but But what Taya says is that one thing that makes Octavia Butler's cannon so special is that she's able to look back historically. You know, she wrote historical and futuristic, so she was what what Taya miles describes as a trans temporal thinker, and I really liked, like, meaning she could look backwards and forwards at the same time. So what makes this book that we're talking about today? Noteworthy, right, like, what are the things I appreciate about it now in 2024, and we forgot to mention at the beginning of our conversation that-

The book starts in July 20, 2024. Right, so as we're recording, that's five days away. And as you're listening, that was 11 days ago.

Right. So um, but it was written in 93, as I mentioned, she foresaw like several of the disorienting climate crisis effects we're experiencing, and also some of the harrowing political trends. And those include things like fire gone really wild and smoke pollution, pervasive water shortages, rising seas and cresting rivers, really sweltering heat and receding lakes, the disintegration of civil society and political stability. She also described gated communities-

And homelessness and the treatment, the treatment of the poor and homeless, drug addiction.

Absolutely distrust of police, big advances in AI.

And also like the conversation around this about the necessity of space travel. Which, yeah, that one was really interesting to me, because I guess we should talk about this because I think when you read this book now, it feels like she's talking about what's going on now. But then you remember that she wrote this in 1993. So a lot of the things she's commenting on are things that were happening in the late 80s and early 90s. And I'm thinking of like the Challenger explosion that must have been front of mind to her in the thoughts about is it worth going to space what these astronauts want versus like, there's these other pieces that if you neglect the history of her moment, and women, the moment of this book, you sort of miss out on other things she's talking about, cuz she's talking about the war on drugs, right? We think about it as like, now the drug, the war on drugs that were like, you know, like all the meth stuff, and like, all of the opiate stuff, but at the time, it was a totally different war on drugs, air quotes, and so I thought that was really interesting to like, contextualize it in what she actually knew versus what ends up also still being true for us now.

Yeah, that's well said, Traci. Also political leadership, you know, she was, she was thinking about Reagan, and you know, his sloganeering about making America great again, and that feels very contemporary. Now and this book, actually became, became a New York Times bestseller in 2020.

So fascinating.

She really wanted it to be, like any author wants, a best seller in her lifetime. And sadly, she died in 2006 and didn't get to see this book become as popular as it became but when speculates that you know when can speculate that it was in a time of like pandemic lockdown when things were feeling really apocalyptic and dystopian. Under a president who did disbelieve science and these sort of sort of elements of her book felt really familiar. And, yeah, so I think you asked what I like about this as an adult, as opposed to when I was a teenager, the protagonist age, and I think it is an appreciation for a kind of prescients and what feels like a future thinking sensibility of the author. But then also, I mean, maybe most importantly, I feel like she predicted that a change in climate patterns affecting the earth livability, yes, would lead to social conflict and exploitation in ways that feel very real. And so she you know, she writes about a populist presidential candidate who denounced his science and promises the electorate that he's going to return us to the glory, wealth and order of prior times. And so I find myself now in this era of resurgent white ethno nationalism, I'm getting chills when I revisit Parable of the Sower. Yeah, yeah, it feels really current and her diary entries, those of Lauren, the protagonist, are about civil unrest and ecological upheaval. And they begin in July 2024.

Yeah, I have to say this reading the second time reading it. I really like nonfiction, dark stuff, like I do not shy away from murder, abuse, violence, like that stuff is stuff that I am usually extremely comfortable reading. And this time reading this book, I thought this was so brutal, it felt like such a difficult read for me. And again, that's saying a lot for someone like me, because I really intake like, I that's like what I like that's what I go toward, right. And so I don't know why this time around reading it in 2024 versus reading it in 2021. Like, it's not that much time. It's still all the same players are on the political scene. So it definitely I was that was something I was sort of thinking about, like, why this time? What's going on that's making this feel almost like, challenge it. Like I was like, I want to just get out of a gated community because I I remembered that it felt like once they were on the road, it was like less horrible to read. And I It does feel less horrible once they get on the road. But I don't know why this this year this summer, it felt particularly difficult.

Do you think it's because we're kind of in this moment of feeling, well, the election's coming up. There's a feeling of anxiety and stuckness not knowing what will be? It's different from, you know, when you read it last time.

I just come out of the election. Yeah, because I think I read it in like January 2021. So maybe I was feeling a little more like hopey changey and a little bit less like dread. I mean, I definitely had a dread moment when it gets to the day after the election in the book, and it is November 7 2024. And I was like, fuck, what are we going to be feeling on that day? Like, definitely had that moment of like, she got the date, right. Obviously, not that she would it because she's brilliant, but I just had that moment of like, Ooh, that's a day we're gonna have to get to soon. You sort of did it. I didn't really do it. Usually. I usually do this earlier. But a quick synopsis of the book just really quick is that we meet Lauren July 2024. She has just turned 15 years old. She is the eldest child in a blended family. Her mother is a drunk was drug addicted and took a drug that left her, as you said in the beginning was presented as handicapped with this hyper empathy. Her father is the pastor in their gated community. Her stepmother Corazon, or Cory and her father have four other boy children. Keith and Marcus are closer to her age. And then there's two younger ones. She has a boyfriend. They're learning how to shoot guns. They're sort of like survivalist approaching but they're not full survivalist people but she has this idea of like, things are gonna get worse. We need a plan. Things get worse this is a quick synopsis. Things get worse. The town is overrun by a bunch of outsiders who are a combination of scavengers, people on this Pyro drug that makes you obsessed with fire, they set fire to the town they kill or the community, they kill everybody, Lauren is forced to hit the road to go north with two people who survive this attack on the community. And then they pick up other people along the way. And as this is going on, Lauren is thinking about what religion means to her what God is to her because again, she's a child of a pastor. So I'm assuming that's top of mind for pastors, kids. She doesn't agree and the Christianity that her father is the leader of in the group. And so she comes up with this idea. She calls it the book, the books of Earth, seed, and Earth, seed is the religion. And the main premise is God is change. There is one constant, and it has changed. And that is sort of Lauren's guiding principle, we can shape things, we can change things, we can impact things, but no matter what things will change, and if we want to survive, we must change along with it. So that's sort of the general premise of the book

That was well done.

Thank you. I'm usually really bad at that part. It's always a part I hate, which is why I forgot to do it. Okay, as an adult, reading this book, did you still feel yourself relating to Lauren? Because that's where you'd entered the book? Like, do you still feel that closeness to her because it reminds you of like a version of yourself?

I actually feel more maternal towards her. As we talked about last time, we were we were discussing my book, which looks at what what it's like to live in this era of, you know, climate catastrophe, parenting children and thinking futuristically as in terms of intergenerational justice to as a parent who wants one one's children to thrive. I look at her almost, I don't want to say like a daughter, but yeah, maybe a version of my younger self, or just a kid who's, I admire her resourcefulness. I also like you see her as somebody who's maybe challenging the received wisdom of her father, and, you know, the prior generation, like, he's a preacher, and he has his own belief system. And she's tasked with kind of figuring out how to navigate this new world. And I feel really, I I can understand, in some ways, your irritation with her because of the voice of the diary entries. Yeah. But like, taking that aside for a minute, I also just feel really friggin proud of her for I agree, like heading first of all, for not like dying, you know, like, probably, yeah, trembling for not being like, Oh, should I better hide in a closet? I mean, that wouldn't make for very interesting, but yeah, it's somebody who's gonna act. And she really does. Yeah, she takes on this leadership role. And she's also kind of trying to envision a new society or a new way to be in the world. And for her, that's this kind of Earth seeds, a new faith. And yeah, I should mention that some people read this book, and it's sequel Parable of the Talents, which are classics of climate fiction as as like almost a religious text.

So that is, like, I know, people have quotes from the books of Earthseed like a tattooed on them, like people feel extremely connected to the religious elements of this book. And I do agree with you, I dislike Lauren as a character. And I would argue that I think maybe we're supposed to find her a little bit annoying, because she's 15 year old like, of course, she's a little high and mighty, and she doesn't understand the ways of the world fully and all of that. But I do I did feel myself rooting for her. Like I wasn't wishing ill on Lauren, which usually when I dislike a character, I'm like, get rid of them like Caleb, but like I was like, I'm rooting for you, girl. I just want you to be less annoying. And I think also part of it is like, Lauren is a basically humorless person, like she is so earnest and so rigid. And that is not always fun to be with as a reader, like when you're stuck with that person who like takes everything so seriously, and obviously, times are serious. But like even Harry, who's like one of the people goes with it. He has a little bit of a sense of humor, right? Like we get some peeks of like Harry sort of poking and prodding at Lauren and eventually making fun of Banco Lai, and all of that stuff. And so I feel like the character that we're in like definitely Zara, she's fun Zara is a good time like, for those characters, right? Yeah. Because like otherwise you're stuck with Lauren maybe that's why I like the second half better because I'm like, Yeah, we Lauren's talking about other people. But I do think that like, I was rooting for her and I was proud of her. And I was like, Look at this girl who is leading all these people like it's giving Harriet Tubman, right? It's giving freedom from slavery and we kind of get that later. It's like they're going north and she's Learning about the fact that people like slavery is back again. And she is ushering these people and protecting them. And all of that, I really think is powerful and beautiful. I just- her voice just like nails on the chalkboard for me.

I do hear you. But what you were just saying about this sort of nod to where we think of Harriet Tubman a bit or somebody leading through this incredibly hostile landscape. Even though this was written as like a near future book, there's ways that it feels historically resonant. And you did such a great job of summarizing the book. I also I just want to, is it okay to talk about Octavia Butler a little bit too?

Yeah, let's talk about Octavia Butler, we can always go back to the text.

Just to give a little bit of background about Octavia Butler. So, she descended from enslaved people in Louisiana and was raised in a working class family. Her dad died young, she grew up in Pasadena. Her mom was really strictly religious, not unlike, you know, as you described, this protagonist has a preacher dad. And her mom also cleaned houses to make a living. So she came from a humble background. And she was educated at like community and regional colleges. She also had dyslexia and but that didn't stop her from loving to read and write. She did feel professionally marginalized as a science fiction writer. And she died much too young at the age of 58. In 2006. Yeah, years before this book that we're talking about today became this New York Times bestseller. But she was incredibly ambitious, and really self disciplined. And her notebooks are kept in the Huntington Library and a number of, of, of black women have gone to read those notebooks. Either because they want to feel inspired, or they love the writing of of this author, or because they want to write biographically, about this author. And so one of the things she predicted about this book or about her writing in general, this is a quote from a notebook she kept in the 80s, my books will be read by millions of people, so be it See to it. And that was like just sort of, you know, self, she just declared a lot of things that she wanted to be true. And she she did win in her lifetime, she won the MacArthur Genius Award. And that was a couple years after this was was published. And I just I also wanted to talk a little bit about her process, I just find this thing as a, as a writer, I mentioned that she wanted to be a historian at one point in her life. And she was really good at predicting the future by by looking at the past. So she had a term for her approach, which was histo-futurist. And using that approach, she predicted that the US would slide into autocracy as it has and that's decline would be accelerated by environmental degradation and technological advancement. And I wanted to talk to just about like, so she called herself a hysto futurist, like she invented that term, but she's, you know, she's also kind of known as being a godmother of Afro futurism.

Yeah.

Which is an intellectual and artistic movement that imagines Black people surviving into the future, to shape cultures that are not yet in existence. So this gets into like, you know, Lauren, at the end of this book is, is looking to the stars, we're talking about space travel, and that's really Afro futuristic, and in that it explores the power of black resilience and, and also regeneration, beyond the ravages of of the past, like structural racism and slavery, even though it doesn't deny the legacies of those brutal strains in history. So, lastly, I just want to say she wasn't she was a real archivist. So she saved news clippings about global warming, and also modern day slave labor. And the gap that you mentioned between rich and poor was of great concern to her. And in those notebooks in the Huntington Library, she wrote really scathing and sometimes funny impressions of politician, Republican and Democrat, and she also jotted down a lot of notes about extreme weather events. such as tornadoes and floods. And she called those ecological craziness of all kinds. And yeah, she also took like notes about plant species in and around her habitat in LA. And like, you know, noticing where orange groves were located and where plants were dying or trees were, were struggling.

Let me ask you this then about this because a question that I feel like I generally don't ask about authors and their work is like, how much is the author? And how much is the character? But I do think in a book like this, where you're talking about the journals of Octavia Butler, and we're in the Journal of Lauren, and so much of the stuff that you're saying she was like archiving? Are the things that show up in this book. How much of her Do you think? I mean, obviously, you said she writes really funny stuff in these journals. So that's not Lauren. But other than that, like, how much do you think is Octavia Butler showing up in in the character of Lauren versus just showing up in the world that she's created around Lauren?

I think I think because she's not 15 that she does, you know, she probably was less insufferable. But she does also have this kind of like this, this strain in her of like, wanting to pull herself out of hard circumstances. And just Yeah, incredibly ambitious. And I mean, I, I want to say I've not been to the Huntington Library, but I've seen an end even share with my students, because I find them to be so inspiring, like her lists of goals for herself.

Oh, yeah, I feel like I've seen some of that before.

Accessing just the way that she sort of name it and claim it attitude, like, I will be a best seller, I will. And she's writing these things when she's really poor, you know, I'm going to become successful. And she kind of wrote that into existence. So, yeah, there's a little bit of I think that's the clip, probably quite a bit of Lauren and her but I also I was gonna say, kind of like looking at her real life notebooks more than I like reading.

I gotta think like seeing inside any great mind is such a privilege, like when people do you keep, you know, impeccable notes or like, there is this way to like peek behind the curtain of a person whose work you admire. I just find, I mean, obviously, I'm obsessed with that. That's what this podcast is, like, answer these questions that aren't on the page. Okay. I want to shift back to the book itself, because I want to talk a little bit about Earthseed. The religion like what it is obviously talked about, it's this idea of like, God is change, everything will change. The only constant is change. You know, as I was reading the book, sometimes when I was reading the verses, I would get a little caught up because I found some of the verses to be a little mumbo jumbo for me, though. I also again, I'm not I don't read the Bible, like I'm not comfortable reading religious texts, really. So what I would do is just substitute the word change anytime the word God came up if I was getting confused at like what she was trying to say. But I'm wondering, like, how do you feel about the religious, the religion itself? Like, do we think this is like a real religion that these people are going to be able to follow into the future? I don't, you know, are they going to make it to the stars? Who knows? But like, is this something we can get behind? Is it something that we need? Or or as Ben Colet says, like, are you thinking Tim, who said yet changes a thing? It's not a religion, it's just a thing that exists? And she's sort of like, No, it's the center of everything. So I'm just sort of like, curious, your thoughts on the actual religion have at all?

Yeah, in some ways, it's a personal question. Like, right. I'm happy to entertain it as such. How How does one feel about change being? I mean, she's she, she's conflating God and change. Yeah. Why I think that's kind of a radical proposition is that so many people are afraid of change, or at least how I see it now. And in the 2024, we actually exists, that a lot of people seem to have their head in the sand as opposed to really seeing things as they are, which is, which is what Lauren does, and committing to the creation of a social movement that is going to accept the reality of change. And it's difficult change and, and, and to navigate it together. So I'm not one of those people who like would tattoo that on my skin as like laugh Like, but But I appreciate what Butler's doing which I think with his book and with and with framing it as a as a religion and with appreciation for a character as you have mentioned who maybe is tasked with revolutionising a kind of received idea of faith and you know moving forward or or looking to a new articulation of how to be in a in a fallen what what we it's not a fallen world to her if she understands changes god it's to say also and this is an author who understood like the world has fallen or been in a degraded state. Yes. And so we need to look to examples like Harriet Tubman for ways of being resilient, imagining future alternatives.

And did you think of this as an abolitionist text?

Yeah.

Same. I mean, you know, one of the great experiments of this show for me is that I get to learn from so many people who have dedicated themselves to specific fields of study, and I have in the reading that I've done over the last six years have really found myself drawn to abolition and the ideas of imagination and change and what is possible. And I feel like that runs through that as the center of this book, whether or not the religion itself speaks to you or not, I think the idea of the world is broken and there's something else that's possible. It feels like the essence of all the abolitionist thinking and writing that I've ever read whether that's a police abolitionist or prison abolition abolitionist or a poverty like or slavery abolitionist like that the idea is the world that we're inhabiting now is not tenable. What can we imagine what could be different and, and we must imagine something different, like we must continue to push towards that and so I feel like that. I don't know that if you had asked me when I read it in 2021 If I would have connected those dots but reading it this time, I just feel like this book feels so in conversation with abolitionist text without you know, expressly saying we need to start over or like what's here isn't working it says it in a much more, you know, it's a much more Show, don't tell, I think kind of abolitionist text. But I did love the feelings of like, connecting a lot of those dots. And some of it she is saying very explicitly, but some of it I feel like is a little more covert.

Yeah, hearing you talk about how this book feels in line with other abolitionist texts. You've been reading whether nonfiction or fiction. I was reminded of Rouhani Benjamin's new book, do you know that one?

The newest one? Imagining...

It has the word imagination in the title.

Imagination: A Manifesto. Yeah.

But a manifesto, like it kind of reminds me of-

Very Lauren. It's very Lauren.

But, um, yeah, insisting on futurity and, and imagination as a work of abolition.

You know, I love insisting on futurity I love I love, love that phrase.

Yeah.

Okay, I want to talk about some plot points in this book. We have to talk I've been calling him Ben Cola. Is that how you say it?

Isn't it funny with things that you only see on the page? And I do have to say and you're not quite sure. I also don't really know. But in my mind, I mean, in my in my head, that's how I pronounced it as well.

Okay, because I think Bankole sounds like asshole and I don't love that. That's like a little, it's not great. We have to talk about him for two reasons. One, because that's his plot point that is very sticky for a lot of people, myself included, but two, I think that he serves another function in the book that I want to talk about. So Bankole is one of the people that Lauren and Harry and Zara meet on their travels north. He is pushing a cart. He is a 57 year old man. He is born in 1970. I believe He's a year older than Lauren's father, Lauren sees him is immediately attracted to him finds him to be extremely handsome and it's you know, she seems drawn to him. And they do start a relationship. And it is revealed that he is formally a doctor and also has a little money and some land up north near Mendocino that his sister and her family is living on tending to, and he's he that's where he's headed. He's headed to this land and he eventually invites Lauren because he loves her and cannot imagine a life without her and anyone she wants to bring anybody from the group but the cult the Earth. Seed community, whatever you want to call it, they're all going to Mendocino if they want to. So the first thing I want to mention about him is that there is a 40 year age 39 year age difference between Ben Colet and Lauren. And they have sexual relations. Lauren is an adult, but it is a big age gap. And we meet Lauren as readers when she's 15. So it is it's a tricky age gap as well. I'm wondering how you think about that part of the book if it is unsettling to you if it's difficult. Other readers who are in the Stax community mentioned, that age difference appears on a lot of Octavia Butler's books, which I've only read this and kindred, so I can't speak to that. But if you have any insights about any of that, I would love to hear.

I remember feeling creeped out by it. When I first read this book as a teenager, by the age difference. Yeah. And I also still, I still feel that way, perhaps even more so.

Yeah. With your maternal relationship to Lauren, for sure. I feel creeped out by it. I don't like it. One of the things I most remember from my first read when I started, the second read was like, oh, gosh, and then she's gonna, like get with that guy who's 20 years older than her. And then when I got to the age difference in the book, I was like, Oh, my God, it's so much older than I remember.

It's even worse than you thought.

Yeah. Why does she do that to us?

It's interesting, given her given how she's examining power. I mean, this is written before me too, and our ways of really culturally examining these kind of sadly, maybe too common imbalances of power. Why did she do it? I wish she was here to ask.

I know, but like, what do you think it adds to the book for him to be so much older than her because because one of the things that really stuck out into my in my head about this relationship is like Lauren is very independent. She's very strong willed, she is leading this group of people. And it's not until he shows up. And then all of a sudden, she starts looking to him for answers. And she's sort of like deferred, she doesn't fully defer to him. But she consults with him is the person who joins the group where she doesn't give him the ninth degree like everybody else, she sort of trusts him immediately. And then he sort of like save air quotes, saves them and saves her with this land. And it just feels so like heteronormative in a way that feels the opposite of some of the like, abolitionist visions that we talked about in other parts of the book. And so I'm curious, like, I have to imagine that Octavia Butler is getting at something with this because she is so smart and good on so many other parts of this book, and this part feels like retrograde compared to the rest of it.

I agree. I agree with that assessment. And I wonder, but and I wonder if it is just that, like, if it could be of a retrograde streak that she hadn't overcome? I mean, one can only speculate. But right. I know that element of her biography that I shared that her father died young, I don't know, did you perceive him as a kind of a father figure in that in that he does have a kind of wisdom to offer her that she seems in need of in a way that are that she capitulates to in a way? That hasn't really happened prior to that point?

Yeah, yeah, I do get that sense. And I don't, and I don't want to say something that's not true, which is like, Lauren still remains the leader. And she's still like, she doesn't fully like give in to him. But it is very different from how she interacts with every other person in the group. And there are other men that join the group. And she has very, you know, apprehensive of them and very critical of their behavior and sort of like, are not critical, but like, vigilant around their behavior. And it's just so different with him. And I do think maybe it has to do with like, as we like to click, we will say, Daddy Issues that Lauren has.

Yeah, that's what I was kind of implying. Maybe there's some daddy issues on the part of the author. I don't, I'm uncomfortable saying that. But yeah, that's what it feels like a little bit.

Okay. And then I want to pause at this. One other thing about Bankhole, which is that he is we're told that he is born in 1970. And when this book comes out in 1993, that person who was born around that time is in their 20s, right? They're 23 years old when the book comes out. And I'm wondering if she uses that character as a connection to the current audience of like, This is who I imagine is reading this book, people around this age, and so like how you felt seen as a teenager and Lauren, that they might be able to feel seen as a young adult in this time. I'm thinking of them. Like, as they read it in different parts of their life, perhaps there's like a way to connect to the story through this other character.

Because what you're saying is a reader and 93 might have been born in 1970, the same year as this character?

Yes. Whereas like Lauren is born in 2002, or whatever, like, it's harder to imagine how near future it is. Whereas like, someone who's born in 1970, could be like, Oh, they're my age. So I wonder if he sort of serves maybe that kind of function as well, because like, that's a person who's younger than the author, but older than most of the characters in the book and kind of tie like, it's like, it's not that far away, you'll be 57 in 2024.

Consider that because I've never I've never written a near future work fiction as as Butler was doing and that I'm imagine you have to think in those terms a little bit, how is my reader going to connect to this book? That is happening? Not now. But in within, like, their lives? That could be in their life? Time? And who are the characters that they might associate with? And where might that be? challenging for them?

Yeah, so I don't know. I that was like the bat to me felt like the most. I, to me, that's how I was reading him. It's like, her reader could conceivably see themselves as him in a way that they might not be able to see themselves and Lauren, especially if they're already past that teenager age, like a 30 year old reading the book and be like, Oh, that person is just a few years younger than me like, you know, anyways, um- I want to talk I'm trying to think what else I really want to make sure we get to. Oh, I want to talk about Lauren's family for a second. What do we make of her dad Keith, and Cory? I think those are the three I mean, the the brothers Marcus is her brother. She loves their friends. The little brothers are little but those three. The dad I mean talk about daddy issues. She Lauren loves her dad, greatest man she's ever met. She says that multiple times even after he beat hits her for fooling around with Quint, one of the boys. She's like, I'm so glad he was strict. I was an idiot. I didn't know Keith is her next is her next closest and age brother. He's like 13 I think when the book starts, or 12 Even he ends up leaving the community steals the key takes a gun falls in with a crowd is there like reader writer boy and gets a lot of money comes in and out. Eventually he's killed Cory is a stepmom Cory fake likes Lauren, but it comes out that maybe she doesn't really like Lauren because she's a stepchild. I'm just wondering like how you think and feel about those people.

I feel like the different they're different attributes are good foils to to help us learn about her. I also appreciate the ways I had a step mother to like, we're dealing with ABUSE, you said a blended family. There's like kind of some complicating factors and some really different personalities involved. Yeah, I kind of appreciated the ways that this text treats family with complexity, even continuing to love a father who has, you know, some flaws. Yeah, felt real to me. And perhaps in keeping with like, there's some ways in which I think she's maybe not fully examining or at the age appropriate the way she's maybe like, not fully examining her dad's flaws yet or not incapable of it, but while at the same time forging a path for herself that feels different from his way. And I feel glad for like the fact that there were siblings in this book that like, you know, I mean, I think and I think if there had not been it felt to me like a, like a wise choice on the part of Butler to help us understand the main character more just to understand her world better that there's a family system. I'm reminded, actually, since we're kind of focusing on like family family characters, including a stepmother, the writer, Grace Paley, I had the benefit of being her student, but like shortly before she passed away, and she has a great quote that I'm going to bungle a little bit because I can only paraphrase it but she said something along the lines of like, a story really matters most when it has blood, or money, like preferably both and by blood. She meant like blood tie like ties, like it's gonna be like the family dynamics are really important to story and in our lifetimes, where often conflict comes up is like through blood and money, like not enough of it too much of it. How did you feel about the characters?

I really dislike Cory. I really dislike Cory, I don't I don't know if I'm supposed to feel more empathy towards her. But I really struggled with her because I felt like she was rightfully anxious and rightfully terrified for her family. But I just didn't. I didn't like her methods. I didn't I didn't like the choices she was making. She and I think she feels like the easiest villain of the people that we know by name, right? There's like these outside forces that are pushing down on Lauren, but it's like man versus nature versus man versus man. And I feel like a woman versus woman. I feel like the woman versus woman conflict is feels the most obvious with with Cory. And then, you know, I actually really liked Keith, again, someone with a sense of humor, you know, he also is man versus woman, you know, villain, but I was more sympathetic towards him. I feel like oftentimes, like they, like I'll hear people talk about children. And it's like, you gotta parent the child that you have. And he seems like Lauren to be seemed to be sort of maybe immature, and maybe like a little impulsive, but maybe a little more advanced than your average 13 year old and the dad just seems so rigid with him. And that struggle, and I know people talk all the time about father versus son. And it felt like, you know, the dad could not see the child that was in front of him. So I felt sympathy or empathy towards Keith. Even though I was also like, get some handcuffs and tie that boy up, because he's gonna be dead real soon. I don't like that. Like, like, it's like, you know where this is going. And then Lauren and her journal, as always, like, Keith is dead. Like, the little girls that like there's she writes all this stuff. But like when something really serious happens, like you're reminded of how young she is and how probably overwhelming it is, right? And those moments, I think, are the moments I like Lauren the best where she it's like, she cuts through it all. And it's just like-

You see her vulnerability sometimes.

Yes! And I do love that. Speaking of, I'm going to tell you my favorite part of the entire book, and then I want you to tell me your favorite part of the entire book if you have one. My favorite part, it's on page 300 of my version is to the end. Yeah, close em 203. It's very close to the end is when Ali when the sister the one sister dies in the like gunfight. And Lauren is walking with Ali on the road, and Ali is pushing the child that they've picked up the like the orphaned boy child. And she's just, she's just walking close to her and she's not talking to her and she's just standing near her. And then eventually, she says, I hugged her. Then I put my hands on her shoulders and stopped her half blind plotting. When she swung around to face me hostile and hurting, I hugged her, she could have broken free. I was feeling far from strong just then. But after a first angry pulling away, she hung on to me and moaned. I've never heard anyone moan like that. And then it goes on to describe this like moment of them. It's just, it's probably like five paragraphs total, this whole section. I just love that moment. Because that, to me is like near future history. far future as long as there's humans, there's gonna be that grief and that hurt. And like, no matter what we believe that showing up and just being present. And like, I just I like to just feel that moment. So deep in my chest, and I and the thing that's funny is like, one of the things I remembered from the first read was like, I think there's a sister that dies. Yeah, and I had remembered the wrong I had remembered it as Lauren sister. But it was actually the two sisters who are separated and I just, I that relationship, those two sisters I loved the whole time. They're there in the book, but that scene, for whatever reason, just really, I think, is just so perfectly rendered on the page.

It's really emotional. I love that moment, too. I'm glad you read from it. I'm trying it's hard for me to pick a moment but I know the line. I used it as I used it as epigraphs to my book.

I know exactly where it is. I wrote it. I took the note when I saw it. Let me find it. This is Corey and the dad talking and Cory says, What are we supposed to do if you die? She demanded and I think she was crying. What do we do if they shoot you over some damn rabbits live? Dad said. That's all anybody can do right now. Live, hold out survive. I don't know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won't matter if we don't survive these times. Yeah. And your epigraph is just that one chunk, right?

Emily Raboteau 54:58

It's the dad's words about what Were supposed to do in his in the in the eventuality of his death. And I really liked that. And I liked that is also kind of an encapsulation of what I think is Butler's lesson for us and like not just in this book, but pretty much all her books like her characters tend to survive collapse, like moments that feel like the moment we're in by acknowledging change, right? And also that worst case scenario can actually happen, which is the hard thing to acknowledge and accept. But what do they do in the face of that? They buy land, they grow their own food they take to the road as refugees. They form new kinship circles. And they defend themselves. And they accept that dictum that change is unavoidable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. And that's terrifying. And yet, and yet her characters deal with it as gracefully as they can, as some of our ancestors also have.

Traci Thomas 56:04

This is the last thing I want to say. And then we'll go. The book ends with a quote from the Bible Bible, the parable of the sower. Why do you think that Octavia Butler ends this book with this quote, instead of something from Earth seed or something from Lauren, why does the book end with the Christian Bible?

I thought about that, on this reread, I asked myself the same question. And while I can't really know, I think it might be a nod to her own upbringing. She had a very religious mother and I think that that is part of her own canon and her own upbringing, like what she carries in her own DNA is still a part of her register of thinking and a part of her like literary and spiritual makeup.

Yeah. I don't know. I didn't have a good answer. It's a little confusing to me, but I do like that idea. All right, we're done. We did it. Amazing. Everyone. Thank you for listening. Be sure to go get Emily's books, but books both of our books, just just to or do you have a third I have three you have three. You have three. One of them is right behind me searching for Zion. But her most recent is lessons for survival, which you can get wherever you get your books. Emily, thank you so much for doing this with me.

Emily Raboteau 57:30

Thank you, Traci. I really appreciate it.

Traci Thomas 57:32

And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Alright, y'all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to Emily Raboteau for being on the show again. I'd also like to thank Sarah Jean Grimm and Caitlin Mulrooney-Liski for helping to make this conversation possible. And now for our announcement of our August book club pick. It is Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo. This book was the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and biography and is the story of self emancipation told through the lives of a bold young enslaved couple. You will have to listen to our August 7th episode to find out who our guests will be for this discussion on August 28th. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack and subscribe to my newsletter at TraciThomas.substack.com. Make sure you're subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram, Threads and TikTok and at thestackspod_ on Twitter and you can check out my website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

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