Butler, Octavia E. - Adulthood Rites
Sun, Apr. 27th, 2008 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI read Dawn about five years ago, so I didn't remember it very much. Thankfully, that didn't seem to matter for this book.
Akin is the Human construct son of Lilith, but though he looks Human, he's half-Human, half-Oankali. He's stolen by resister Humans who want their own children, but cannot have them.
My plot summary sucks more than usual. The book is a continuation of themes that I remember from the first book: what it means to be Human, if Humans can keep from destroying themselves, what it means to be different. I read this very slowly because it was extremely painful at times, particularly Akin's childhood in the resister city. Just... the way people treated him and constantly focused their rage at the Oankali on him. And their blind insistence on making him just like them, or attempting to ignore the differences or try to eradicate them violently.
He does meet a few good people, and his relationship with Tate is one of the most interesting in the book, as they disagree about some very major things, but still try to understand each other.
Butler's exceptionally good at portraying Akin's partially alien POV and making it feel normal to the reader; she's equally good at rendering recognizable human behavior as foreign and frightening. I, of course, keep bringing this back in my head to race and racism, though clearly the two aren't analogues. On the other hand, if this was what Butler was doing and not me reading too much into things, it works better than other SFnal attempts to comment on race, as her humans are multi-racial and not just, so pushing race commentary onto a separate species doesn't read as a cheat.
Excellent book, though definitely not light reading.
Akin is the Human construct son of Lilith, but though he looks Human, he's half-Human, half-Oankali. He's stolen by resister Humans who want their own children, but cannot have them.
My plot summary sucks more than usual. The book is a continuation of themes that I remember from the first book: what it means to be Human, if Humans can keep from destroying themselves, what it means to be different. I read this very slowly because it was extremely painful at times, particularly Akin's childhood in the resister city. Just... the way people treated him and constantly focused their rage at the Oankali on him. And their blind insistence on making him just like them, or attempting to ignore the differences or try to eradicate them violently.
He does meet a few good people, and his relationship with Tate is one of the most interesting in the book, as they disagree about some very major things, but still try to understand each other.
Butler's exceptionally good at portraying Akin's partially alien POV and making it feel normal to the reader; she's equally good at rendering recognizable human behavior as foreign and frightening. I, of course, keep bringing this back in my head to race and racism, though clearly the two aren't analogues. On the other hand, if this was what Butler was doing and not me reading too much into things, it works better than other SFnal attempts to comment on race, as her humans are multi-racial and not just, so pushing race commentary onto a separate species doesn't read as a cheat.
Excellent book, though definitely not light reading.
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Sat, May. 3rd, 2008 12:27 am (UTC)This is why trying to determine author intent is a fun intellectual game, but not always much help in your reading. Hee!