Mind of My Mind
Sometimes Octavia Butler's books feel more like outlines than novels. She's all about big ideas, and she gets them across in a really succinct way. Her books are brief, but they haunt me for years afterward, as I continue to turn over the ideas in my head. But sometimes it feels like this comes at the expense of the characters and their relationships with one another.
Butler tends to focus in on the major turning points in her characters' lives, filling in the intervening years with a few brief sentences, letting a single scene capture a decade of character growth. She does it well, but I came out of this book wanting more. There are so many characters that we meet so briefly. I wanted more from Jan and Ada, I wanted to know more about what happened to Clay (holy crap, is he the Clay in Clay's Ark?).
But this book is about Doro and his protege, Mary. And it's really only about them. Even Emma, née Anwanyu, has been relegated to Doro's sounding board and conscience, one more tool for him to use.
Which isn't to say I didn't like this book. The opposite really. I liked it so much that I wanted it to be twice as long, so I could spend some more time hanging out with these characters, trying to make up my mind about them.
Because that's the real genius of this book: I had no idea who I was rooting for. Mary and Doro are both short-sighted tyrants. But to play the game they're playing is to become that. The only way to remain a good person is, as Emma discovered, to eschew that whole battle. But now that she's forfeited completely, I'm curious to see where this all goes. What exactly has Doro set in motion?
Butler tends to focus in on the major turning points in her characters' lives, filling in the intervening years with a few brief sentences, letting a single scene capture a decade of character growth. She does it well, but I came out of this book wanting more. There are so many characters that we meet so briefly. I wanted more from Jan and Ada, I wanted to know more about what happened to Clay (holy crap, is he the Clay in Clay's Ark?).
But this book is about Doro and his protege, Mary. And it's really only about them. Even Emma, née Anwanyu, has been relegated to Doro's sounding board and conscience, one more tool for him to use.
Which isn't to say I didn't like this book. The opposite really. I liked it so much that I wanted it to be twice as long, so I could spend some more time hanging out with these characters, trying to make up my mind about them.
Because that's the real genius of this book: I had no idea who I was rooting for. Mary and Doro are both short-sighted tyrants. But to play the game they're playing is to become that. The only way to remain a good person is, as Emma discovered, to eschew that whole battle. But now that she's forfeited completely, I'm curious to see where this all goes. What exactly has Doro set in motion?
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