Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Apr. 24th, 2010 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrily I've been reading Conversations with Octavia Butler
, edited by Conseula Francis, and there is something that is starting to extremely piss me off. The thing is this: in the vast majority of the interviews, the interviewer starts with a rundown of who Butler is, what her work's about and why she's unique, and than says something like "blah blah blah but it's so much larger than feminism or blackness!"
Nearly always, they're saying this because they personally don't want to talk about feminism or blackness, because they're scared of one or both topics, or because they don't feel educated enough about them.
To me, as a former journalist, this seems inexcusably lazy -- you want to interview Butler, but you don't want to do a quick survey of Feminism 101? but I don't think I'd care so much if the interviewers just admitted where they were coming from. They don't, of course. (Although, one manages to just never mention either that Butler's black or that, frequently, the characters she creates are also black.) Instead, the interviewers justify that they're shying away from the feminism and the blackness in Butler's work with the assumption that we readers agree feminist and black theory reading traditions are narrow.
Which, um. No. Newsflash: Butler's fans didn't miss those things about her writing.
I'm a bit shocked, in fact, to note this trait about the interviews. My first introduction to Butler's work was an excellent Dorothy Allison essay in the third James Tiptree Award Anthology
. Allison writes about the experience of reading Butler, which for her is both maddening and sublime. Her essay discusses Butler's feminism and meditations on gender and blackness and parenting and community so blithely and with such ease that I assumed there was a ton more such critical work out there, easily found. (Shocker: nope.)
On the upside, since you can't separate Butler's work from the major meditations therein (in my view, as previously listed: feminism and gender and parenting and blackness and community), no matter how reluctant the interviewers are to address those topics, they get addressed anyway. But the lack of interviewer prep or enthusiasm means there's a dearth of essays where she gets asked any thoughtful question on those topics. (In fact, once one of the interviewers purposefully asks a jackass "well, why should black people care about hispanic people?" question, in order to get a rise out of her.)
I don't think it's a fault of how this collection was edited -- I think it's a fault of what people asked Butler, in general, throughout her life, and what they thought was impolite to discuss.
Despite my bitching, I'm grateful this collection exists. Butler is an enormous personal favourite of mine, and I try hard, in my professional life as a bookseller, to bring her work to the attention of people who will love it and be moved and enlarged by it. I will never be tired of reading the things she has to say, fiction and non. Her death four years ago made me extremely sad.
If I had my druthers, though, Francis' collection would open with the transcript of a panel discussion, at a con, between James Tipree Jr (aka Alice Sheldon aka Raccoona Sheldon), Ursula Le Guin, Connie Willis and Butler, possibly while slightly smashed, in front of a sympathetic and rapt audience, talking about their work and whether Harlan Ellison should be muzzled.
Of course, they never sat down together (or, if they did, it was secret and there were no tape recorders present), but I can dream.
, edited by Conseula Francis, and there is something that is starting to extremely piss me off. The thing is this: in the vast majority of the interviews, the interviewer starts with a rundown of who Butler is, what her work's about and why she's unique, and than says something like "blah blah blah but it's so much larger than feminism or blackness!" Nearly always, they're saying this because they personally don't want to talk about feminism or blackness, because they're scared of one or both topics, or because they don't feel educated enough about them.
To me, as a former journalist, this seems inexcusably lazy -- you want to interview Butler, but you don't want to do a quick survey of Feminism 101? but I don't think I'd care so much if the interviewers just admitted where they were coming from. They don't, of course. (Although, one manages to just never mention either that Butler's black or that, frequently, the characters she creates are also black.) Instead, the interviewers justify that they're shying away from the feminism and the blackness in Butler's work with the assumption that we readers agree feminist and black theory reading traditions are narrow.
Which, um. No. Newsflash: Butler's fans didn't miss those things about her writing.
I'm a bit shocked, in fact, to note this trait about the interviews. My first introduction to Butler's work was an excellent Dorothy Allison essay in the third James Tiptree Award Anthology
. Allison writes about the experience of reading Butler, which for her is both maddening and sublime. Her essay discusses Butler's feminism and meditations on gender and blackness and parenting and community so blithely and with such ease that I assumed there was a ton more such critical work out there, easily found. (Shocker: nope.)On the upside, since you can't separate Butler's work from the major meditations therein (in my view, as previously listed: feminism and gender and parenting and blackness and community), no matter how reluctant the interviewers are to address those topics, they get addressed anyway. But the lack of interviewer prep or enthusiasm means there's a dearth of essays where she gets asked any thoughtful question on those topics. (In fact, once one of the interviewers purposefully asks a jackass "well, why should black people care about hispanic people?" question, in order to get a rise out of her.)
I don't think it's a fault of how this collection was edited -- I think it's a fault of what people asked Butler, in general, throughout her life, and what they thought was impolite to discuss.
Despite my bitching, I'm grateful this collection exists. Butler is an enormous personal favourite of mine, and I try hard, in my professional life as a bookseller, to bring her work to the attention of people who will love it and be moved and enlarged by it. I will never be tired of reading the things she has to say, fiction and non. Her death four years ago made me extremely sad.
If I had my druthers, though, Francis' collection would open with the transcript of a panel discussion, at a con, between James Tipree Jr (aka Alice Sheldon aka Raccoona Sheldon), Ursula Le Guin, Connie Willis and Butler, possibly while slightly smashed, in front of a sympathetic and rapt audience, talking about their work and whether Harlan Ellison should be muzzled.
Of course, they never sat down together (or, if they did, it was secret and there were no tape recorders present), but I can dream.