Nicola, let me first say that it's a pleasure being in contact with you.
I've loved both your novels (taught Ammonite last year in a course on SF
and gender),
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Nicola Griffith wrote:
> Mike, I'm intrigued by your interesting side point. I've read PARABLE OF THE
> SOWER three times now (trying to figure out what other readers have liked
> about the novel--but that's another story). In the text there is nothing, as
> far as I can see, to indicate Lauren is anything but a reliable narrator: she
> says she has hyperempathy; she *has* hyperempathy (the ability to feel
> others' physical sensations--not just pain). At what point do we disbelieve
> what is written and believe instead the author? At what point and to what
> extent should the text stand on its own?
You've misread Butler's text slightly (and in exactly the same way that I
and evidently just about everyone else misreads it, according to Butler. )
As defined in the text if you look very carefully, hyperempathy isn't
actually the ability to feel other peoples' sensations. It's the ability
to convince yourself that you're feeling them. Thus, Lauren feels pain
when her brother fakes hurting himself if she thinks his pain is real.
Similarly, she won't feel even the worst pain if she doesn't
consciously realize that the other person or animal is in pain. Same for
other emotions. If you have a heartattack right in front of her she won't
notice if you're stoic enough.
> I don't know if Butler does or does not want us to see Earthseed as "right."
> Lauren's religion is one of my (many) problems with the book: we see,
> beautifully articulated, the beginnings of Lauren's philosophy (and I think
> it is a philosophy to begin with, rather than religion); we understand how
> she gets from A to B, and then, phhtt, she's suddenly thinks humankind's
> future is among the stars. She makes a leap of faith that I can't follow--a
> leap of faith that's not prefigured or explained or believable. At least I
> didn't find it so.
>
I'm glad you feel this way about the "humanity's future is among the
stars" stuff. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea (on a gut level
I'd like to agree with it I have to admit) , but I
don't see its necessary or logical connection to Earthseed as previously
presented in the book. Maybe it's just your standard, life-long science
fiction fan's thing. The basic idea is common to much SF, particularly
to the more conservative stuff written by people like Poul Anderson and
Larry Niven, oddly enough.
> Perhaps I'm simply misreading the text. If anyone has any pointers I'd be
> happy to hear them. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested I can post or email a
> review I wrote for the _New York Review of SF_ when the novel first came out.
I'll have to check your review. I've got the complete run of the NYReview
of SF. Can you give me a citation?
> And Mike: I read RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE and thought it was a
> terrific novel. Heartbreaking.
>
> Nicola
Again, I'm glad we're in agreement.The New York Times Book Review gave
Random Acts the rare "honor" of a mainline review outside of Gerald
Jonas's sf ghetto, and then Scott Bradfield (one of those slipstream
guys) panned the book and said Womack's language (which I loved) was
unreadable.
>
> Nicola Griffith
> http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/
>
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