Lilith’s Brood –A Thought-Provoking Alien-Intervention Story

“Intelligence is relatively new to life on Earth, but your hierarchical tendencies are ancient.”

Lilith’s Brood (earlier referred to as ‘Xenogenesis’) was the trilogy of science fiction novels written by Octavia E. Butler, one of the very few African-American female writers of sci-fi. The books (published between 1987 and 1989) is set in a world ravaged by nuclear holocaust and the survivors of human species are abducted by the grotesque, tentacled, and slightly humanoid alien higher beings known as Oankali. The first book Dawn unfolds from the perspective of a young black woman named Lilith Iyapo. She is awakened 250 years after the nuclear holocaust on an enormous ship orbiting earth. Over the years, in brief sessions (that lasts over few days to few months), Lilith’s behavioral patterns were scrutinized by her captors and now she is deemed fit for the ‘task’ at hand.

Lilith is initially revolted by the English-speaking Oankalis’ visage and bizarre physicality, but she gets used to them during her stay with the alien family. Dawn is obviously the most intense book in the trilogy, since we stumble upon this strange new world populated with mysterious sentient beings. The Oankali possesses natural-born talent for genetic engineering. They had already genetically modified Lilith to free her body from the cancer cells (furthermore, her ageing is lessened and healing powers are stepped-up). Another unique aspect of Oankali is their family unit, which consists of a male, female, and a third gender called as ‘Ooloi’. Oolois are sexless, whose job is to accept genetic materials from the parents, add its own, and then impregnate the female. Oankali receive sexual pleasure only through their Ooloi whose sensory tentacles serve this purpose (among other complex fuctions). While the Oankali on the whole are a race of natural healers and gene modifiers, the oolois are specifically trained for these things and are pivotal to search the cosmos for continuing their tradition of making successful ‘trades’.

Lilith Iyapo is told that she has been chosen, trained and genetically modified in order to awaken other humans (first batch of 40 English-speaking members) so that they all can return to earth. Yes, the Oankali promises to restore earth, but there’s a catch (to make it sound less threatening, the aliens call it ‘a trade’): the new Earth will only be home to the Oankali-Human hybrid race (the oolois would replace the touch-based sexual proclivities of human race with their own ways). The new children, born to five parents (male-female Oankalis, male-female humans, and a ooloi) will inherit the earth until the time the hybrid species makes their own voyage into space to forge fresh ‘trades’. There’s an added benefit to this the Oankali says, i.e., the humans’ destructive impulses and hierarchical tendencies would be ‘cured’ (“We will moderate your hierarchical problems and you will lessen our physical limitations”, says a ooloi to Lilith). And let's not forget that the new humans and their offsprings will live for a long period (without any fear of terminal diseases).

Although Lilith makes friends with a young ooloi named Nikanj and her adoptive Oankali family, she is conflicted by what she sees as a betrayal to humanity. She feels the only possible way to free themselves from the Oankali is to break away from them, the instance they are set on earth to colonize. As she fears, Lilith is considered the ‘Judas’ by surviving human race and she’s never able to distance herself from oankali and ooloi mates. The humans who get away from the aliens live in different small to medium-sized colonies and are known as ‘resisters’. Since all of these ‘resisters’ come from the space ship, the Oankali has genetically modified them for a prolonged life. However, they have also seen to it that the humans are sterilized, making the complex three-way genetic exchange(via an ooloi) the only choice of reproduction.

The 2^nd book in the trilogy, Adulthood Rites, tells the story of Lilith’s first-born male ‘construct’ – the term for Oankali-Human hybrids. He is named Akin, who is mostly human. Akin is kidnapped and sold to a ‘resister’ village. He grows up understanding his human side and speaks for human-rights which the Oankali has so far dismissed dispassionately. The third book, Imago follows Jodahs, also Lilith’s child who becomes the first ‘construct’ Ooloi. Adulthood Rites and Imago certainly lacks the complexity (and feels boringly repetitive). Moreover, the 2^nd& 3^rd book offers us characters that are so distant and uninteresting when compared with Lilith (and her deeply conflicted stance).

Octavia Butler

Lilith’s Brood chiefly excels in the characterizations of oankali and human race. The oankali has perfectly understood the fundamental flaw in humanity: its predisposition to hierarchy. Despite intelligence, this tendency leads humans to create divisions and set up limits for ‘normalcy’ amongst themselves. Anyone, who falls outside the limits or obscure the divisions receives punishment and gets ostracized. The oankali puts forth inter-breeding as the only way to eradicate this human ‘problem’. On the outset, oankalis are benevolent, they never believe in violence, and are also environmentally responsible. So the aliens might change humanity for better, right? Nevertheless, like Lilith we feel conflicted in seeing these higher intelligent beings as saviors. For one, oankalis’ violation of human race reflects the worst of human behaviors in history: internment camps, colonialism, slavery, etc. Despite calling their society egalitarian, a form of hierarchy exists between the three genders within the family unit. Oankalis certainly don’t lie, but they withhold significant information from humans (that are as devastating as lies). Eventually, the most distressing aspect of oankali is their forced interbreeding techniques (the coercion and manipulation of Lilith is particularly fury-inducing). Of course, the humans of post-apocalyptic world don’t prove wrong the alien species’ discourse. The resisters live in small, scattered groups, and continue to threaten each other with violence and rape. Within few decades, they make guns and men trade materials to gain female sex-slaves. Autonomy seems limited within both species although the oankali promises transformation for better (which human race can’t).

Apart from avoiding simple characterizations (of both human and alien race), Lilith’s Brood is fascinating to read because of its spellbinding meditations on race, sexuality and gendered identity. A lot of analysis has seen oankali as the allegorical representation of the 'benevolent' masters of new world who owned slaves without remorse (some have compared the extra-terrestrial interference with cultural appropriation that’s rampant in the era of globalization). The fear over genetic manipulation is yet another significant theme that permeates the story. Octavia Butler’s writing is definitely adequate and engaging even if readers are less inclined to make allegorical readings. Dawn pretty much comes across as a body horror with Lilith slowly coming to terms with the oankalis’ gift for gene trading and particularly oolois’ role in reproduction. Interestingly, Butler cleverly leaves out feelings of titillation in her descriptions of inter-species sex. The idea of human-oankali interbreeding perhaps remains the most grimly fascinating aspect of Lilith’s brood, which thankfully doesn’t leave us with images of sleazy, uninventive images of tentacle-sex. The novels may also sound pessimistic and misanthropic, but you can surely find rays of hope. Even though Butler doesn’t provide a clear-cut resolution, she does hint at the possibility of affirmative transformation in humans. And the supreme gene-traders are also changed by their contact with humans. Overall, Lilith’s Brood talks of a new humanity in the future, which as Butler posits doesn’t need to have ‘alien’ origins, but can naturally arise from our predilection to examine and metamorphose the human genome.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? – A Heartfelt Portrait of Mother-Daughter Bond

 

“People like you must create. If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.”

TV-comedy writer Maria Semple’s second novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Published August 2012) is a screwball satire on the anxiety and minor aggravations of American suburban life. Keeping in line with the inquisitive title, the novel opens with the mystery of Bernadette Fox’s disappearance, wife of Microsoft honcho Elgin Branch and mother of precocious eighth-grader Balakrishna ‘Bee’ Branch. Years before Bee’s birth, Bernadette forsake her shining architectural career and a MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ to shift from L.A. to Seattle with her husband. At Seattle, after many miscarriages, Bernadette had Bee, a kid born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome that made the baby bluish at birth (hence the name ‘Balakrishna’). Over the years, Bernadette has become a recluse, holing up inside her crumbling family home, situated atop a small hill which was once a Catholic school for wayward girls. The damp walls and the blackberry vines poking through the floorboards becomes metaphor for Bernadette’s growing emotional despair. Husband Elgin Branch, who works round the clock on a new project at robotics department, overlooks both the state of his house and wife.

Although it’s been years since Bernadette moved to Seattle, she continues to hate everything about the city: from its support group, community-obsessed people to people's preference of hair-styles. The hatred is mutual as Bernadette’s neighbor and other moms at school interpret her eccentricity in the worst possible manner. Bernadette outsources even simple errands (like booking dinner at a neighborhood restaurant) to a virtual assistant in Delhi named 'Manjula', to whom she pays 75 cents an hour. She also confides all her mid-life frustrations to Manjula. Bernadette’s unraveling begins when the sweet but frail Bee proposes a family trip to Antarctica (a promised reward for her higher grades). The thought of leaving the house terrifies a borderline agoraphobic like Bernadette and therefore she sets in motion the actions, which leads to some farcical developments bringing in the FBI, a ambivalent psychologist, and even sets off mudslides.

The effervescent Cate Blanchett is playing the titular character in Richard Linklater's movie adaptation

Where’d You Go, Bernadette largely unfolds from Bee’s perspective, while the missing pieces in the narrative are inventively pieced through letters, e-mails, police reports, faxes, blog transcripts, and other documentary evidences. Semple chiefly explores the perils of a talented artist suppressing her creativity. At first, the exceedingly skittish Bernadette doesn’t come across as a likable protagonist character. But when we learn about her fabulous background and the subsequent devastating failures in her life, Semple makes the readers to comprehend the woman's temperament. Most of the suburban wives in the novel come off as caricatures, written with an intent to be disliked by us (especially Soo-Lin Lee-Segal) . But Semple’s sarcastic wit plus her heartwarming depiction of mother-daughter relationship kept me engaged throughout

Suspension of disbelief is essential to better enjoy the novel’s wild, farcical twists. Since Semple handles well the big tangle of emotions at the centre, the sweetness and sentimentality doesn't often seem to go overboard. The assortment of documented materials doesn’t exactly transcend the novel form, but adds layers to Semple’s exploration of themes like familial dysfunction, disillusionment, and privileged yet isolated existence. The author has got a good eye for satirizing the cultural and social dynamics of Seattle. She turns one of Bernadette’s extended rants on 'Seattle peculiarities' into something akin to a wonderful stand-up comedy act. While the personal frustration is always at the core of Semple’s wit, the real emotional pain behind such frustrations are also amply explored. In fact, the undercurrent of sadness keeps the narrative grounded and vivacious even as it veers toward absurdity. Semple elaborately uses animal symbolism, conjures a wild chase through the icy continent, and throws in sinistral operation of a Russian Mafia. In the end, irrespective of its inconsistencies and screwball elements, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a simple, feel-good novel about a alienated, misunderstood woman overcoming her shame and failures through love.  

 

Father of Lies – A Disturbing and Explosive Critique on the Hypocrisy of Organized Religion

“Hell is crammed full of godly men.”

The unrelentingly dark Father of Lies (originally published in 1998) was Brian Evenson’s first novel. Raised as a devout Mormon, who was at one point even a member of the high priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Evenson’s bizarre collection of short stories Altmann’s Tongue (published in 1994) already caused some buzz among the church officials. The then 27-year-old Evenson was teaching at Brigham Young University’s English department (a Mormon-run university). A letter from an anonymous student, harshly criticizing Altmann’s Tongue, which also addressed fears about a teacher conjuring such ‘horrific’ mental imagery, caught him in the middle of a controversy. The administrators tried to quell Evenson’s desire for writing such horror fiction, but after receiving NEA Creative Writer's Fellowship he chose to leave the university. He began writing Father of Lies, a loud and sharp critique on organized religion that demands blind obedience over morality.

Father of Lies tells the story of Eldon Fochs, a Provost in the Corporation of the Blood of the Lamb, also known as “Bloodites.” He is happily married with four children and helps youngsters of the church to not stray from the ‘right’ path. Lately Fochs has had bad dreams and disturbing thoughts. The church elder recommends Fochs to visit a Bloodite psychiatrist named Alexander Feshtig. Fochs recounts his dreams, which involves pederasty and killing a young girl belonging to his church. At some point, Fochs stops visitng Feshtig. But the psychiatrist listening to his tapes and re-reading the notes believes that these aren’t just accounts of a dream. Moreover, two mothers of Bloodite church publicly accuse Fochs of raping their underage sons. Feshtig also discovers about the murder and sexual assault of a young girl in Fochs' neighborhood.

But the provost cunningly manipulates the church leadership so as to intimidate and even excommunicate the women who brought the charges against him. Meanwhile, Feshtig is ordered by the church authorities to hand over his notes and tapes on Fochs. Feshtig’s persecution clearly stands as a parallel to the incidents following controversy over Altmann’s Tongue. The novel chiefly unfolds from the spiritually bankrupt perspective of Provost Fochs. This is further complicated by the appearance of a demonic ‘Bloody-Headed’ man and an angelic ‘doctor’, who in Fochs’ mind are contending to control his soul. Despite such jaunts into surrealistic territory, Evenson’s taut, unflowery prose elicits great anger against the corrupted, secretive cesspool of a religious institution.

Brian Evenson doesn’t write the sort of horror literature that allows readers to go on a grimly fascinating journey, filled with ghosts or other deadly mysterious forces. The horrors in Evenson’s stories are palpably real, subterranean, and there’s no escape from his atmosphere of lingering fear. I read the book, confined to my room, in a single sitting. And immediately after finishing it I went for a long walk to try and gradually reduce the fury and pain drifting in my consciousness. Father of Lies, although not the most acute and subtle among Evenson’s writings, paints the portrait of personal and collective evil which echoes disturbing similarities to the contemporary religious authoritarianism.

The novel is a result of Evenson speaking to therapists and individuals who had suffered from abuse within the Church system. Hence the novel seethes with raw rage which mostly provides a two-dimensional, stereotypical portrait of certain characters. The author has made the same point about blind loyalty within religious sect to a subtler effect in his later works like ‘Open Curtain’ and ‘Last Days’. Nevertheless, Father of Lies is a disturbing and strange psychological horror on the utterly damned and corrupted religious organizations.