Over at Salon, Karen Joy Fowler provides a warm tribute to Octavia Butler. (I’m reading my first Butler novel right now, Kindred.) Also today, KCRW’s Bookworm aired an interview with Butler recorded late last year.
I was struck by this description Butler once gave of herself, quoted in an obituary written by Tyler Cowen: “[A] pessimist, a feminist always, a Black, a quiet egoist, a former Baptist, and an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”
RELATED:
Bat Segundo’s December 1 podcast with Butler, in which discussed topics range from Anne Rice to being “comfortably asocial.”
Oh to read Kindred for the first time again. You’re in for a great treat.
Comment by ed — 3/17/2006 @ 8:36 am
Oh and to clarify that’s Butler talking about why she doesn’t care for HER book Survivor, not the television series.
Comment by ed — 3/17/2006 @ 8:41 am
Yeah, it’s great so far. I only heard of Butler with the publication of Fledgling, which I’d been meaning to read (as part of a host of great odd SFish vampire novels out right now). But ater her death, I thought I’d start with her more well-known books, so Kindred and then Parable of the Sower.
p.s. I changed the Survivor mention to avoid confusion.
Comment by caaf — 3/17/2006 @ 9:03 am