Lauren Olamina leaves her ruined home in the second half of Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel/theology document/allegory/philosophical text, heading for the mysterious utopia of Branscombe first and then…the stars? Bagg and Dukes try to locate the climax of this work, discuss the figurative vs. denotative nature of the novel, and close things out with some Muppets impersonations.
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How many times did you read the book? Fully, or with parts. At what point did the theological/philosophical thread have greater significance than the plot of survival.
I (Jesse) read it twice. I found that the two things overlapped and you couldn’t really have on without the other. The survival story was like a lab to test and refine Lauren’s philsophical ideas, a sort of crucible. Even though those sections feel really naturalistic, they all relate to the BIG ideas of the book I think, like when one of the companions buys a western novel at a bookstore, and it becomes a source of comfort and wisdom for him.