“Can’t You Write Anything Normal?”

1. a mind for ever / Voyaging through strange seas of / Thought, alone. “Can’t You Write Anything Normal?”

2. Theofiction Between science and theology there is a genre of literature which I like to call theofiction. Theofiction adapts the style and conventions of science fiction to tell stories that have more to do with theology than science fiction. (Freeman Dyson, quoted in Gregory Benford’s “Last Things” in Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 2003 Vol 104 Issue 5, p 112)

3. Speculative Fiction Fantasy Horror Magical Realism Science Fiction WeirdFiction Alternate History

4. Speculative Fiction "Speculative fiction: stories whose objective is to explore, to discover, to learn, by means of projection, extrapolation, analogue, hypothesis-and-paper-experimentation, something about the nature of the universe, of man, or 'reality' . . . I use the term 'speculative fiction' here specifically to describe the mode which makes use of the traditional 'scientific method' (observation, hypothesis, experiment) to examine some postulated approximation of reality, by introducing a given set of changes -- imaginary or inventive -- into the common background of 'known facts', creating an environment in which the responses and perceptions of the characters will reveal something about the inventions, the characters, or both." - Judith Merril

5. Speculative fiction is any fiction in which the “laws” of that world (explicit or implied) are different than ours. – Annie Neugebauer

6. Questions for Consideration • Titles are frequently significant. Is there any significance to the title “The Book of Martha? • What should we make of the opening line of the story? “It’s difficult, isn’t it?” God said with a weary smile. “You’re truly free for the first time. What could be more difficult than that?” How might Martha NOT have been free before this? Why would the freedom God gives Martha be difficult?

8. “You’re free to ask me questions. […] You’re free to argue and think and investigate all of human history for ideas and warnings. You’re free to take all the time you need to do these things. As I said earlier, you’re truly free. You’re even free to be terrified. But I assure you, you will do this work” (194).

9. Questions for Consideration • God remains inscrutable, so we can’t have a definitive answer to this question, but why might she/he have chosen Martha for this particular task? Is Martha somehow particularly suited for the task? God tells Martha, “I chose you for all that you are and all that you are not” (194). What is Martha? What isn’t she? • Again, God never explains her/himself, so we must speculate, but what possible significance might the stories of Jonah, Job, and Noah have?

10. Questions for Consideration • God remains inscrutable, so we can’t have a definitive answer to this question, but why might she/he have chosen Martha for this particular task? Is Martha somehow particularly suited for the task? God tells Martha, “I chose you for all that you are and all that you are not” (194). What is Martha? What isn’t she? • Again, God never explains her/himself, so we must speculate, but what possible significance might the stories of Jonah, Job, and Noah have?

11. Questions for Consideration • God cautions Martha: “When you’ve finished your work, you’ll go back and live among them as one of their lowliest. You’re the one who will decide what that will mean, but whatever you decide is to be the bottom level of society, the lowest class or caste or race, that’s what you’ll be” (193 How might this warning shape Martha’s thoughts about making changes?

12. John Rawls – “The Veil of Ignorance”

13. Questions for Consideration • Richard Dawkins has stated, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.” How does Butler’s fictional God measure against this admittedly low bar. God is clearly a “character” in the story. How do we feel about this character? How does Martha’s attitude towards this God evolve? What purpose do God’s transformations over the course of the story serve? We might wish to think about this in terms of how these transformations affect Martha, and how they affect us.

14. Artist Harmonia Rosales “The Creation of God”

15. Questions for Consideration • What do we make of how Martha solves the task God has given her? Why does Butler make this the “solution”?

16. Paradise Lost “It seems inevitable that my utopia would be someone else’s hell.” Butler

17. The Relationship between Utopias and Dystopias “The writers of the utopias of earlier days were teaching Man how to build heaven; today they are content to teach him how to survive in hell” (Griffiths 1980, 115). Dystopias in Literature, Film and Television

18. Utopias and Dystopiasare Relative • Nobody agrees on what constitutes a perfect or an imperfect society. • A society which is perfect for one individual may be imperfect for another. • No society could achieve an absolute level of perfection or imperfection. Dystopias/Utopias exist on a continuum.