Book Review: "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler

4.5/5 stars

*Spoiler alert!* 

Parable of the Sower hits incredibly close to home. Published in 1993, this dystopian speculative fiction novel by literary giant Octavia Butler takes place in the early 2020s. It depicts a California devolved into anarchy at the hands of worsening climate change and rampant income inequality. Basically, it shows what happens if the problems we see today—climate change, income inequality, homelessness, discrimination—go unaddressed in a serious way.

“There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.”

Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina is witness to a California disintegrating before her eyes. The year is 2025, and she sees things getting worse not only for her walled community, but for the country as a whole. She is one of the privileged few in her community that can read and write and tries to use those talents to prepare herself and her fellow citizens to survive what is coming. She wants to help her people survive and plant the seeds for humanity’s eventual spread to space.

This leads to her creation of a religion of sorts, known as “Earthseed,” that is concerned with the present survival of the living and those yet to be born. Change (intentionally capitalized by Lauren) is God. The central message of Earthseed is embodied in the following quote:

“All that you touch
You Change
All that you Change
Changes you. The only lasting truth
Is Change.”

Of course, not everyone in her community is receptive to Lauren’s ideas of preparation and survival. She’s accused of being an alarmist doomsayer, that her vision of a further unraveling of society is unwelcome to the collective psyche of the compound. (This sounds familiar if one thinks about worsening climate change and the present, ongoing destruction of the rights of women and people of color. Cassandras are always unwelcome, but unfortunately are proven right if the can is kicked further down the road, the problem getting worse over time.)

“The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.”

When the inevitable comes to pass and Lauren is forced to flee the destruction of her town, she partners with a few fellow survivors of the deadly fire that claimed so many lives (including that of her own family). What they see as they journey north is truly horrific. Butler does not shy away from graphic depictions of peoples’ pain—from sexual violence against women to the wanton fires set by those addicted to a new drug called “pyro.”

The matter-of-fact language was, I think, a calculated choice to shock readers into seeing the human consequences of not addressing systemic problems, as well as a byproduct of how Lauren herself sees the world through the lens of her psychological affliction of hyper-empathy. (I had to look up hyper-empathy, to see if it was a real phenomenon. And it is! Lauren’s comes from her mother abusing a psychoactive drug during her pregnancy.)

“When apparent stability disintegrates,
As it must--
God is Change--
People tend to give in
To fear and depression,
To need and greed.
When no influence is strong enough
To unify people
They divide.
They struggle,
One against one,
Group against group,
For survival, position, power.
They remember old hates and generate new ones,
The create chaos and nurture it.
They kill and kill and kill,
Until they are exhausted and destroyed,
Until they are conquered by outside forces,
Or until one of them becomes
A leader
Most will follow,
Or a tyrant
Most fear.”

I could see this book being a part of language arts curricula in high schools and higher education, but in today’s atmosphere, I fear that this book would be banned. (Not that banning would help in educating our future leaders to address these serious systemic problems, but I digress.)

Despite the grim reality depicted in Parable of the Sower and its implications for our present day, it contains seeds of hope (yes, pun intended). Lauren is able to find and build a community with fellow refugees and survivors. Perhaps her method of community-building is what is needed to help redress the serious issues we face today.

Happy reading!

--BookOwl