Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
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Book Summary Information
Author: Octavia E. ButlerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-01-01
ISBN: 0446675504
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Book Reviews of Parable of the Sower
Book Review: Wow!
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many readers, I keep lists of various books I want to read. For quite some time multiple titles by Octavia Butler have been on one or other of my lists -- in this case on two lists, one for SF writers I have not yet read but want to and one for dystopian novels -- but only now have I finally gotten around to one of them. I can promise that it will not take me very long to get to the next novel.
There is a line from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER that kept coming to mind as I read this novel. In the marvelous episode "The Gift," that ended Season Five, a vampire is chasing a teenaged boy into an alley, where he intends to kill him. But just before he is able to do so, Buffy walks out interrupting the two of them and after some wisecracking dusts the vampire. Buffy tells the shocked boy to go home he asks her how she managed to take on a vampire and kill it. "It's what I do," she replies. "But you're just a girl." Like Buffy, Lauren Olamina is just a girl. But like Buffy she has taken on responsibilities that no teen should have to.
The novel is set in an utterly dystopian world. The world is our own (or that of the early nineties) gone completely to seed. America is suffering from a complete collapse of society and the economy. Society, in fact, has completely ceased to function. There is no police protection, no organized economy, no functioning government. The novel has more plausibility today than it did at the time it was written, since today we have the heartbreaking anarchy that we witnessed in New Orleans during Katrina, where people fired guns at boats and helicopters attempting to rescue people. Much like in the wake of Katrina the people in the suburb of Los Angeles depicted in this novel, people have become almost animalistic. A great deal of the power of the novel derives from her depiction of the oppressive paranoia that the forces in society place on Lauren. Like they say, you aren't paranoid if they really are out to get you. As her world collapses, taking friends, family, and home from her, Lauren responds heroically to it all, even if she is "just a girl."
What is more, Lauren is a "girl" of color. I have been working on a project surveying the female heroes on television and one of the alarming things about that has been the almost complete absence of nonwhite women in heroic roles. There was a black female pilot on SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND, a heroic female in CLEOPATRA 2525 and a tough black chick in FIREFLY (both roles played by Gina Torres), the ethnically indeterminate Max in DARK ANGEL, and Sharon Agathon in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (played by Korean Canadian actress Grace Park), but while not quite exhausting the list, this comes close. What irritates me is that if TV were to have even ONE black female heroic lead, perpetually reactionary males (and trust me, I know a few) would start howling about PC characters on TV. But how can the almost complete absence of black female heroes be justified? Is there some rule that all heroes have to be white? And for the record, I write this as a white male. Lauren is a wonderful corrective for the almost overwhelming whiteness of SF, literary or otherwise.
One other aspect of the novel that I would like to note is how very, very well written it is. Even many well-known SF writers are simply not very good writers, but Butler is exceptionally talented. As I read it I was continually impressed at how well written it was, at how good, in fact, it was on multiple levels.
I can't recommend this novel highly enough. And the next novel I will read? PARABLE OF THE TALENTS, the sequel to this. And that will definitely not be the last Octavia Butler novel that I will read.
Summary of Parable of the Sower
When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister's young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny... and the birth of a new faith.Octavia E. Butler, the grande dame of science fiction, writes extraordinary, inspirational stories of ordinary people. Parable of the Sower is a hopeful tale set in a dystopian future United States of walled cities, disease, fires, and madness. Lauren Olamina is an 18-year-old woman with hyperempathy syndrome--if she sees another in pain, she feels their pain as acutely as if it were real. When her relatively safe neighborhood enclave is inevitably destroyed, along with her family and dreams for the future, Lauren grabs a backpack full of supplies and begins a journey north. Along the way, she recruits fellow refugees to her embryonic faith, Earthseed, the prime tenet of which is that "God is change." This is a great book--simple and elegant, with enough message to make you think, but not so much that you feel preached to.
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