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Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Oct. 3rd, 2025 06:27 pmParable of the Sower is the perfect book to read after the disappointment that is Booth. If I had read another bad or boring book, I think I would have gone into a reading slump. This novel is not only a page-turner, it also rewired how I view the world.
Parable of the Sower is set in a dystopian America in the year 2024. In this novel, Butler imagines the world to be a lawless and dangerous wasteland. Water and food are scarce and expensive, there is a drug problem plaguing the country, and people can only hope to protect their own community by keeping to themselves and surrounding themselves with walls. The law is useless - the police don't provide any real help and the president's solution seems to be to give corporations more power. Speaking of corporations, they run the cities with the promise of safety and jobs which don't pay enough but is still better than not having a job. It's actually uncanny how the summary for this novel written in 1993 fits so accurately with the current situation. While it is taken to the extreme, it's also not hard to imagine that this could very likely happen to us in the future if things continue moving the way they are now. However, as dismal as the future predicted by Butler may appear on the surface, at its center is a seed of hope.
Lauren Olamina, the main character of the novel, has her own belief system. She believes that God is change and that God, like clay, is infinitely malleable. She calls her belief Earthseed and she writes that the destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. Naturally, she meets some resistance when she 'preaches' her belief her to her comrades. They find it hard to wrap their heads around the idea of a God who is not a being but an idea, a concept. To which Lauren replies:
If the desire for God is ultimately a the desire to make sense of one's own life (as in, whatever is happening in my life is happening because God wills it so), then Lauren's belief that God is change certainly makes sense. Change as God is another way that life can make sense. It is a 'persuasive power' that likewise dictates our lives (everything we do is a way to adapt to changes in our lives). Unlike the Christian God, it is not a being that you worship.
It is a God that you shape and a God which, in turn, shapes you. I think herein lies the optimism in Butler's work. Humans are not the passive receivers of fate. Instead, we are active agents of our own life. This bears more responsibility, as we see with Lauren early in the book. She was heavily preoccupied with what-ifs and had to be prepared for what she saw as the inevitable change in her situation. Butler reminds us that we can create the changes we want to see in the world. In real life, I am wary of anything that posits life outside of Earth as a viable solution. (Are we to destroy other planets, too? Much like how to hope for a better life in heaven makes you neglect your current life, will starting over in a different planet justify destroying this planet that we are currently living in?) But seeing how far away Lauren and her gang is from space travel, it is interesting where Butler will take this story to actually reach Earthseed's supposed destiny.
Parable of the Sower is set in a dystopian America in the year 2024. In this novel, Butler imagines the world to be a lawless and dangerous wasteland. Water and food are scarce and expensive, there is a drug problem plaguing the country, and people can only hope to protect their own community by keeping to themselves and surrounding themselves with walls. The law is useless - the police don't provide any real help and the president's solution seems to be to give corporations more power. Speaking of corporations, they run the cities with the promise of safety and jobs which don't pay enough but is still better than not having a job. It's actually uncanny how the summary for this novel written in 1993 fits so accurately with the current situation. While it is taken to the extreme, it's also not hard to imagine that this could very likely happen to us in the future if things continue moving the way they are now. However, as dismal as the future predicted by Butler may appear on the surface, at its center is a seed of hope.
Lauren Olamina, the main character of the novel, has her own belief system. She believes that God is change and that God, like clay, is infinitely malleable. She calls her belief Earthseed and she writes that the destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. Naturally, she meets some resistance when she 'preaches' her belief her to her comrades. They find it hard to wrap their heads around the idea of a God who is not a being but an idea, a concept. To which Lauren replies:
Then show me a more persuasive power than change.
If the desire for God is ultimately a the desire to make sense of one's own life (as in, whatever is happening in my life is happening because God wills it so), then Lauren's belief that God is change certainly makes sense. Change as God is another way that life can make sense. It is a 'persuasive power' that likewise dictates our lives (everything we do is a way to adapt to changes in our lives). Unlike the Christian God, it is not a being that you worship.
Worship is no good without action. With action, it's only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.
It is a God that you shape and a God which, in turn, shapes you. I think herein lies the optimism in Butler's work. Humans are not the passive receivers of fate. Instead, we are active agents of our own life. This bears more responsibility, as we see with Lauren early in the book. She was heavily preoccupied with what-ifs and had to be prepared for what she saw as the inevitable change in her situation. Butler reminds us that we can create the changes we want to see in the world. In real life, I am wary of anything that posits life outside of Earth as a viable solution. (Are we to destroy other planets, too? Much like how to hope for a better life in heaven makes you neglect your current life, will starting over in a different planet justify destroying this planet that we are currently living in?) But seeing how far away Lauren and her gang is from space travel, it is interesting where Butler will take this story to actually reach Earthseed's supposed destiny.