Book Review: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) paints a picture of a dystopian reality that feels frighteningly current, quickly approaching, and nearly impossible to stop in our current trajectory. Over three decades ago, Butler told the story of a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic world set in current-day (2024-2027) California. Society as we know it has crumbled, and yet, none of it feels far off from what we’re already seeing in the world today. The book centers around Lauren, a 15-year-old preacher’s daughter creating her own religion as a means of navigating a society plagued by food and water scarcity, natural disasters, and new drugs that can boost the capacity and productivity of the mind, or leave victims with a craving only satisfied by fire, destruction, and violence. The image Butler creates is one I’ve seen snippets of in my own little community in rural Maine, where high rent prices and low paying jobs, and the resulting homeless population, drug addiction, and high tensions created by an extremely oppositional political climate, have created an “everyone for themselves” mentality. While the bulk of the population may not yet be at the point of either living in community-based, gated communities who can barely afford clean water, or on the streets killing and stealing to survive, it’s a reality that doesn’t seem as distant as one would hope when reading this horror-filled, science fiction novel. The main character’s thoughts and beliefs are based in the sentiment that “God is Change.” Everything you do affects the world around you, everything around you affects you, and our purpose is to make positive, society-improving change. The book is highly focused on empathy for other living things, and the message that a self-indulgent society will ultimately only kill itself.
There isn’t a moment in Parable of the Sower that feels gratuitous. Butler writes in a way that leaves you constantly wanting more– not through artificial cliffhangers, but through a genuinely compelling story. Although we learn about characters solely through Lauren’s eyes, specifically in the format of journal entries, each one of them feels like a person I have encountered before. Butler’s details bring people to life. You can easily visualize them, feel their energy, and almost hear their voice. For a writer who so effortlessly creates moments of familiarity and warmth, she just as easily creates moments of brutality. She is able to do so in a way that doesn’t necessarily feel shocking, but instead like an unfortunate, yet expected, dose of reality. Life is brutal. Death occurs without warning, the glass is often half-empty, and the worst does happen for absolutely no reason at all. She beautifully creates instances of hope, and subsequently crushes them. At times it felt like cruelty just for cruelty’s sake, an unfortunate reflection of the ugliness of humanity.
Overall, Parable of the Sower somehow left me with both a feeling of satisfaction and deep unease. Entries in Lauren’s journal often began with verses that felt as though they were speaking directly to current world affairs. One in particular, found on page 196, stood out to me:
“Embrace diversity.
Unite—
Or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.”
In a country whose leadership detests diversity, and with a portion of society who follows suit, this is a message that needs to be spread far and wide. Division will result in destruction. It’s only a matter of time before each and every one of us becomes prey. Despite any privilege based on race, religion, gender identity, nationality, class, and upbringing, we all will fall prey to the few elite powers who can, and will, pick us off one-by-one if we remain divided.
