I have been very fortunate this year so far in that the book club books chosen by my fellow members just happen to slot into my Reading Challenge. This book, Parable of the Sower, the first book in the Earthseed series, fits into the Banned Books category, which is always a favorite of mine to explore. I wish banned books didn’t exist at all, but they do, and I love seeking them out. It doesn’t take too many pages to see why a certain sector of the population doesn’t want this book within reach of young people. Those young people might actually learn something and, worse, they might even begin to ask tough questions.

Synopsis

Lauren Olamina, the daughter of a preacher and member of one of the few families left who live in what’s considered a safe neighborhood near LA, suffers from hyperempathy. She physically feels the pain and suffering of others. When she’s forced from her home, she joins other refugees on a dangerous journey to find safety. Along the way, her experiences grant her insight into the nightmare post-apocalyptic world that the United States has become. As she increasingly begins questioning the religions and ways of old, she creates her own religion which she believes can sow hope across the broken land and inspire a new season of healing and growth.

Review

Seriously, why don’t people listen to women? The year was 1993, and Octavia Butler knew EXACTLY what we’d be living through today if we let a narcissistic demagogue introduce fascism to the United States. As I read this increasingly frightening book, I couldn’t help but wonder what Octavia Butler would be thinking today. Would she be terrified and mortified like most of us or would she just throw up her hands and say, “I tried to warn ya!”? Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58 in 2006, so she missed a lot of the build-up to where we are today. She missed the joy I know she would have felt at witnessing the election of the first black president. While she witnessed much of the erosion of our education system and the rise of social media that allowed so many of our citizens to become incapable of critical thinking, she did not witness the resulting rise of Donald Trump, the conman who would take advantage of that educational erosion, forcing the US into a stranglehold, squeezing until she’s on her knees gasping for breath.

Reading Parable of the Sower today is an eerie experience, as everything from the issues of race, class, and religious teaching bears striking resemblance to the issues that are affecting our society today. Now that we are sitting on the precipice of the economic decline that will result from the alienation of the US under nationalistic rule and irresponsible fiscal policies, I can’t help but wonder if our future won’t look something like the landscape Butler created. We could be facing a future where resources are hoarded by the few at the expense of the many and survival again becomes the only dream.

Yes, I realize this “book review” reads more like a “treatise of the scary shit the author wanted us to think about,” but this story rattled me. In the masterful hands of a brilliant mind like Butler’s, this story grew into something profound and prophetic. And while we enter another era in which the voices of oppressed people are silenced with violence, and empathy is derided as a disease by the ignorant masses, I can’t help but think there’s only one way back. If we don’t feed the minds of the younger generations with ideas worth growing, we will not sustain. If we don’t teach our children to think and to feel, the roots of our society with shrivel and die. The problem is… we are not doing that.

Ugh… sorry for the doom and gloom. If you aren’t already depressed enough about the state of the world, read this incredible book. It cuts deep and deserves to be pondered. I can’t say I loved everything about this book. It’s profoundly violent, featuring human cruelty that’s almost impossible to imagine. There were times I didn’t want to keep reading. There were times I didn’t like Lauren or the choices she made. But this book deserves all the praise for its enduring relevance and powerful story.

Published Oct 1, 1993 by Grand Central Publishing. Edition published 2000 by Recorded Books. ASIN B0DLT547T2. Runtime 12 hrs. Narrated by Lynne Thigpen.