"Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler

While I read Parable of the Sower, I was teaching Cormac McCarthy's The Road to my junior students. Of course, both share many similarities: the post-apocalyptic setting; a lack of resources; humanity turning on each other; and, of course, the long road journey in hopes of something better. Despite the grotesque horrors Butler depicts, though, Sower is much more hopeful than The Road. In Butler's world, Lauren's small group of survivors band together, sharing resources. They welcome worn strangers, who in turn defend them, rather than steal or attack. The group buys into and supports Lauren's new religion--Earthseed. Perhaps Butler is more optimistic than McCarthy or perhaps their books simply exist at different points on the apocalyptic spectrum. At the end of the novel, Lauren and her lover, Bankole, discuss whether there's any hope for their community. Lauren thinks there is, but Bankole wonders if society simply hasn't hit rock bottom yet. After all, money is still worth something. Were food as scarce as it is in The Road, perhaps there would be no community to form. 

Thus The Road exists at apocalyptic rock-bottom while Sower exists in apocalypse-in-the-making. In The Road, humanity is doomed, but individual human lives may have meaning. In Sower, there's still potential for humanity to be resurrected, particularly if Lauren realizes her dream of creating and reaching "Heaven": a settlement in space.  

That serves as good a transition as any into Lauren and Earthseed. Like many apocalyptic protagonists, Lauren is young--15 when the book starts and 18 by the book's end. Unlike other novels, though, Butler doesn't try too hard to make Lauren a realistic teenager. She's preternaturally wise and composed, acting as the de facto leader of her group from the beginning. Before the fires that ravage the community in which her family lives, she's the only one to see the real danger. She never panics or despairs; never doubts or lashes out. When she meets the much older Bankole, she recognizes their attraction, and they calmly and assuredly begin a physical and emotional relationship. Her distance from recognizable teenagers would normally be a criticism, but it somehow works for Butler's purpose. We accept that Lauren is not a real teenager--she's the mouthpiece for Earthseed.

Earthseed is Lauren's self-created religion, dedicated to embracing Change as God. The central tenets of Earthseed frame each journal entry (chapter) of the book. Lauren insists on her religion's importance, and the other characters buy into it, but I couldn't wrap my head around it. I understand the importance of accepting the inevitability of change (and also our ability to shape change), but as a religion? Or how that abstract idea ties into building an actual colony in space?

It didn't move me the way it did Lauren, but ultimately, I was moved by Lauren herself--despite not seeming like a real teenager, despite a bizarre disease (see below), and despite her desire to be a cult leader. In fact, the book flourishes once Lauren leaves her community and family and sets out to achieve her goal. She's a compelling and powerful leader, and she's a young Black woman in a world where racism is very much alive. We need to read more of those in literature, and recognize more of those who exist in the real world.

Miscellany:

• Lauren suffers from hyper-empathy syndrome, caused by drugs her mother abused while pregnant. We're told that this is not a magical ability or superpower but rather a mental delusion, albeit a delusion that is apparently untreatable (there's no references or attempts to manage or mitigate its impact on her life). This doesn't quite make sense. A hyper-empath must be aware of an injury to share pain (which makes sense if it's a mental illness), but if that's the case, wouldn't distraction or mindfulness exercises be a straightforward way of "treating" the delusion? Towards the end of the book, Lauren experiences, in rapid succession, the shootings and deaths of multiple people (i.e. she feels their pain of being shot, which only dissipates once they're dead) during a fight. However, given the chaos of the moment, how is it possible she's aware of who's been shot and exactly when they're dying, even subconsciously? We also learn the syndrome is inheritable, which makes no sense if it's a reaction to invitro drug abuse. Ultimately the syndrome has only fleeting and minor impact on the novel, so its presence is a little unclear. In most dystopian works an unusual "disability" would be what makes the protagonist the chosen one, but that's not the case in Sower. We learn at the end of the book that a number of other people suffer from the disease and that others exploit it, so perhaps it has greater impact in the second book. And perhaps we'll learn it's not a psychological delusion after all.
• I've been torn recently over depictions of horrific violence, particularly rape and child abuse, in literature. Perhaps it's because I also began Homegoing, about the African slave trade, at the same time as I was reading Sower. On the one hand, I don't think literature needs to or should be "nice" or easy to read. Horrors exist in real life, and those horrors will be reflected on the written page. At the same time, such depictions can, at times, serve as lazy shorthand for "look how bad the situation is!", thus becoming gratuitous rather than essential to the book's meaning. I think to The Road, which has horrors in spades that mostly go unsaid and undescribed, without sacrificing any of the setting. I think Sower could have done at least some situations similarly.