Malinda Lo
Blog
Oct 29, 2010
On reading Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower”
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993) was one of the four books I vowed to read in 2010. It took me quite a while to get to it. I started it more than a month ago, but discovered that I couldn’t really read it over lunch, which is where I do a lot of my reading, because of the graphic scenes of violence. So that really slowed things down.
(Note: There will be spoilers in this post!)
In case you aren’t familiar with the novel, it’s a story about a girl named Lauren Olamina growing up in the United States in 2024, when the nation has been decimated by economic and environmental and various other disasters. She’s living in a sort of postapocalyptic wasteland, in a gated community with her family. Her father is a preacher, but one who isn’t afraid to teach her how to shoot to kill.
Lauren has a particular ability that initially I found rather unbelievable, but later on grew on me. Her mother was a drug addict, and it resulted in Lauren being born with hyperempathy. When others near her feel pain (or pleasure), she also feels it. When she was a child, she would actually bleed when others were bleeding.
Initially — I won’t lie — I thought this was totally ridiculous. As the story wore on, I could see why Lauren needed to have this ability for her tale to work. However, the details of her hyperempathy syndrome remained unexplained. (How far away do people have to be for her to avoid feeling their pain? How can she actually kill people and feel their death, and not die herself?)
Many people will probably argue that these details are unimportant, but I’m mentioning them because I spent a lot of time thinking about them. It was very distracting for me, and made me consider how an author might believably insert such a magical-seeming kind of characteristic into a science fiction novel, in which things are typically explained by science.
Now, Parable of the Sower, as suggested by the title, has a lot to do with faith. Lauren believes that she is destined to found a spiritual community and practice called Earthseed, and each chapter begins with an epigraph from her spiritual teachings (so we suspect that ultimately she succeeds in her goals). In conjunction with Lauren’s spiritual quest, her hyperempathy syndrome makes sense. However, even though she’s hyperempathetic, I found her to be quite a cool, distant character. I was initially surprised at how unemotional she is, but I can see how she had to develop that cool exterior in order to manage the pain she feels from others.
The book is written as a journal, in first person, and when it begins, Lauren is only 15 years old. Her age, and the first person narrative, which is quite engaging, made me consider what makes Parable of the Sower an adult science fiction novel rather than young adult.
Clearly, the distinction is content. There is a lot of violence in the book, and a lot of it is rape. This was very disturbing to me on a lot of levels (and is why I couldn’t read it while eating lunch). It made me wonder: In a postapocalyptic world, would men really turn so quickly into rapists? It seemed as if that was the assumption. I would like to believe otherwise, but there’s enough going on the world to make me uneasy about the answer to that question.
I also wondered why, in YA novels set in a postapocalyptic world, rape does not figure as prominently. And then I began thinking about YA dystopians, and I realized that among the ones I’ve read, order usually does still reign. Parable of the Sower was about a country that is pretty much destroyed; the police don’t work anymore. In The Hunger Games, by comparison, there is an excess of order.
The only YA I remember reading recently without any sort of governing adult force is Michael Grant’s Gone series. And there are hints of the possibility of rape in those books, although he never goes that far.
Interestingly, though, most of those YA dystopian novels also avoid sex, which is depicted in Parable of the Sower as a comfort (and it is clear that people know the difference between consensual sex and rape). A lot of people like to say that you can do anything you want in a YA novel, but to me, it seems pretty clear that particular kinds of content are restricted. Sexual violence especially is taboo — and if you write a book about rape, like Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, be prepared for a lot of parental outrage.
Was Parable of the Sower more or less powerful because it doesn’t have these content restrictions? Well, it made it a lot more difficult for me to stomach — and I mean that literally. Some of the scenes made me feel sick. Not because of the writing, but because of what was described. It’s a powerful book, but it is extremely grim. The seed of hope that Lauren has in her faith is seriously the only light at the end of the tunnel, and I suspect that’s the point.
Ultimately, though, I admit I did not find myself terribly drawn to Lauren as a character. Perhaps because of her lack of emotion (despite her hyperempathy), I couldn’t find a way to connect with her. I think her spiritual journey is quite interesting, and I do have the sequel, Parable of the Talents. I’m thinking about reading it, but I haven’t decided yet if I want to be put into that grim dystopian world again.
I don’t know about you, but I get extremely involved in the books I read, and being forced to live in such a horrible environment, mentally, is not something I usually like to do. I mean, it gives me nightmares. So, part of my ambiguous reaction to Parable of the Sower is defensive; I had to read it at arm’s length, if you know what I mean. I used to be fine with reading really grim, dark novels, but something has changed in me. Nonetheless, I’m glad I read the book.
Next up: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.
Octavia Butler is my favorite author. I love the way she was true to the horrible nature of humans in desperate situations. I to get very involved in books and being a survivor of rape, it is sometimes hard. But I think that through every book we read we gain a little life experience, and for me personally, after I healed a little, I came out of a horrible situation stronger and able to deal with so much more. Sometimes, especially after reading Octavia, I have to do a little healing, but then I feel better and am reminded of the strength I have gained.
I really loved PARABLE OF THE SOWER; I actually read it for the first time when I was 14. I picked it up at Vroman’s because the previous year I had read KINDRED for school (it was a small group of us–my eighth grade teacher had deemed us ready to tackle such a heavy and dark book based on our grades and our papers, I think) and it left such a powerful impression on me, I went and sought out more Octavia Butler. (Also, she was something of a “local” author.)
The distinction between YA and adult is something I struggle with a lot when it comes to my job. I think it has a lot to do with perspective and voice. While the novel starts when Lauren is 15, there is an adult sensibility and perspective to her retelling (a wry, older voice recounting things as a younger person), even as she’s retelling it as a 15-year-old. (Similar to to Curtis Sittenfield’s PREP.)
On the other hand, in a lot of YA, there is a sense of what I call “blinders vision” (like what horses where). A YA perspective is concerned with Now–the immediate past, the immediate present, and the immediate future. The temporal focus is close, which makes the stakes and emotions much higher. An adult’s perspective often has a broader temporal focus. I see it in myself and my own writing. When I was 16, my journals were all about Now. I’m 25 and when I recount the important events that happened to me ten years ago–even in a 1st person present voice–there is a sense of distance.
I know it’s not very clear, but “perspective” is how I differentiate YA vs. adult.
I love Octavia Butler. Haven’t read her stuff in far too long.
I wonder if the emotional distance of the MC is needed to be able to read this one though. If you could identify better with the MC, would you continue reading? Sounds like it would be harder to get through.
But you have piqued my interest and I’m putting this one on my TBR stack very soon.
I totally get what you’re saying. In SOWER, though, Lauren is writing in the present, as a 15-year-old at first (and then through age 18). So, I guess she was a very adult-seeming teen. She even mentions that at some point in the book, that she’s old before her time or something. I think that’s OK, I mean, plenty of teens sound “like adults,” and I really don’t like the push in YA to make teens sound so teenagery. But the emotional distance, even in Lauren’s diary, made it more difficult for me to relate to her.
It’s a different angle than in PREP, which I absolutely loved. In that novel, the narrator really is looking back on things from an adult distance. In SOWER, she’s in the now, experiencing things as they happen.
I don’t know. I mean, if she was less emotionally distant, she wouldn’t have been the character she was. It would have been a different book.
I suspect that plenty of readers *do* identify with Lauren. Just not me, even though I’m really intrigued by her spiritual quest.
I agree that I felt PREP was more emotionally immediate than SOWER, despite the adult distance. I have conflicted feelings about that novel; the feelings she describes about going to a prep school are SO REAL and SO TRUE, but by god if the protagonist didn’t annoy me.
This book sounds very interesting, but at the same time your review also tells me it’s a book that perhaps shouldn’t be read unless you’re in a really good place emotionally. Like you, I sometimes feel scoured out by really harrowing books; almost like a hyperempathy syndrome of my own, but related to fictional characters. And it does no good for friends or family to say ‘it’s just fiction’ either. I know that, but I can’t help my reaction.
The problem is that some of the very best books I’ve ever read (HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff or FIRE by Kristen Cashore) made me feel this way, and I know I’m a better writer for having experienced them. I applaud your courage for finishing this book. FIRE took me two attempts.
Someone put Ash into my hands two days ago. I finished it, loved it, and had to do a bit of web serarching for Malinda today. This book will fly off the shelves in my library, and I will give it the wings to do so.
Lo and behold, I find Octavia Butler, one of my favorite storytellers (who, sadly, died in her fifties a few years ago in an accident). I actually haven’t read The Parable of the Sowers, but just re-read The Parable of the Talents, which takes up Lauren’s story after she leaves Los Angeles. I recommend it highly. Butler never tried to make things easy for her characters or for her readers. She challenges them both every step of the way. That’s what I love about her.
Pondering the prevalence of rape in post-apocalyptic fiction– it’s one of the most effective tools of control in a politically chaotic situation, and not just for women. In fiction, but worse, in real life. Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Malinda, I’m really happy to have had Ash placed into my hands, and I’m eager for more.
(Want more Octavia Butler? Try the Xenogenesis series)
Thanks for stopping by, Lisa, and I’m glad you enjoyed Ash!