Parable of the Sower

, #1

by

Paperback, 345 pages

English language

Published Aug. 7, 2000 by Warner Books.

ISBN:
978-0-446-67550-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
42397656

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(9 reviews)

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean …

13 editions

reviewed Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed, #1)

This felt like it was published last year

Which feels like a cheesy thing to say in a review about dystopian fiction, but I genuinely didn't realize this book was published in the year 1993 until I read Butler's biography at the back and realized she passed away in 2006. It feels... pertinent

Others have said this is a pretty grim novel. I agree. It hurt to read, quite often. I feel like I've mostly moved out of my dystopian fiction era but this one hooked me a lot harder than most I've read. I haven't finished a book this quickly in quite a while.

I think Parable of the Sower has a lot to say about eco-fatalism, as well as the many "fatalisms" of neoliberalism in general, which it delivers on very well. I also felt like it would have a lot to say about the value of religion, divorced from the way people in my life …

reviewed Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed, #1)

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No rating

Cuando estaba más joven la ficción y la ciencia ficción eran espacios que me hacían sentido para conectar con la imaginación y con la posibilidad de pensar y sentir la vida fuera de límites que percibía en mis presentes.

Como estos ámbitos de la literatura no resonaban tanto en algunas de mis redes cercanas, me alejé un poquito de éstos por algunos años y me metí a libros más teóricos y "serios". Pero desde que empecé a leer a Octavia Butler volví a interesarme por textos de (ciencia) ficción.

Octavia reflexionó sobre la ausencia/invisibilización de mujeres negras en un contexto donde predominaba una ciencia ficción de escritores hombres y blancos. También propuso escenarios que abordaran los pasados-presentes-futuros y que estimularan la imaginación y la creatividad como posibilidades ante las crisis que seguimos viviendo.

En Parable of the sower, Octavia tejió temas como: sensibilidad hacia otrxs seres; críticas al capitalismo, a …

reviewed La parábola del sembrador by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed, #1)

Review of 'La parábola del sembrador' on 'Goodreads'

Me deja un poco frío la idea de religión como sustituto del resto de las instituciones sociales en un tiempo apocalíptico, y no acabo de ver qué papel juega la hiperempatía en todo esto, si es mero atrezzo o un elemento verdaderamene importante. Lo veremos en el volumen dos.

Desde luego es un terreno de juego completamente diferente del de Xenogénesis.

reviewed Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed, #1)

Review of 'Parable of the Sower' on 'Goodreads'

On a second read, I feel a lot differently than I did the first time around. I can't separate uncomfortable feelings of reading about a teenager basically starting a cult and attracting people who are at their absolute most vulnerable to join. It doesn't sit well with me to read about Lauren's glee to "raise babies in Earthseed." And the intense, intense, dehumanization and otherizing of people using drugs, making them into physically unrecognizable monsters, is something I can't get past. If Lauren has hyper-empathy, and is more sensitive to people in need of help, then why does the buck stop with people using drugs?

reviewed Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed, #1)

Review of 'Parable of the Sower' on 'Goodreads'

Not my most favourite Butler, but very solid. Reminds me a bit of Walking Dead, but the zombies are just people being people. Not quite so many people die though and I couldn't figure out if that felt more or less realistic lol.

The biggest drawback for me mostly came from the depiction of drugs. My feelings about how one should depict drugs is still very nebulous, so I'm not really sure about how they are depicted here but it did feel a tad bit regressive to me personally.

Since we all know that our heroine will end up on the outside sooner rather than later, I do feel like the opening could have been a bit more condensed.

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Subjects

  • African Americans -- Fiction
  • Twenty-first century -- Fiction
  • California, Southern -- Fiction

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