We have crossed the threshold into a future that late great author Octavia Butler predicted. Published in 1993 and set in Southern California of 2024, Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower was acclaimed for its gritty realism and urgency. As time moved forward, that realism came to feel more like supernatural foresight.
Like many great banned books, Parable of the Sower takes on wide discussions of poverty, religion, feminism, womanhood, race, climate change, and more. The logic offered up for banning the title is that the subject matter is too tough for children or young adults to be confronted by. The truth is that these books discuss race and racism, while centering people of color.
Banning a book does not make it illegal to own, but it does create difficulties when it comes to locating that book in your local bookstores and libraries.
Parable of the Sower is told through the journal entries of a 15-year-old Black girl Lauren Oya Olamina, living in a post-apocalyptic America where Pasadena/Glendale used to be in California. The world is full of dangers, a water shortage, and monetary inflation, and survival is hard. When her community is attacked and falls apart, Lauren must make her own way north for a chance at a better life. She’s forced out of her close, religious community, builds a family, creates a doctrine that we could all do good living by, and creates something new out of the mess of a world around her. That’s not even the bare bones of what the book actually becomes for the reader, but it’s the easiest summary to give.
In the Bible, the parable of the sower is found in Matthew 13: 1–23. Jesus tells the story of a farmer who sows seed carelessly. Some seed falls by the wayside with no soil; some on rocky ground with little soil; some on soil which contains thorns, and some on good soil. In the first case, the seed is taken away; in the second and third soils, the seed fails to produce a crop; but when it falls on good soil, it grows and yields thirty-, sixty-, or a hundred-fold.
Jesus later explains to his disciples that the seed represents the gospel, the sower represents anyone who proclaims it, and the various soils represent people’s responses to it.
I read this book for this first time in college and thought it was beautifully written. I found a different message each time I read it, as with other writings by Butler. I have heard some people liken Parable of the Sower to Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. While The Handmaid’s Tale builds a world of destructive order in a regime that guards its citizens every move, Parable of the Sower‘s authenticity comes from the sense of helplessness in chaos that has always been Black people’s experience in the United States.
The common thread for me is that the devil is in the small, everyday details rather than the big ones. It’s also terrifying how a book written over thirty years ago about a post-apocalyptic America actually got some things right about our modern society today. Parable of the Sower is a dark novel about civilization spiraling into chaos, hatred, and unlimited violence. But it is also a story about faith, family, hope, and community. One of my favorite quotes of the book is: “There is no end to what a living world will demand of you.”
Parable of the Sower is the first book in the Earthseed duology, and the story begins in our current year 2024. As mentioned, the story revolves around Lauren Olamina and her family, who live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Lauren, her father who is a Baptist pastor, and plenty of others are trying to salvage what remains of a culture, if it still can be called that. Their civilization is devastated by drugs, wars, disease, chronic water shortages, and much more. Survival is getting harder by the day, and to make things more difficult, Lauren is struggling with hyper-empathy syndrome, which means that she can feel the emotions of others as if they were her own.
As usual, Butler’s prose is engaging, accessible, and so vivid. The early parts of Parable of the Sower have minimum dialogue and action. It feels like you are reading a stream of consciousness. This changes because the characterization of Lauren and the various characters she meets are superbly written.
Parable of the Sower is not a big book. At just over 300 pages, you can probably read it in two or three days. But please do not take its small size to mean the book is lacking in its impact. The topics, events, and issues discussed in the novel are insanely dark, violent, and sadly relatable to our civilization. This isn’t to say that I haven’t read novels crueler and darker than this. I have, several times. But what made the chaos in Parable of the Sower terrifying is its believability. These devastating events have happened, whether in America or around the world. In 1993, Butler foresaw vivid and fearful situations in her writing.
Although our world has yet to experience the same level of social decay as Lauren’s, climate-fueled disasters have already cost us trillions of dollars and millions of lives. Global temperatures surpass records year after year and global emissions continue to increase.
Parable of the Sower totally deserves its classic status. For its frightening relevancy, resonating themes, believable characters, and Butler’s signature engaging prose, she is to be commended for the creation of this novel. At the same time, it is a tragedy to our world that the events in the book can even be considered something relevant to us. It shouldn’t be. Will our world ever be a better place? No one can predict that. But this novel teaches us that nothing is constant in our lives except change. No good thing stays, and no bad thing last forever. But no matter how hard it is, we have the power to adapt ourselves to every change we encounter.
Many scholars have analyzed this book, but the element of hyper-empathy syndrome felt to me like a commentary on how pain can be passed down through generations. Early in the book, it is revealed that Lauren’s father believes her hyper-empathy syndrome was passed down to her because her mother abused drugs while pregnant. The fact that it is just speculation for the characters, that a real source of this curse cannot be verified, feels like a parallel to how Black people can be directly affected by the suffering of their ancestors.
Parable of the Sower is an essential read. The idea of human desperation and selfishness sending us head first into an apocalypse should make our stomachs turn. At the same time, we are reminded that hope can exist even within the worst possible circumstances. This is a powerful message that we have clung to since the beginning of time, and despite everything, continue to do so.
