VURT YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12)
By:
August 11, 2024
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of science fiction novels and comics from the Eighties (1984–1993, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Josh Glenn.
PARABLE OF THE SOWER | OCTAVIA E. BUTLER | 1993
Set in what was then near-future California (2024, coincidentally), Parable of the Sower opens just as the United States is failing as a country. Political leadership is ineffective, wildfires rampage, and water is scarce. Neighborhoods in a fictional southern Californian town have been forced to rely on themselves for a sense of order and security, buttressed against growing violence and disorder by stalwart neighbors, informal leadership, and vintage guns. They grow their own food and look out for one another. But it’s not enough, and as a new drug that inspires setting fires becomes popular amongst the dispossessed, the already tenuous hold on social order and public safety falls apart.
Trained by her father towards independence and critical thinking, Butler’s fifteen-year-old heroine, Lauren Olamina, is the type who won’t put her head in the sand. In fact, she’s a “sharer,” someone who literally feels the pain of others. From this vulnerable point of view, Lauren draws insight and wisdom. She tries to tell others about her premonition of the impending collapse, but they won’t listen. Instead, people around her continue to rely on familiar institutions to carry them through the dangerous dissolution of society. It’s like watching a slow train crash.
Undaunted, Lauren packs her emergency stash bag. What’s in the bag? What if the emergency is the obliteration of all social order? Well, you might need the supplies to start (civilized) life over. Seeds, luck, and practical knowledge. But what Lauren adds to this mix, the special sauce, is Earthseed, a written philosophy and spiritual exploration compiled through a series of her own journals. Earthseed’s philosophy, a survivor’s mantra, is that the only constant in life and the world is change, and that we can and should prepare for change as much as we can. Ultimately, this thinking gets Lauren and the people she brings along to a place of acceptance of reality, and the grace to get through it.
Through Earthseed, Lauren is certain that she’s been called to convey a new way of seeing the world, just as the old world crumbles. She doesn’t allow herself to be convinced that she’s just dreaming — she takes herself and her vision seriously, thus enabling others to take her seriously too, despite her youth. When Lauren is separated from her family and is forced to seek a new home, it’s clear that her preparations, purpose and certainty were on point.
In another remarkable act of foresight, Butler has an authoritarian politician raise the words with which we’ve become so familiar in these times: “Make America great again.” In her wisdom, she prompts reflection on those words within the context of a world in social devolution, and the conclusions can be nothing but damning.
VURT YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on SNOW CRASH | Mandy Keifetz on THE GENOCIDAL HEALER | Matthew De Abaitua on SWAMP THING | Carlo Rotella on THE PLAYER OF GAMES | Lynn Peril on GEEK LOVE | Stephanie Burt on THE CARPATHIANS | Josh Glenn on DAL TOKYO | Deb Chachra on THE HYPERION CANTOS | Adam McGovern on KID ETERNITY | Nikhil Singh on THE RIDDLING REAVER | Judith Zissman on RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE | Ramona Lyons on PARABLE OF THE SOWER | Jessamyn West on the MARS TRILOGY | Flourish Klink on DOOMSDAY BOOK | Matthew Battles on THE INTEGRAL TREES | Tom Nealon on CLAY’S ARK | Sara Ryan on SARAH CANARY | Gordon Dahlquist on CONSIDER PHLEBAS | Alex Brook Lynn on VURT | Miranda Mellis on STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND | Nicholas Rombes on RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH | Adelina Vaca on NEUROMANCER | Marc Weidenbaum on AMERICAN FLAGG! | Peggy Nelson on VIRTUAL LIGHT | Michael Grasso on WILD PALMS.
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