Parable of the Talents

This book is even more disturbingly relevant right now than Parable of the Sower. It is absolutely surreal reading this at the present moment. Skerrit winning on the “Make America Great Again” platform and empowering the worst people in the country to be as violent as they want in the name of religion and patriotism. Crazy science fiction, right. It was kind of bizarre how the news seemed to parallel what I was reading in the book.

Establishing an official state religion and allowing Crusaders to kill and enslave in the name of Christianity. (Meanwhile Trump establishes a “White House Faith Office” and pledges to root out “anti-Christian bias.”) They use ugly half-trucks called maggots to terrorize people, and yes I absolutely imagined these as Cybertrucks. (Meanwhile the state department plans to spend $400 million on armored Cybertrucks.) The U.S. goes to war with Canada, people are put into re-education camps, families are torn apart, books and even the concept of stories are banned, and so on; things that are already happening right now in 2025 and other things that may happen soon. It’s a brutal read, even more so than Sower, I would say. It lets its characters build community and hope, only to tear it away again.

I really love the inclusion of Larkin/Asha’s narrative. Not just because it gives us an outside, critical perspective on Olamina. It’s moving and disturbing in its own right. Asha and her uncle Marc are fascinating characters to me. Particularly Marc, who can’t face the reality of the organization he’s pledged himself to. He is also, in his own way, trying to take care of his community and be a faithful servant over a few small things. And I understand Asha’s feeling of abandonment. Lauren had a choice; I believe she made the right choice, the only choice that was true to her character, but it was a path that led her further away from finding her daughter.

When my book club discussed Sower a lot of people expressed frustration with Lauren and her insistence that Earthseed’s true purpose was to find a home for humanity among the stars. Asha shares that frustration and anger towards her mother, feeling that Earthseed could do a lot more good down on Earth, and that it’s fundamentally immoral to use that money and power for space exploration instead. It’s a good argument. And of course Lauren believes that giving humanity this purpose is the only way we can break our violent patterns, and we’ll never know if she was right. It would have been very interesting to know where Butler would have gone in further novels. I love her books because she presents a lot of interesting questions without easy answers, with complicated characters that we may not even particularly like. This feels like a good ending, even though it’s not the happy, hopeful ending we might want, it’s a lot more uncertain and realistic. Some actions can’t be taken back, some things can’t be forgiven, and at the end you just hope that you’ve done some good in the world.

The second (and unfortunately last) Earthseed book addresses most of the things that bugged me about the first one. Changing the perspective of the narration to Olamina’s daughter and thus a retrospective and slightly academic one is a real masterstroke. It continues the themes of the first book, especially how you have to build community - and a large one - to survive. What also struck me was how well the book conveys the lifelong pain of deeds that seem small in the grand scale of it. This is the one where a guy, running a hateful election campaign with the slogan "Make America Great Again“ becomes President. It's interesting that Butler thought that it would take a lot of societal collapse and an established religious figure to do it. Some people close to Olamina end up voting for him or supporting him and she shows that conflict in a very realistic way. Needless to say, a lot of horrible things happen in this book as well, and again, it comes with all the content warnings. But it's also kinda hopeful.

the writing is fantastic. also there is more... story than in parable of the sower, definitely more things happening and also more hope. somebody (I forgot the source) wrote about this "parable of the sower is about problems, while parable of the talents is about solutions" and yeah, this seems true. it is also still about horrible, horrible problems. some of these chapters were really hard to get through.

also everything seems so realistic - the characters and the choices they have to face, but also the USA/world politics.

the earthseed verses feel so much on point by now. they're definitely the thing I will remember most. as religions go, it's a good one.

EDIT: I wanted to add, if you want to read this book, check out the Octavia's Parables podcast by adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon. It is worth it for the songs from the opera "parable of the sower" alone!