Since I don't think my wife and I will ever speak a word about our marriage and do some kind of post mortem, I have come to terms with never really having closure on the relationship we had/endured over the course of 20+ years. Perhaps because of this, I've felt compelled to read books and watch movies that she recommended to me and that I fully intended to consume at some point. That point is now.
Since my wife has, shall we say, a lot of time on her hands, she listens to audiobooks aplenty and watches many a movie/tv show. (Well, she used to, at least.) She consumes a wide variety of things on a variety of topics - anywhere from cheesy horror tales to books on the issues of the day. All kinds of stuff and her eclectic taste reminds me of some of the reasons I fell in love with her.
The first recommendation I caught up with was Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here which I enjoyed, even if some of the 1930's references went over my head. The latest is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.
I don't recall my Frau saying much beyond that I needed to read it and that she thought it was really good. No exegesis on this one.
The protagonist here is a young woman named Lauren Olamina who lives in a post-apocalyptic community outside of Los Angeles. She is extremely empathetic and I mean extremely. Lauren can actually feel the pain of others. She is in the midst of devising a religion called Earthseed which is centered around the primacy of change. Indeed, change is the godhead.
Lauren is 15 or 16 as the book starts and we first learn about her, her family, and community. People survive by growing their own food, purchasing supplies, and trading. Plus everyone tries to repel thieves and maniacs who paint their faces and take a drug which causes them to find fire to be better than sex.
Life goes on for Lauren and her community until one day when tragedy strikes. In the aftermath, she decides to leave and head north with a couple of her neighbors. This rag tag group grows as they venture north where they encounter dangers aplenty along with other folks who are just trying to survive. One of the latter is a middle-aged doctor named Bankole. He and Lauren strike up a relationship of a sexual nature despite Lauren being a mere 18.
Bankole has family up in northern California with a farm that has enough space for everyone willing to work. He hopes to marry Lauren. When the group of pilgrims arrive, they find that the buildings have all been burnt to the ground and that Bankole's family has been killed. They settle there anyway and Lauren founds an Earthseed community called Acorn.
I haven't done the novel justice with my paltry summary but you get the idea.
This line "She was my best friend. Now she isn't." resonated with me as it brought my wife to mind in multiple ways.
I liked Parable of the Sower but didn't find it to be great. My previous encounter with Butler's writing was Fledgling and I feel much the same about Parable as I do it. I enjoy Butler's writing style and find a lot of interest in her novels but rarely do I feel that's she got me, that I am just an empty vessel with Butler filling me with an enrapturing tale.
Lauren's hyper-empathy gets mentioned early on but is largely ignored until around two-thirds of the way through. We get glimpses of what her affliction does to her, how it affects her but it seemed underused. On the other hand, her conversations with people, Bankole especially, about Earthseed are beautiful. In the course of Lauren defending it against his skepticism, she gives a fine explanation of it plus she discusses religion more generally. I really liked these scenes.
There are also some great conversations amongst characters about morality and when it should be ignored. How should one treat others in something akin to a Hobbesian state of nature? How should one act towards those who would do you harm? Is acting morally good contingent on anything ever?
While I enjoyed Parable of the Sower and feel it has some really intriguing and thoughtful thematic elements, I never felt fully invested in the characters and I think that's what keeps me at a distance here. Despite this, I will surely keep pondering it, trying to make connections between hyper-empathy and Earthseed.
No comments:
Post a Comment