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A review by alina_leonova
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
5.0
Content / trigger warnings: death, slavery, concentration camps, rape, kidnapping.
This is a sequel to 'Parable of the Sower', and the story of Lauren Olamina and Earthseed continues here. However, I believe it can be read as a standalone, as it provides enough context for what happened in the first book to make sense on its own.
I feel like this book shouldn't even work, given its structure, and I think it's a testament of Octavia Butler's talent and skill that she made it work. In fact, she made it work so well that I couldn't put the book down and was immensely invested in it. It made me feel so many things. It made me think.
It is, just like the first Earthseed book, based on diary entries, but this time it's not only Lauren's diary, it's also her daughter Larkin's, Bankole's and another character's (whose identity I won't reveal since their appearance was a major plot twist). As Larkin tells her own story, she also uses her mother's, father's and another person's diary entries to tell their story and the story of Earthseed. I really have no idea how on Earth something like that can work, especially taking into account that the voices in the diaries are almost indistinguishable from each other, particularly Lauren's and her daughter's. And yet, somehow, it all coalesces into a gripping and emotionally intense narrative, while each character feels real and unique. There are two parallel timelines in the book: Lauren's and Larkin's. Larkin tells her story as she's in her early thirties, but she recaps her childhood and young adulthood.
It seemed in the beginning that Larkin was the main character, since it was her diary that the book started with. But it turned out that it was still very much Lauren Olamina's story. It's her entries that take up most of the book, even though they are organized by Larkin, who is trying to make sense of her mother's life and work.
Octavia Butler doesn't hesitate to dive into deep waters, exploring subjects like slavery, concentration camps, exploitation, religious zealotry, politics, the outcomes of shortsightedness and the banality of evil. She's really good at showing how ordinary people are capable of extraordinary evil if they believe they're doing the right thing.
Some people will probably take this book as a harsh criticism of Christianity. I personally don't believe it is. Even though it's Christian America's crusaders who wreck havoc on 'heathens' and establish the so-called 'reeducation camps', I believe it's not about Christianity itself. It is about taking religion as far as deciding whose lives matter, dividing people into worthy and unworthy and acting on those beliefs. It is about mixing religion with politics, using religion to gain support, manipulate and brainwash. It is about choosing an enemy to divert people's attention from the politicians' failure to solve their actual problems. It is about violently imposing one 'right' religion upon others. It is about using it to oppress and subdue. And I believe all or at least most of the above can be attributed to all major religions.
Octavia Butler managed to capture the dehumanizing experience of being imprisoned and enslaved with acute emotional intensity. The events in the book feel so real because similar things have happened before and are still happening (take Nazi and Soviet concentration camps or modern-day Chinese 'reeducation camps', slavery, both historical and modern, environmental destruction and the resulting suffering etc.).
However, depicting all those large-scale events, the author pays a lot of attention to small personal tragedies. Through her characters' experiences she shows how different beliefs and life experiences can drive relatives who love each other apart. How one's religious beliefs can push someone to make extremely cruel choices while believing they're doing the right thing or have a higher moral ground. How trauma and losing everything we know can make us cling to something that provides comfort while pushing people who really care away. There is a lot of pain in this book, but not all of it comes from mindless physical violence that so much of 'Parable of the Sower' seemed to rely on. It somehow feels deeper, more personal, more real, more intricate. It is still dystopian and quite violent sci-fi, and yet to me it was all around so much more than that.
The book also allowed me to understand Earthseed much better. I still think it's an interesting philosophy, and I must admit that a lot of the ideas make sense to me. In this book, we get to see its growth and change, from the first Acorn community into something different.
In the end, I really enjoyed the book. It is about humanity. From atrocities and cruelty to resilience and adaptability, creativity and vision, persistence and love. It's full of insightful and wise observations of human nature.
You might enjoy the book as well if you like speculative fiction that deals with big ideas and difficult subjects and makes you think, if you like philosophy and don't mind quite a lot of violence and criticism of religion.
If you like this review, check out my blog about sci-fi by women and non-binary writers for more reviews, interviews, short stories and more.
This is a sequel to 'Parable of the Sower', and the story of Lauren Olamina and Earthseed continues here. However, I believe it can be read as a standalone, as it provides enough context for what happened in the first book to make sense on its own.
I feel like this book shouldn't even work, given its structure, and I think it's a testament of Octavia Butler's talent and skill that she made it work. In fact, she made it work so well that I couldn't put the book down and was immensely invested in it. It made me feel so many things. It made me think.
It is, just like the first Earthseed book, based on diary entries, but this time it's not only Lauren's diary, it's also her daughter Larkin's, Bankole's and another character's (whose identity I won't reveal since their appearance was a major plot twist). As Larkin tells her own story, she also uses her mother's, father's and another person's diary entries to tell their story and the story of Earthseed. I really have no idea how on Earth something like that can work, especially taking into account that the voices in the diaries are almost indistinguishable from each other, particularly Lauren's and her daughter's. And yet, somehow, it all coalesces into a gripping and emotionally intense narrative, while each character feels real and unique. There are two parallel timelines in the book: Lauren's and Larkin's. Larkin tells her story as she's in her early thirties, but she recaps her childhood and young adulthood.
It seemed in the beginning that Larkin was the main character, since it was her diary that the book started with. But it turned out that it was still very much Lauren Olamina's story. It's her entries that take up most of the book, even though they are organized by Larkin, who is trying to make sense of her mother's life and work.
Octavia Butler doesn't hesitate to dive into deep waters, exploring subjects like slavery, concentration camps, exploitation, religious zealotry, politics, the outcomes of shortsightedness and the banality of evil. She's really good at showing how ordinary people are capable of extraordinary evil if they believe they're doing the right thing.
Some people will probably take this book as a harsh criticism of Christianity. I personally don't believe it is. Even though it's Christian America's crusaders who wreck havoc on 'heathens' and establish the so-called 'reeducation camps', I believe it's not about Christianity itself. It is about taking religion as far as deciding whose lives matter, dividing people into worthy and unworthy and acting on those beliefs. It is about mixing religion with politics, using religion to gain support, manipulate and brainwash. It is about choosing an enemy to divert people's attention from the politicians' failure to solve their actual problems. It is about violently imposing one 'right' religion upon others. It is about using it to oppress and subdue. And I believe all or at least most of the above can be attributed to all major religions.
Octavia Butler managed to capture the dehumanizing experience of being imprisoned and enslaved with acute emotional intensity. The events in the book feel so real because similar things have happened before and are still happening (take Nazi and Soviet concentration camps or modern-day Chinese 'reeducation camps', slavery, both historical and modern, environmental destruction and the resulting suffering etc.).
However, depicting all those large-scale events, the author pays a lot of attention to small personal tragedies. Through her characters' experiences she shows how different beliefs and life experiences can drive relatives who love each other apart. How one's religious beliefs can push someone to make extremely cruel choices while believing they're doing the right thing or have a higher moral ground. How trauma and losing everything we know can make us cling to something that provides comfort while pushing people who really care away. There is a lot of pain in this book, but not all of it comes from mindless physical violence that so much of 'Parable of the Sower' seemed to rely on. It somehow feels deeper, more personal, more real, more intricate. It is still dystopian and quite violent sci-fi, and yet to me it was all around so much more than that.
The book also allowed me to understand Earthseed much better. I still think it's an interesting philosophy, and I must admit that a lot of the ideas make sense to me. In this book, we get to see its growth and change, from the first Acorn community into something different.
In the end, I really enjoyed the book. It is about humanity. From atrocities and cruelty to resilience and adaptability, creativity and vision, persistence and love. It's full of insightful and wise observations of human nature.
You might enjoy the book as well if you like speculative fiction that deals with big ideas and difficult subjects and makes you think, if you like philosophy and don't mind quite a lot of violence and criticism of religion.
If you like this review, check out my blog about sci-fi by women and non-binary writers for more reviews, interviews, short stories and more.