Open Discussion Thread

[Lauri]

Hello and Happy Halloween All!

It is a beautiful fall morning here in the Portland area, crisp but sunny. I am having breakfast soon then settling in with my book.

This kicks off our open discussion of the first half of this book. If you've finished the book, let's try and keep 2nd half spoilers out of this thread (we'll have another thread in a couple of weeks -- sooner if folks finish.)

Anyone is welcome to post questions, thoughts, concerns, links. I will post a few questions later this afternoon, as well.

Happy reading and see you later today (or at your leisure)!

[Lauri]

So this book was published 20 years ago, in 2000, January, in fact. Y2K! I don't remember exactly when I read it the first time, but likely it was somewhere between 2005-2007 -- long enough ago that it felt more futuristic than I think it feels to me now. Now, there is a realness. Or maybe a version of some of our worst fears...

I enjoy the way each chapter begins with a quote from Earthseed: The Books of the Living... which we are to presume are from a work that the main character, Lauren, (or someone else, perhaps?) has written. I think it gives a bit of hope for the future as we read the circumstances that are predicted just a few years from now! 2024 does not seem that far away.

One of those quotes (ch. 6) was: "Drowning people/Sometimes die/Fighting their resucers." This felt so TRUE right now, with the election, to me. But anyway....here we learn that Joanne, her friend, has told the adults about Lauren's ideas -- that seem radical and scary to them -- centered on learning survival skills.

A question or two from my book's reading guide (does anyone else have one of those?) was: Do you think that Lauren's ideas, including community night watches, learning to fend for themselves in the wild, studying locale wild plant life for food, are excessively paranoid?

Me: what parallels do you see in your own life or in the community around you, in how this community is living?

[Fey]

So I'm coming into this book having just read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Both books are from the post apocalyptic genre so as I am reading Parable of the Sower I see this as being post apocalyptic even though looking back I realize that it isn't necessarily post an event but we are watching the event unfurl.

I find this frightening for it parallels our current times in the USA a bit too much for me.... Does "it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change"(pg57) seem familiar? People in our country have been pushed to edge for decades and now with Covid they have been pushed over it and they are saying enough is enough.
I hope our leaders listen....or maybe its too late. I still have to read the second half of the book to find out whats going to happen...in the story I mean not in real life or am I? What if this book is truly prophetic like that show on Amazon Prime, Utopia. ...but I digress.

What frightens me the most in this book is how the Federal Government seems to have become completely defunct and corporationalized. States seem to be like their own countries where they can close their borders from each other. For example, Oregon does not want Californians to enter and so have closed the border. Their USA has fallen apart fractured into us and them. Any of this sound familiar to whats happening today?

The economy in the Sower is such that extended families need to pool their resources together and all squeeze into one home. Ummm I know quite a few people who have had to move back in with their parents just to make ends meet and these are people with college degrees.....just like many people in Lauren's neighborhood including her parents.

And the book just keeps going!

"This country is going to be parceled out as a source of cheap labor and cheap land. When people like those in Olivar beg to sell themselves, our surviving cities are bound to wind up the economic colonies of whoever can afford to buy them."(pg129)

These people are being colonized not by a foreign country but by corporations. Corporations have no allegiance and are of no country. They are a financial entity with frightening possibilities. When big money steps into the shoes of our Federal Government and makes things happen for its personally interested corporations, then us as humble citizens are in danger. It is all happening at our expense. That is what I am getting from this book and it makes my stomach turn because I can now see it all slowly happening.

Some may call this a paranoid conspiracy theory but what if its not?

Everyone here is waiting for things to "go back to normal" just like the older adults in Parable of the Sower but what if they don't?
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I take a slow deep breath......
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No, Lauren's community is not paranoid but being only half way through the book I feel like her hyperempathy has not played out enough and I can't really answer this question at the moment. Its her strange condition that places this book onto a science fiction shelf therefore this story could go anywhere from here for me. Its almost like her hyperempathy is a fake distraction so you don't realize that everything in this book is true and really foretelling of our future.
Damn, there I go again lol

[Fey]

Lauri, if I need to sneak into Oregon from California will you help me out?? lol

[Jennifer]

Fey,

Thanks for your insight and also I am with you feeling like the fiction book was way too close to today's reality for my comfort.

As the Federal Government is lacking in effective leadership (my opinion) I am currently optimistic about companies stepping up with things like the World Economic Forum's Metrics for Stakeholder Capitalism and the U.N. CEO Water Mandate -- where corporations are doing more good than the government. But, of course, there is always a risk of $$ being too dominant a factor. Enough about real politics!

[Jennifer]

I have finished the book, but promise no spoilers. In response to the prompts:

Community Night Watches seem very practical and also an experience of creating a sense of calm and connectedness during chaos. The recurring theme of people helping others is very strong in this book and I appreciate the way it is tied both to traditional religion through the dad/baptist minister and to 'spiritualism' through Lauren. Keith 'the dumb brother' who doesn't help with the community is the exception and is clearly positioned as the 'bad guy' even though he is loved most by his mom.

In terms of living in the wild, I think this part is awesome. I am a 'semper paratus' person - ever since my husband (Lauri's cousin) John was in the Coast Guard. I have an emergency kit in every room in my house and in my car and am part of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) in San Mateo County. So I fully appreciated Lauren's go bag. I thought Silvia's reaction was a natural one because I perceive the nature of humans as wanting to seek pleasure and avoid pain and even when the world is falling apart, we don't want to focus on that. The conversation between Lauren and her dad after Silvia told her mom and the shit hit the fan was very engaging. It was the wisdom of experience vs. the urgency of young adulthood.

I do see parallels playing out in reality today. First, there is the pathetic demand for toilet paper and humans panicked at the start of the pandemic. Second I feel wise in my old age of realizing there is no 'fix' and that patience and artful interpersonal interactions are important for me to practice with people in their 20s. My students at S.F.S.U. are really waiting 'for this to be over' and I am encouraging the Stoic practice of acceptance and realism about what we can control. I am resisting my tendency to shout 'this is no OVER idiots, this is a new reality, GET USED TO IT and learn to live gracefully in a world of chaos' -- so far I have resisted.

Enough about reality. I appreciate the way Butler develops characters in a manner that made me relate to all of them without a strong preference for one or the other. Even though the first half of the book did trigger some anxiety for me, I appreciate the artful structure.

[Lauri]

I have a lot of FEELINGS today, as do many, but promise that I will respond to these thoughtful posts very soon.

[Fey]

Having finished the book and looking back at the reading experience as a whole I think to myself "Boy stopping in the middle of the book for three weeks during the election was a really strange experience"

hahaha

I should of just finished reading the book and quelled all prophetic induced stress I was giving myself. Hahaha -damn I must of been bored.

I really liked the relationships the character builds with her new friends on the road. Her whole hyper-empathy made more sense in the second half of the book. I am seriously curious about baking with acorn flower now... The second half of the book to me felt much different than the first half. It felt like an exhale after a very long deep inhale. I felt so much reading the first half. Too much almost.

I do have the second book on my TBR but I don't know if I will pursue it. I am more interested in the universe of the book not so much into how Lauren is going to build a community.

BUT I definitely will look for something else to read by this author. I really connected to her characters even the ones we meet for just a minute. I think it is the way she shows how they interact with each other that made me see them as real people. Connectable people.

[Lauri]

Fey! Thanks for continuing the conversation. I lost some steam reading, I admit, these last few weeks. Somehow despite working from home, I seem to keep myself so busy and time continues to get away from me. I am close to finished with the second half and I think taking time to take a break during this election was definitely an odd experience! I will have more thoughts later this week to share.

I know Jennifer has been busy too, with an upcoming move not far from me! Interesting parallel? :-)

Fey -- any ideas for another book? I have so many on my TBR pile/list but hey, room for more.

[Fey]

Here is a question for our club:

What is your opinion on Lauren's hyper-empathy? With so much of this book being a possible parallel universe do you think this could happen as well? What do you think was the function of this ability/disability to the plot?

[Lauri]

I have been thinking a lot about Lauren's hyper-empathy since finishing the book. I see it as both a disadvantage and an advantage. In the first half of the book, we learn about it and we see it in action, but it isn't until the Pyros storm the walls and Lauren is forced out into the world we really see how it affects her practically. And of course, it isn't until later in the novel we meet other "sharers" who have had this ability/disability used against them.

I wanted to know so much more about these modern day slaves and how that part of the company store/slave economy worked. These people's hyperempathy is taken advantage of to make them docile workers. Those in power lack that hyperempathy, as well as true empathy, and it is used as a means to exploit and disadvantage.

On the other hand, they hyperempathy may also be a key to the changes needed to bring forth Lauren's Earthseed ideas and to create the new community she envisions. In Chapter 10, just after she finds out about what happened to her brother, Keith, Lauren thinks:

“But if everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture? Who would cause anyone unnecessary pain? I’ve never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help. I wish I could give it to people. Failing that, I wish I could find other people who have it, and live among them. A biological conscience is better than no conscience at all.”

There is a really good podcast episode of a show called Invisibilia (highly recommend) called "Entaglement", which kept coming up for me while reading this book. The entire episode is amazing (especially the last piece about the artist Maria Bamford) but what is intriguing is the first piece, about a woman kind of like Lauren:

https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibi...

[Fey]

I really like the quote you pulled from the book. I totally missed that whole aspect of her power. Power? Disability?

Maybe Lauren's hyper-empathy takes on a stronger role in the next book.

Yes, with how well Butler foretold todays world, I too am really curious to know about the modern day enslaved ones and how the Sharers are being taken advantage of by the system.

Ugh the system. Has it ever thought of the benefit of man?
Read "Against the Grain" by James C. Scott to find your answer to that one!

I am super grateful for this book group.
xoxo fey

ps. I will check out that podcast...I do want to get back into that media