On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Anne V Stuecker wrote:
> Hello, all. I just finished reading Octavia Butler's _Parable of the
> Sower_ and would like to know everyone's thoughts or ideas on the book.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Anne Stuecker <avs5@juno.com> Washington, DC, USA
>
It's a fine novel, though very different from most of Butler's previous
fiction. I just finished writing a paper on Parable and a somewhat
similar novel by Jack Womack called Random Acts of Senseless Violence.
Both books deal with teenaged girls on their own and surviving in
near-future Americas that are going all to hell. I looked at both books in
light of Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.
Although I liked Parable of the Sower a lot, I'm still not very
comfortable with Lauren's Earthseed religion. The concept is either very
profound or very shallow--I haven't made up my mind yet. Question, does
Butler want us to see Earthseed as right?
Interesting side point. Butler said in a recent interview which appeared
in Science Fiction Studies that Lauren does not have any psychic ability
to feel other peoples' pain, which is how I (and I think most people) first
read it. What she has is a well developed delusion that she can feel
other peoples' pain.
Mike Levy
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