Parable of the Talents
Octavia Butler, 1998
Summary
The novel continues the story of Parable of the Sower but introduces an additional framing narrative of Lauren Olamina’s daughter reflecting back on her mother’s diary entries. Additionally, there are entries from Lauren’s husband, Bankole, and Lauren’s brother, Marcus.
Things begin five years after the previous novel ends, with everyone settled in the first Earthseed community, Acorn. The population has grown and the settlement is transitioning from surviving to thriving. Olamina and Bankole are also trying to have a daughter. One day, when trying to find the sisters of a child that was rescued, Olamina finds her brother, Marcus, being sold as a slave in a local settlement. She rescues him and brings him back to Acorn. Eventually, he recounts his story to his sister, mentioning that he was a preacher before he was captured and enslaved. Finding the allure of preaching too persistent, he wants to preach at the next Earthseed Gathering. Olamina cautions that this isn’t a dictatorial pulpit but rather a discussion, and his ideas and sermon would be subject to questions. Marcus proceeds to preach anyway, lecturing the congregation on the unchanging nature of God. Of course, Earthseed’s God is change, and this leads to a substantial amount of questions from those in attendance. Marcus loses the thread of the sermon, and he departs Acorn a few days later in order to make his own way.
Meanwhile, Christian demagogue Jarret, who wants to Make America Great Again, has been elected the next president of the United States. As bad as he is, his followers, the Crusaders, are worse. Eventually, these Crusaders show up to Acorn and enslave everyone while removing all the children to send to new Christian homes in lieu of being raised by heathens. Amongst these children are Olamina and Bankole’s new daughter. Bankole dies in the initial attack, leaving Olamina alone. She and the residents of Acorn endure nearly two years of “re-education”, brutal slavery at the hands of these Crusaders. Eventually, a landslide destroys the central control unit for all the enslavement collars, allowing the residents of Acorn to slay their captors and escape.
Olamina then begins to search for her lost daughter, who could be anywhere. In her search, she stumbles upon her brother, Marcus, preaching at a Christian American shelter. She confronts him, asking him if he knew what his brethren, the Christian American Crusaders, have done. He plays coy, eventually disappearing from the shelter to another state before Olamina can question him again. Olamina, still trying to find her daughter, decides it’s time to start Earthseed in earnest, looking for teachers to go out and spread the word.
The narrative eventually cuts to Olamina’s daughter, who is going to meet her mother for the first time. Her mother is 58 at this point, and Earthseed is wildly prosperous. Olamina’s daughter has met her Uncle Marcus, and is in fact staying at his house as he paid for her to go through college and then graduate school. The meeting between Larkin, Olamina’s daughter, and Olamina, does not go well. Marcus has firmly stolen Larkin from Olamina. The novel ends with Olamina, 81, watching as the first Earthseed colonists depart to outer space, to the destiny Earthseed always promised amongst the stars.
Thoughts
This novel is a richer tale than the first, building on the world Butler has sketched. The plot still revolves around Olamina but adds in her daughter and brother as well. It’s hard not to feel the same compulsion towards Olamina as other characters do. This story is so many things, but first and foremost it is a story of betrayal, of a brother’s betrayal of his sister, of a mother’s betrayal of her daughter. We as readers are left to sift the wreckage, forced to side with mother over daughter or brother over sister. It is a cautionary tale, an ecological warning, an elegy, a creation story.
The mythos of this world is nearly indistinguishable from ours; Butler’s Make America Great Again demagogue might be more elegant, and more handsome, but this world would pass for ours. Butler narrows the focus to two zealots and their followers, one espousing a story of creation, of destiny, of love, the other, a story of destruction, of division, of hatred, but nonetheless the book makes a distinction for the effects of faith as a tool for the wielder. Humans are capable of great kindness and great destruction, but also great apathy, and great mental pliability on when to exercise any of the above.
Having read this book, Butler’s language is like everything in the world she has created – built for utility and effect. Her metaphors are not flights of fancy, her characterization sparse and understated. Much of the action happens via dialogue, or is reported after the event. Her central metaphor, the Parable of Talents, positions this book as a parable, a cautionary tale that says it matters what we do with the gifts we are given, even if that gift is one of manipulation. Manipulation isn’t a purely negative conduit of human interaction on a human scale, but it can destroy everything immediately around us. But when the world is on the brink, those gifts might be better given to the world rather than buried in the dirt of your own personal life. It’s just a shame Butler couldn’t continue giving and finish this trilogy before her death.