Customer Reviews

Parable of the Talents

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've read reviews of this series that have criticized Ms. Butler for having such a bleak view of the future and I agree that her vision for the next 50 years isn't easy to swallow. She tends to focus her work more on societal deterioration and not so much on technological advances like so many other sci-fi writers. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy novels like Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" but it didn't encourage me to run out and get a Computer Science M.A., reading this book by Ocativia Butler made me think about my community and scrutinize the things I wasn't doing to improve it. Yes, at times "Parable" is hard to read, but it has a big enough dose of reality to serve as a much needed wake-up call to humanity. There is definitely more to life than IPOs and open source software! As a Black woman I also enjoyed that Butler is the ONLY sci-fi writer I've read that knows the meaning of the word DIVERSITY. The main characters in her books are always Black women but they don't live in an all-Black world. Butler is always careful to include characters of all hues and nationalities. I can't recommend this book enough. Go for it!

I read Parable of the Sower and I felt overwhelmed with thought and visions of the future and I didn't want it to end. I was so happy to follow up with Parable of the Talents. Wonderful book. Octavia Butler does an excellent job at forcing us to view our patterns and choices and the way we are currently dealing with human and social conditions. I strongly recommend this book to everyone but especially if you are looking for a read that will feed your mind and stimulate you intellectually.....

One complaint since the main character Lauren was creating a new way of thinking via Earthseed at times I felt as if I were reading one of those "power for living type books" and it got to be a bit much at times.... Enjoy

Like many others I anxiously but patiently (if that is possible) awaited Octavia's latest novel, this follow-up to her "Parable of the Sower." Knew I wouldn't be displeased and was correct. Strangely, however, it took me 4 weeks to read, partially because it is a painful rendering of a very plausible future and partly because my life does not allow for much leisure reading. She takes you down and down and down with always glimmers of hope through Earthseed which is a perfect description of human beings struggle to understand life and spirit and hope and what the future holds. A necessary multiple read as there are so many parables and parallels with other literature and real life events. I appreciate the integrity she apparently puts into the writing . A must read!

Consistent with her other novels, Octavia Butler creates characters that you trust, understand, and love; characters who are up against substantial odds. Her vision of a dark future void of the securities that we all take for granted is a stark example of "divided we fall."

Perhaps not all readers will be as enamored, as I am, with the truths and promises of the Earthseed Destiny but I think all can appreciate Butler's prediction of human misery when tolerance and democratic rights are trampled.

Religion is a balm, an inspiration, a scourge, and a trap but it is a fundamentally human creation, sprung from our abstract vision. Butler explores our need to formalize these abstractions. When she redefines "God" in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents she tries to avoid the pitfalls that are inevitable where religion is concerned.

Butler provides many dissenting views of her protagonist, Olamina. Allowing your faith in the character to be tested. Olamina is not perfect but her recognition of the power of a belief system and her refusal to transform the core truths into something comforting or theistic makes her a trustworthy prophet.

Read this novel and you will draw many conclusions about the state of the world today.

The Parable of the Talents is the story of a woman attempting to maintain stability in a world of anarchy. I found it to be at first intriguing and promising, then it became absolutely unbearable, and then refreshing, surprising, and enlightening. Although Butler is a powerful storyteller, she lacks in several areas and this novel is significantly flawed.

My problem with Parable of the Talents wholeheartedly began and remained with the people of Acorn, and with Acorn itself. There were way too many characters and families that Butler threw in the story purely for exemplification-they offered absolutely nothing else. Instead of trying to unsuccessfully weave all of these characters into the story, it would have been better to read into a few more well developed characters, leaving the majority of the group nameless. I've noticed that Butler does this in her other work as well and can't understand why. The characters are neither allegorical nor satirical, just a jumble of names and brief physical descriptions that add absolutely nothing to the story.

The very long-winded narrative of the Acorn's daily activities served no other purpose than to show Acorn's philosophy and way of life, which could have been done in a few chapters. The endless chapters narrating the Acorn lifestyle certainly didn't broaden or flesh out any of the other characters, including Olamina. In addition, the never-ending focus on the doctrines of Earthseed for the first 200 hundred or so pages became very preachy and didatic. The excessive lyrics from 'Earthseed' were completely uneccessary. Butler even admits in her afterword that she had to keep "rewriting the first 150 pages or so of Talents and heading up one blind alley or another...I couldn't seem to tell Olamina's story no matter how hard I tried."

Olamina's need to always improve and change was an interesting one and was well manifested in her creation of Earthseed, but it her motives in general were never explained. It was obvious that she wanted to create a progressive group of people who were realistic about 'religion' and had a logical explanation for the ins and outs of life, which is and was appealing, but I kept searching for another reason for Olamina's obsession with her own controlling strength and independence, and never found one. After reading Octavia Butler's afterword, it became obvious to me that Olamina, Acorn, and Earthseed represented Octavia Butler's own values and motivations, which offered me a bit more insight into the character of Olamina. It would be interesting to research exactly how much of Butler's own personality is reflected in her female protagonists and other leading characters.

Despite my griping, I am still impressed with Octavia Butler's mastery of illustrating the follies of human nature and what it breeds. I somewhat enjoyed Bloodchild and the Lilith's Brood series, but I feel Butler has definitely faltered this one. Although this series doesn't have to be read in sequence, I would recommend that those new to Octavia Butler start with Bloodchild, which is a collection of short stories, Lilith's Brood, and then Parable of the Sower and Talents.

One of those rare sequels that is better than the original (which itself was amazingly good), Butler continues the story of Lauren Olamina and her attempts to establish Acorn, a self-sufficient community in a nightmarishly dystopian world. Many of the elements of the previous novel are here--Lauren's genetic ability to feel the actual pain of others' experiences, the collapse of the U. S. government and its economy--but there is much new. Alaska has seceded from the nation, the U.S. is a war with Canada, and religious fundamentalists threaten what remains of the American way of life.

The sequel is told from three points of view. While much of the conflict is between Lauren and the brother she frees from slavery, Lauren's daughter provides a retrospective and balanced look at the eventual and inevitable hostility between the two siblings. The first half of the book portrays Acorn and its attempts to bloom in a hostile world. When the community comes under attack from the newly elected fundamentalist government that promises to restore law and order, the novel recalls--in a good way--Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," especially in the portrayal of the hypocrisy of those in power and their attitude toward women. Part social commentary, part adventure story, the second half of the novel concerns Lauren's often desperate search for her daughter and her persistent desire to reestablish Earthseed, the religious system she has created which believes that humankind's ultimate destiny is to establish itself on other planets.

As usual, Butler is best when depicting intra- and interpersonal conflicts and when detailing the unusual specifics of her imagined world. But, because the novel is such a smorgasbord of themes and because she describes the rise, demise, and resurrection of a community of several dozen people, only the lead characters are meticulously sketched. Unlike her other books, the novel falters occasionally in its attempt to render the many characters, who are often difficult to distinguish.

Ultimately, Butler is kind to her readers: she doesn't leave the novel with an wide-open ending designed to generate sequels. But there's good news for those of us who enjoyed the first two books: in an interview at the end of the book she admits that she "intends to write about communities of Earthseed who, in fulfillment of the Destiny, go out to extrasolar worlds."

The Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents are without a doubt the finest examples of framed narrative I have read, period. I name them both in this review because they are essentially the same book broke up into two parts. The nebula award wouldn't have been awarded to Talents as a stand-alone book so be certain read the Parable of the Sower first.

In a nation recovering from vast economic, environmental, and social upheavals the main-character's life is presented via her daughter who has obtained copies of her mother's personal journals. It chronicles the creation of "Earthseed" a religious movement (cult) whose beginnings originate from the mother's childhood musings from within the walled community of her home presented in the Parable of the Sower. The musings can most easily be summarized by the oft repeated phrase "God is Change". From the mother's perspective Butler makes a variety of cultural and political statements denouncing the dangers of religious fundamentalism, laissez faire economic policies, and the sort of intentional ignorance humanity uses to protect itself from unsettling truths (poverty, slavery, war, etc.). She also promotes amongst other things universal education (no school vouchers for her) and a world-view completely devoid of faith in the supernatural and centered around the need for humanity to colonize space, this being the only real "heaven". My favorite quote from the second book comes from Lauren (the mother) in chapter twenty: "The truth is, preparing for interstellar travel and then sending out ships filled with colonists is bound to be a job so long, thankless, expensive and difficult that I suspect that only a religion could do it."

The views presented by Butler from Lauren's perspective are quite extreme and would probably have turned even myself away from this book had not both her daughter (the narrator) and Marc (Lauren's brother and only other surviving relative) been written in such sharp contrast to the Lauren. These two contrasting points of view save the book from degenerating into a long attack on Christian Fundamentalist values and Republican environmental and economic policy. Instead I was able to better appreciate the depth of Octavia Butler's characters and the passion with which they acted out their parts in her story. This story is in my opinion a much more valuable novel than The Handmaid's Tale which it has been compared to, but failed to draw me into it to the extent that George Orwell's masterpiece 1984 did. (4.5/5 stars)

I love this book. It shows all of human nature: the good, the bad, the chaos, the order-- and how one community can survive anything together. "Parable of the Talents," teaches a new religion called Earthseed. Lauren Olamina, the main character, preaches Earthseed, always saying GOD IS CHANGE. I'm not very religious, but i can relate to all of the verses. Most of them are very true verses, ones that i can relate to. This book is about the world after the Apocalypse. Slave collars are used to control people, sending them lashes mechanically. A provocative but fascinating book-- and long enough to enjoy all of its layers.
"Parable of the Talents" is a Science Fiction book-- but not the stereotypical robots and Martians kind of a book. It mostly feels like your reading about history-- even though there are some inventions our society doesn't have. Recommended highly from a person who hasn't liked reading much-- especially science fiction- until this book!

I read this book in the week following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Switching between reading Butler's descriptions of "post-Pox (Apocalypse)" America and watching the country's fearful reaction to its exposed vulnerablity to faceless terrorism, I found her incredibly insightful. Her fascist Christian American Jarrett was reflected in the rabid anti-gay, anti-feminist and anti-choice "God turning back on America" finger pointing of Falwell and Robertson, and I found the unexpected concordance utterly chilling.
The teachings of Earthseed are believable and applicable to real life. "God is Change." It could be a guidebook to ethical living, to learn, teach, work, take care of one another, take an active stance in shaping your destiny, use kindness to ease change. A goal or vision beyond the gruntwork of every day to reach for, in this case, reaching for the stars, literally, a grander, greater goal akin to Kennedy's vision to put a man on the moon within a decade back there in the 60s. I think the tech IPO bust early in the new millenium has made us realize our concentration on material prosperity has fallen a little flat, and a little spiritual or visionary striving will do us some, or even a lot of good. Earthseed is much more palatable than the hateful exclusionary hallucinations of Falwell and his ilk.

At the end of Parable of the Sower Lauren Olamina had founded her first Earthseed community: Acorn. She founded the community with those she found on the highways of California as she tried to find safety somewhere among the violence of the United States. A man who came to travel with Olamina, Bankole, allowed her to use land that he owned. Bankole and Olamina eventually married and she had been teaching the community Earthseed and raising the children in it, her alternate religion that she believes is truth. Now that she has founded Acorn Olamina needs for her community to grow. She needs to spread Earthseed to others, to teach, to preach, to help others to know the truth as she knows it. She also needs Acorn to remain safe and protected as any could be killed, captured into slavery, robbed, or raped. Or all of this could occur.

As in the first volume, Parable of the Talents is a novel told primarily in the voice of Lauren Oya Olamina through her journals. So, we are looking at what she wrote of herself and her surroundings from some point in the future. She may have neglected to write about certain events and everything is always from her perspective. This is the part of the format that is the same as Parable of the Sower. What is different is that the chapters include discussion and writing by her daughter, and her daughter has a completely different point of view than Olamina. Shortly after the novel begins we learn that Olamina is pregnant. For her daughter to be writing and writing this well, this has to be coming from at least twenty years in the novel's future if not longer. The daughter offers commentary on Olamina's writing and perspective and gives her own. She also includes brief passages by her father and the occasional passage by Olamina's brother. Together we get a much different view of Olamina as we did in Parable of the Sower. She is still the leader, but her family is resentful and angry. Her daughter comes off as very angry, so we are left to wonder why and we begin to discovery why.

The format change was a bit surprising but it was very well done. It is enough to say that Octavia Butler was one of the masters of speculative fiction and she is in complete control here. This harsh vision of our future and even harsher vision of what Olamina and Acorn undergoes is exceptionally moving and powerful and it is part of a brutal world that I didn't want to leave. Wherever I thought Octavia Butler might go with this novel, she went in a completely different direction but one that felt entirely authentic.

-Joe Sherry