Parable of The Talents Review
If You Don't Act, Someone Else Will
“We are born Not With Purpose,
But with Potential” (Butler, 359)
If Sower set the standard for exceptional Sci-Fi, Talents cemented it.
In the follow up to Sower, Talents further explores the life of Lauren Olyamina as her and Earthseed grow and change, from young adult, to entering the elderly years of her life. It covers all of her ups and downs, dangers, trials, and success. I don’t mean to be vague but I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read yet.
The parallels to today’s climate are obvious. I also want to point out that Butler is no prophet; but simply someone who knows how to ask the right questions and can see the specific patterns of humanity. ( I highly recommend her short book A Few Rules For Predicting The Future!)
The needs exists, and Earthseed was an attempt of an answer. But Butler goes to show much like the law of thermodynamics where nothing new can be created or destroyed… nothing is with out sacrifice. Nothing is without its price. Humanity is capable of so much that yes, we can lose track of our way. That’s why things like culture, institutions, or religion are vital; even if they are not perfect.
Purpose is powerful. If not careful it can be a master instead of a servant.We see this in real life and even in the book. Earthseed becomes so much larger than Lauren, that there isn’t much room for else in her life toward her latter years. The atrocities committed by those in this book are done by people who believe in a higher goal no matter the cost. Good story, good fiction, it’s a mirror you see?
Butler really uses Talents to show how Ideas, Promises, Goals, Values are more eternal, durable, and powerful than any physical thing humans could ever create. It lasts longer than a life. These intangibles coupled with time act as an infinite multiplier to humanity to accomplish anything.
So even on a meta level, Butler pulls up her own chair to the content table by emphasizing you really are what you consume. What ideas, people, energy, thoughts, media, you consume molds and shapes you, it molds and shapes generations, entire kingdoms for centuries.
Butler herself was truly a Sower of penetrating truths with this series, starting with novel that offered a hard but honest look toward the future that then grew.
Lauren is doing the same. Are we?
Butler, Octavia E. (1998). Parable of the Talents: A Novel. New York: Seven Stories Press