I read this a while ago and was similarly disappointed. The high stakes were engaging, but the "scriptural" excerpts were cringe and the religion so vapid it was impossible to believe it could resolve any of the problems established
I haven't read Parable of the Sower, and nothing you have said here inclines me to do so. But I was struck by your comment on Tom Joad's speech and Rose of Sharon's feeding of the dying man in The Grapes of Wrath, because they are, to me, the two serious flaws in what is otherwise a near-perfect novel. And in each case, the problem is that Steinbeck is attempting to consciously add meaning to the novel, in the first case by a speech, and in the second by symbolism.
What I dislike about these moments is that they lack authenticity. Tom Joad would never have made that speech in those words. You can give your characters any kind of diction you like, but once it is established, you should stick to it, because otherwise it feels like the author is suddenly speaking through the character's mouth, which is what this is, and it is inauthentic.
Similarly, no young woman is going to let a dying man feed from her bosom, and nothing in the book has established the possibility that Rose of Sharon might do such an extraordinary thing.
A book should be an experience. Having meaning is not its job. These days, we are stuffed full of meaning but starved of experience. An author's attempt to stuff meaning into a novel always robs it of authenticity, thus dulling the experience.
I sometimes think readers crave "meaning" in a book these days either because they have been taught to read that way by English teachers, or because it buffers the rawness of experience with comforting bromides. What, after all, are the meanings ascribed to most books, to books like this? Be nice to each other. Share what you have, "we need to come together as a community despite all of our differences and do the best that we can". Such meanings are simple, familiar, and comfortable. But they dull the raw experience, which is the real thing that a novel provides.
I don't want meaning in a novel. I want experience. When I judge a novel, I look at the particularity of the experience and its authenticity. These are the characters we remember forever, the particular and the authentic: Lizzy Bennet, Pa Joad, Mr. Toad, Bertie Wooster, the Whiskey Priest, Sebastian Flyte, Sam Weller, Ebenezer Scrooge, Lucy Pevensie. Fie on meaning. Give me experiences of men and women such as these.
Okay, I am going to respectfully push back on you a little here, Don. 😊
I wonder if what you experienced as the novel not going deep enough is actually part of what I find so interesting about it.
I don't read Earthseed as Butler giving us a fully formed philosophy and asking us to accept it. Lauren is 18, living through the collapse of nearly every structure that was supposed to make the world coherent, and trying to construct a way of understanding that world while she is still surviving it. Of course her theology is incomplete. I think I would be more suspicious of the novel if it weren't.
And I think that changes how I read "God is Change." I am less interested in whether Earthseed works as a satisfying theology and more interested in what it tells us about the human impulse to make meaning when the old explanations no longer seem sufficient.
I also disagree with you a bit about hyperempathy being a missed opportunity. I find something fascinating, and uncomfortable, in Butler refusing to make empathy automatically redemptive. Lauren can literally feel another person's pain, and it still doesn't solve the moral problems of her world. Maybe feeling another person's pain isn't enough. Maybe empathy without power, community, action, or responsibility has limits.
Which brings me back to your larger point about meaning. I wonder if we are asking different things of the book. You seem to want Butler to take the questions further toward an answer. I think I value that she leaves me inside the questions.
Now you've made me want to reread it, which is probably the sign of a good book conversation. 😂 I'm curious: would any of that change your reading, or do you still want Butler to take that final step? So enjoy thinking about this with you.
I love kind feedback, Chantel; thank you for taking the time to lay this out!
It sounds like you’re going with the notion that Butler is characterizing 18 year-old Lauren through her Earthseed beliefs, as well as her framing of “sharing.” That was a possibility I also considered, but unlike you, I found this weak. Though it’s nice a writer can be consistent and fully immersive, I want more for a book to rise above “okay.” For example, if someone wrote from a middle schoolers point of view, it may be a great story and mimetically interesting, giving us a peek into someone’s POV, but unless it says something more, we’re left thinking, “That was a nice read, but so what?” This was my exact response to Lauren.
“I am less interested in whether Earthseed works as a satisfying theology and more interested in what it tells us about the human impulse to make meaning when the old explanations no longer seem sufficient.”
Well said here. It sounds like you are finding significance in Lauren’s struggle—and that’s great. I wouldn’t disagree or argue. But this is what I meant by saying Sower is only “one level deep.” There’s nothing more in the text itself that I can find to elevate the novel.
“Butler refusing to make empathy automatically redemptive. Lauren can literally feel another person's pain, and it still doesn't solve the moral problems of her world. Maybe feeling another person's pain isn't enough. Maybe empathy without power, community, action, or responsibility has limits.”
Fair, but I repeat my same point: it’s one level deep.
I suspect you’re a kinder, more generous person with Butler than I am, Chantel, as I enjoyed the book and found the same interest as you, but I was ultimately disappointed by Butler not doing more than presenting it (as with, say, The Road); it could have gone so much deeper than character explorations and “dropped” features for reader consideration.
Once again, I’m so glad you wrote all this and forced me to rethink my conclusions. Take care, Chantel!
It needed me to take Lauren's thoughts too seriously. I wrote plenty of philosophizing in my teens, and this was the same sort of stuff. Telling me that I was wise in my teens was -- unwise.
Brilliantly stated, Mary. Thank you. As I said, I was constantly wondering if 1) Butler was fleshing our Lauren’s character via the Earthseed bits, or even her reactions to her “sharing” ability, or 2) the vapidity were actually Butler’s views in action. Either way, I found it ranged from eyerolling to ho-hum.
It needed me to take Lauren's thoughts too seriously. I wrote plenty of philosophizing in my teens, and this was the same sort of stuff. Telling me that I was wise in my teens was -- unwise.
Bless you, Don. Yes, it was a good review, but critically, you reminded me theres a famous sci-fi book titled Earthseed. I was going to use that myself. It was probably stuck in my mind already but I didn't realize. Ha!
Caveat: I've never read the book, but I really enjoyed how you split the review into two parts and was struck especially by you asking the author and their book to mean something. Given your overview, I wonder if the "meaning" of the book is a product of the time of its publication (1993 per google) coupled with Butler becoming an adult in the 1960s. What I notice from that generation of prominent SFF authors is that they gravitated towards utopian visions of society they gained from the radicalism of the '60s and were deeply distressed over the rightward shift of the United States in the 1970s/1980s.
From what I gather, this book retains that utopian (radical) vision of the 60s when the MC is engaged with creating her Earthseed religion yet distressed by the climate change anxieties of her day (Acid rain! That's a throwback!) and the social inequalities of the future (which I would assume were produced by Reagan-era policies in the author's framework).
Not sure if that makes sense or is even close to what you read. But kudos for the split-review. Love that concept!
JF, you never fail to intrigue with your comments. I had not even though of Butler being a product of the 60s generation growing older, but now that you say it, I can’t unsee it. The main protagonists in the book even talk about some of that (obliquely), and their concerns are the same concerns that such an author would have (including the adoration of Taoist/Zen ideas). I’m not sure about the reaction to the right, which may or may not be there, but definitely the fear of disenfranchisement and anti-capitalism. I almost mentioned in my book that a few times I got a hippie/communist vibe from Lauren, but was unsure so didn’t go there.
So much of post-WW2 SciFi to the present reads as disappointed men and women reflecting the idealism of youth meeting the hard wall of reality but the tone bounces from nuclear anxiety to ecological change to SciFi of the 70s fearing a bad acid trip to whatever the 80s were to climate change fears in the 90s and disappointed radicals, terrorism adding brother in the aughts that became anti-imperialism in the tens and anti-settler-colonialism in the twenties.
I don’t know. Just musing aloud. It’s a big reason why I can appreciate the works (while holding respectful disagreements with them) but love the outliers in the genre — Reading PD James’s 1990 novel CHILDREN OF MEN currently, and man, I don’t think I’ve read a more socially conservative, Christian SciFi novel in years that is eerie in its predictive power. (The movie is very good but comes at the problem from the left with only a figurative hinting towards Christ).
I read this a while ago and was similarly disappointed. The high stakes were engaging, but the "scriptural" excerpts were cringe and the religion so vapid it was impossible to believe it could resolve any of the problems established
You just summarized about half my gist in one sentence, Jon! Thanks for reminding me how dang wordy I can be. :)
I'm just glad to find someone who agrees lol. I like Butler in general but this one just did not live up to the hype!
Have you read Parable of the Talents? Does that shore up or deepen anything from Sower?
I haven't read Parable of the Sower, and nothing you have said here inclines me to do so. But I was struck by your comment on Tom Joad's speech and Rose of Sharon's feeding of the dying man in The Grapes of Wrath, because they are, to me, the two serious flaws in what is otherwise a near-perfect novel. And in each case, the problem is that Steinbeck is attempting to consciously add meaning to the novel, in the first case by a speech, and in the second by symbolism.
What I dislike about these moments is that they lack authenticity. Tom Joad would never have made that speech in those words. You can give your characters any kind of diction you like, but once it is established, you should stick to it, because otherwise it feels like the author is suddenly speaking through the character's mouth, which is what this is, and it is inauthentic.
Similarly, no young woman is going to let a dying man feed from her bosom, and nothing in the book has established the possibility that Rose of Sharon might do such an extraordinary thing.
A book should be an experience. Having meaning is not its job. These days, we are stuffed full of meaning but starved of experience. An author's attempt to stuff meaning into a novel always robs it of authenticity, thus dulling the experience.
I sometimes think readers crave "meaning" in a book these days either because they have been taught to read that way by English teachers, or because it buffers the rawness of experience with comforting bromides. What, after all, are the meanings ascribed to most books, to books like this? Be nice to each other. Share what you have, "we need to come together as a community despite all of our differences and do the best that we can". Such meanings are simple, familiar, and comfortable. But they dull the raw experience, which is the real thing that a novel provides.
I don't want meaning in a novel. I want experience. When I judge a novel, I look at the particularity of the experience and its authenticity. These are the characters we remember forever, the particular and the authentic: Lizzy Bennet, Pa Joad, Mr. Toad, Bertie Wooster, the Whiskey Priest, Sebastian Flyte, Sam Weller, Ebenezer Scrooge, Lucy Pevensie. Fie on meaning. Give me experiences of men and women such as these.
Okay, I am going to respectfully push back on you a little here, Don. 😊
I wonder if what you experienced as the novel not going deep enough is actually part of what I find so interesting about it.
I don't read Earthseed as Butler giving us a fully formed philosophy and asking us to accept it. Lauren is 18, living through the collapse of nearly every structure that was supposed to make the world coherent, and trying to construct a way of understanding that world while she is still surviving it. Of course her theology is incomplete. I think I would be more suspicious of the novel if it weren't.
And I think that changes how I read "God is Change." I am less interested in whether Earthseed works as a satisfying theology and more interested in what it tells us about the human impulse to make meaning when the old explanations no longer seem sufficient.
I also disagree with you a bit about hyperempathy being a missed opportunity. I find something fascinating, and uncomfortable, in Butler refusing to make empathy automatically redemptive. Lauren can literally feel another person's pain, and it still doesn't solve the moral problems of her world. Maybe feeling another person's pain isn't enough. Maybe empathy without power, community, action, or responsibility has limits.
Which brings me back to your larger point about meaning. I wonder if we are asking different things of the book. You seem to want Butler to take the questions further toward an answer. I think I value that she leaves me inside the questions.
Now you've made me want to reread it, which is probably the sign of a good book conversation. 😂 I'm curious: would any of that change your reading, or do you still want Butler to take that final step? So enjoy thinking about this with you.
I love kind feedback, Chantel; thank you for taking the time to lay this out!
It sounds like you’re going with the notion that Butler is characterizing 18 year-old Lauren through her Earthseed beliefs, as well as her framing of “sharing.” That was a possibility I also considered, but unlike you, I found this weak. Though it’s nice a writer can be consistent and fully immersive, I want more for a book to rise above “okay.” For example, if someone wrote from a middle schoolers point of view, it may be a great story and mimetically interesting, giving us a peek into someone’s POV, but unless it says something more, we’re left thinking, “That was a nice read, but so what?” This was my exact response to Lauren.
“I am less interested in whether Earthseed works as a satisfying theology and more interested in what it tells us about the human impulse to make meaning when the old explanations no longer seem sufficient.”
Well said here. It sounds like you are finding significance in Lauren’s struggle—and that’s great. I wouldn’t disagree or argue. But this is what I meant by saying Sower is only “one level deep.” There’s nothing more in the text itself that I can find to elevate the novel.
“Butler refusing to make empathy automatically redemptive. Lauren can literally feel another person's pain, and it still doesn't solve the moral problems of her world. Maybe feeling another person's pain isn't enough. Maybe empathy without power, community, action, or responsibility has limits.”
Fair, but I repeat my same point: it’s one level deep.
I suspect you’re a kinder, more generous person with Butler than I am, Chantel, as I enjoyed the book and found the same interest as you, but I was ultimately disappointed by Butler not doing more than presenting it (as with, say, The Road); it could have gone so much deeper than character explorations and “dropped” features for reader consideration.
Once again, I’m so glad you wrote all this and forced me to rethink my conclusions. Take care, Chantel!
I didn't get through this one. Or even very far.
It needed me to take Lauren's thoughts too seriously. I wrote plenty of philosophizing in my teens, and this was the same sort of stuff. Telling me that I was wise in my teens was -- unwise.
Brilliantly stated, Mary. Thank you. As I said, I was constantly wondering if 1) Butler was fleshing our Lauren’s character via the Earthseed bits, or even her reactions to her “sharing” ability, or 2) the vapidity were actually Butler’s views in action. Either way, I found it ranged from eyerolling to ho-hum.
I didn't get through this one. Or even very far.
It needed me to take Lauren's thoughts too seriously. I wrote plenty of philosophizing in my teens, and this was the same sort of stuff. Telling me that I was wise in my teens was -- unwise.
Bless you, Don. Yes, it was a good review, but critically, you reminded me theres a famous sci-fi book titled Earthseed. I was going to use that myself. It was probably stuck in my mind already but I didn't realize. Ha!
Caveat: I've never read the book, but I really enjoyed how you split the review into two parts and was struck especially by you asking the author and their book to mean something. Given your overview, I wonder if the "meaning" of the book is a product of the time of its publication (1993 per google) coupled with Butler becoming an adult in the 1960s. What I notice from that generation of prominent SFF authors is that they gravitated towards utopian visions of society they gained from the radicalism of the '60s and were deeply distressed over the rightward shift of the United States in the 1970s/1980s.
From what I gather, this book retains that utopian (radical) vision of the 60s when the MC is engaged with creating her Earthseed religion yet distressed by the climate change anxieties of her day (Acid rain! That's a throwback!) and the social inequalities of the future (which I would assume were produced by Reagan-era policies in the author's framework).
Not sure if that makes sense or is even close to what you read. But kudos for the split-review. Love that concept!
JF, you never fail to intrigue with your comments. I had not even though of Butler being a product of the 60s generation growing older, but now that you say it, I can’t unsee it. The main protagonists in the book even talk about some of that (obliquely), and their concerns are the same concerns that such an author would have (including the adoration of Taoist/Zen ideas). I’m not sure about the reaction to the right, which may or may not be there, but definitely the fear of disenfranchisement and anti-capitalism. I almost mentioned in my book that a few times I got a hippie/communist vibe from Lauren, but was unsure so didn’t go there.
So much of post-WW2 SciFi to the present reads as disappointed men and women reflecting the idealism of youth meeting the hard wall of reality but the tone bounces from nuclear anxiety to ecological change to SciFi of the 70s fearing a bad acid trip to whatever the 80s were to climate change fears in the 90s and disappointed radicals, terrorism adding brother in the aughts that became anti-imperialism in the tens and anti-settler-colonialism in the twenties.
I don’t know. Just musing aloud. It’s a big reason why I can appreciate the works (while holding respectful disagreements with them) but love the outliers in the genre — Reading PD James’s 1990 novel CHILDREN OF MEN currently, and man, I don’t think I’ve read a more socially conservative, Christian SciFi novel in years that is eerie in its predictive power. (The movie is very good but comes at the problem from the left with only a figurative hinting towards Christ).
I did not. The first one did not convince me to read a sequel lol
Well, maybe some fine commenter here will fill in that gap for us—and maybe convince us to read it :)
They're gonna have to make quite a sale lol