Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 stars“Let Us Help to Make America Great Again!”
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2019
No, this is not a clichéd joke or a poke at we-all-know-who. This is actually the slogan of one of the candidates in the U.S. presidential election in... 2032, from a book that Octavia Butler penned in... 1998. The uncanny similarities with the present do not just end here. There is the preaching for a return to ‘simpler times’, the desire for the ‘strong hand’, the promise of ‘simple solutions’ to complex problems, the vehement rejection of any other opinion than your own.
In one of her interviews given just a couple of years before she passed away, as always speaking in that deep, authoritative voice of hers that makes you instinctively trust what she says, Octavia Butler declares that it is foolish of writers to think that they can predict the future. “When we write about the future,” she says, “what we actually write about is the present, but more of it—more advanced, harder, higher, faster.” Even though she overshoots by 15 years, it is ironic how wrong she was and how much she underestimated her own ability to see the future—even though I suspect she would be much happier if she had failed, at least in this particular case. This book is living proof that bigotry, opportunism and stupidity do indeed transcend time, space as well as generations.
Parable of the Talents is set in the aftermath of a socioeconomic and climatic calamity that has shaken the world to its core and is a direct sequel to Butler's Parable of the Sower, in itself a harrowing apocalyptic journey along the highways of an America that has disintegrated into violence, anarchy and rampant drug use. Olamina has found a safe haven for herself and her followers who she met on the road, but can her community and her nascent teaching suffer the head-on collision with President Jarret’s rising religious fundamentalism?
The book is interesting enough to read for its literary merits. The story and the characters—albeit probably not for the faint of heart—are brilliant and engrossing. What I find far more interesting though and what I also think will transcend time (as it has transcended these since 20 years since the novel was written) are Butler's universal insights into human nature: How easy it is for scared people to flock under the wing of anyone who seems strong and decisive. How quickly ordinary people can turn into monsters. How dangerous are ignorance and prejudice. How tempting is to stop thinking and to let someone else think for you.
These simple truths have outlived Butler and will unfortunately most likely outlive us all.
