Die Parabel vom Sämann

Roman

Paperback, 414 pages

German language

Published Aug. 8, 1999 by Heyne.

ISBN:
978-3-453-14896-3
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4 stars (4 reviews)

Kalifornien im Jahre 2025. Durch Psychodrogen aufgeputschte, marodierende Banden terrorisieren das Land: die meisten Menschen haben sich längst in kleine, nach außen abgeschottete Gemeinschaften zurückgezogen. Lauren Olamina, eine junge schwarze Frau, macht sich auf die gefährliche Reise nach Norden entlang der Küste. Durch eine Erbkrankheit verfügt sie über die Gabe der Empathie: sie kann den Schmerz anderer Menschen spüren - und sie ermöglicht es ihr, jene unscheinbaren Veränderungen in der Gesellschaft zu erkennen, die vielleicht zu einer neuen Form menschlicher Zivilisation führen werden. (Klappentext)

14 editions

This felt like it was published last year

4 stars

Which feels like a cheesy thing to say in a review about dystopian fiction, but I genuinely didn't realize this book was published in the year 1993 until I read Butler's biography at the back and realized she passed away in 2006. It feels... pertinent

Others have said this is a pretty grim novel. I agree. It hurt to read, quite often. I feel like I've mostly moved out of my dystopian fiction era but this one hooked me a lot harder than most I've read. I haven't finished a book this quickly in quite a while.

I think Parable of the Sower has a lot to say about eco-fatalism, as well as the many "fatalisms" of neoliberalism in general, which it delivers on very well. I also felt like it would have a lot to say about the value of religion, divorced from the way people in my life …

Review of 'La parábola del sembrador' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Me deja un poco frío la idea de religión como sustituto del resto de las instituciones sociales en un tiempo apocalíptico, y no acabo de ver qué papel juega la hiperempatía en todo esto, si es mero atrezzo o un elemento verdaderamene importante. Lo veremos en el volumen dos.

Desde luego es un terreno de juego completamente diferente del de Xenogénesis.

Review of 'Parable of the Sower' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

On a second read, I feel a lot differently than I did the first time around. I can't separate uncomfortable feelings of reading about a teenager basically starting a cult and attracting people who are at their absolute most vulnerable to join. It doesn't sit well with me to read about Lauren's glee to "raise babies in Earthseed." And the intense, intense, dehumanization and otherizing of people using drugs, making them into physically unrecognizable monsters, is something I can't get past. If Lauren has hyper-empathy, and is more sensitive to people in need of help, then why does the buck stop with people using drugs?