Thirty-one years after its publication, Parable of the Sower continues to compel and unsettle many readers. Much of the book is harrowing. The violence begins just a few chapters in, when an elderly woman in Lauren’s walled-off urban village kills herself in the emotional aftermath of losing her entire family to a house fire just weeks after she was robbed and raped, and it refuses to relent for the next 300 pages. At least a dozen people have told me how they struggled to make it through the novel and its sequel, Parable of the Talents, because of the brutality that Lauren witnesses and endures (something I struggled to believe as someone obsessed with the books — even before Parable of the Sower became a New York Times bestseller for the first time in 2020).
But Parable is, at its core, hopeful. Over the course of the story, Lauren works to refine, systematize, and share the belief system she has developed, called “Earthseed,” which she presents through poems and verses collected alongside her journal entries. In Earthseed, “God is Change,” and the task of humanity and the faithful is to learn how to transform from God’s victim into God’s partner — to become one who shapes change.
Not to mention that it coined the phrase “Make America Great Again” that was used by a fascist politician in the book.
Ronald Reagan See also: Ronald Reagan 1980 presidential campaign
Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump at the White House in 1987, while the former was serving his second term as president “Let’s make America great again” was famously used in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. At the time the United States was suffering from a worsening economy at home marked by stagflation. Using the country’s economic distress as a springboard for his campaign, Reagan used the slogan to stir a sense of patriotism among the electorate.[7][8][9][10] During his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan said, “For those without job opportunities, we’ll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who’ve abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.”[11][12]
From Wikipedia.
This was a fantastic read. I read it in 2022, just before the birth of my second child. So much of this hope-filled account is what we need now. And, so much post-collapse description is coming true.
2026 is not far-off.
