The book is set in the 2020s, from 2024 to 2027. It tells the story of a girl living in a run-down America on the verge of collapse, socially, economically. In every way. Police still exist, some form of government still exists, money still exists. Everything is incredibly expensive. Homeless people are called street poor. Some people are delirious on power and drugs. A drug called pyro makes people burn things. Lauren lives in drought-stricken California, so everything burns. Water is a problem everywhere. Jobs don’t pay money and slavery and indentured servitude is all some people have to feed their families, to have somewhere to live.
Each chapter begins with a verse from a book the main character – Lauren Olamina – wrote called Earthseed: Books of the living. At first, they don’t make sense, but as the book progress the verses seem to give a forward to the chapter. The first verse gives a forward to the whole book. It says;
"All that you touch you change, all that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change."I didn’t understand at first. The book explains reveals itself to you as you read it. From the diary entries Lauren writes, you learn that she is a very rational individual. She’s very clear headed and not overly emotional about anything. I don’t remember if she ever cries. Not even after the worst kinds of loss.
It might be because she has hyper-empathy syndrome, which she calls sharing. She feels what other people feel or what she thinks they feel, and “shares” their pain and pleasure. She explains that she would bleed with others when she was younger. She never seems to grieve. I wonder if it’s because she doesn’t have the luxury or if she’s so used to feeling other people’s pain that she doesn’t have time to feel her own.
I read other reviews and that seems to bother some people -- her coldness -- but being born into a world where there is no hope for work and nothing to do but try and survive, I think you learn to be cold and detached. Even from what you love.
Lauren believes in a religion that she calls Earthseed. She writes verses from it every day. She believes Earthseed is the future of her world. Her world is dying. The purpose of Earthseed is to take root in other living worlds and grow humanity into adulthood.
The story of the parable of the sower is about accepting change or dying while resisting it. Lauren says multiple times in the book that she intends to survive. People challenge her on this belief, but she is firm in it. She intends to survive and Earthseed is how she will do it.
She wishes to create a heaven, not on Earth but in life. Her heaven is a life on a living world, in space.
Some verses from Earthseed that resonated with me:
“As wind, as water, as fire, as life. God is both creative and destructive. Demanding and yielding. Sculptor and clay. God is infinite potential.”
“The Self must create its own reason for being, to shape God, to shape Self.”
The ideas of Earthseed and the ideas presented in this book are not new. These are old ideas. They were old when the book was published back in 1993.
However, the book feels like a guide for lost people. A message to embrace change, that it is endless potential. A tool to empower yourself, shape your own destiny. Even if your way of life is dying. There are plants that can only grow after a fire. That kind of thing.
Also, it’s not lost on me, the religious implications of a world being lost to fire.
I don’t know how an atheist or agnostic might feel about a book that deals heavily in religion. Or if you have your own religion, or if your ideals differ greatly. It might feel like a preachy book. It’s just a message, though. It’s a story, self-contained and when you leave it, you can take the message, or you can leave it behind.
P.S. It’s so refreshing to read a book about black characters as the default. There’s no explanation of their blackness, they just are. It’s very nice to see.
P. P. S. I refuse to mention the age gap love. People tend to marry people that remind them of their parents, right? I could write an entire post on that by itself.
