I finished reading Parable of the Talents a few days ago. I was so motivated to read it because I kept finding parallels between Sower and the current state of the country, and I was desperate to understand how Lauren’s journey was concluded. Butler said in an interview that Talents was meant to be “a book of solutions,” (or something similar, I don’t have the book in front of me to check). So those “solutions” that I think Butler was talking about are, in part, fairly self-evident, but there’s definitely so much more that I would love to discuss with anyone else who has read the book or will in the future. Beth wasn’t kidding when she said reading Talents is tough, though. There were so many points where I wanted to put the book down and never touch it again because of all the violence and all the allusions that drove home how the world in the book isn’t so far departed from what has happened in the past and what can happen again in the future. I’m glad I made it through the book, though, despite how uncomfortable it made me the majority of the time. I didn’t find all of the solutions I was looking for, but it’s been a source of enlightenment in some areas and a it has served as a warning in other ways. Having read Sower, I’m sure you know what I mean by the latter.
I also want to mention that another reason I wanted to read Talents was because I wanted to see the repercussions of Lauren’s goal to create a new religion. I can’t say much about this without spoiling some of the plot of Talents, but in case you were interested in this, then it’s also something I’m really interested in discussing.
So my next step now that I’ve put some of my thoughts on Talents into writing while it hasn’t yet been biased with other people’s opinions is to look into those other opinions. I’ll search around the internet for some articles and criticism, but please contact me in the meantime if you want to get in touch about Talents or Sower or whatever else. My old email is about to get deleted since I graduated, so send me your thoughts at pamhaas9@gmail.com.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Pam