by Octavia E. Butler
Such wonderful theology, such a wonderful main character. I wish it hadn’t been embedded in such a horror movie.
Cannibalism, burning people alive, relentless killing. It reminded me in that sense of Geraldine Brooks’ YEAR OF WONDERS, which was about the plague. There you had people suffocating in pig manure, someone carrying around a dead baby till its head fell off… same kind of thing, has me reading with steel guardrails around my brain so as not to actually internalize anything.
So about the good parts! Theology! God is change. Your job is to do your best to mold that God to serve your ends.
Main character! It’s all led by a supernaturally strong young African American woman. She is the sower. She calls her religion Earthseed. Each chapter begins with some of her “verses”. “The only lasting truth is change. God is change.” “Create no images of God… The universe is God’s self-portrait.”½
Tytania 