Surviving a Failed State

How Fiction Reflects Reality

“Tolstoy and I. 2-5-25” conte pencil on pages of a 1937 edition of War and Peace, 10 x 7.75 inches.

Tonight will be the second session of the reading group I moderate for ecoartspace, “Fiction as Resistance,” I have requested of the group, that they find passages they care to share from Octavia Butler’s, “The Parable of the Sower.” The book has gotten a lot of recent attention for its prescience.

As they idenitify resonant passages, I’ve asked that they please consider the parallels they may see between the fictional narrative set in our present and our actual present and try to identify where Butler erected signposts to a more positive future. The book repeatedly asserts that, “God is change,” which is ianother way of saying adaptation is a strategy. Strategy is a system that doesn't depend on individuals.