Ms. Hen reviews Parable of the Sower

Parable of the Sower

Octavia E. Butler

Hachette Book Group

1993

This novel has been on Ms. Hen’s radar for a while. She put it on her library list, and there has been a long wait for a significant amount of time. Right at the beginning of the year, the library where she is a patron mysteriously got several new copies of this book. On the book that she took out, it’s stamped January 2020, which means that it just arrived. Ms. Hen wondered why this was true, but she started reading the novel, and she figured it out.

Ms. Hen believes that her library got new copies of this novel because it says a lot about the world we live in today, and where we are headed. It was published in 1993, and it takes place between 2024 and 2027. It scared Ms. Hen. She didn’t want to read it at night because she thought it would give her nightmares. It’s about a world where the United States’ infrastructure has crumbled, and people are starving and killing each other. Some people have money, but they keep it to themselves. Corporations have employees who are slaves and are only paid in company scrip. People have to fight for food and also for survival.

A young woman, Lauren Olamina, lives in a walled neighborhood with her family and their small community. They grow food and help each other survive. Outside the walls, it’s not safe, people are fighting for food and murdering each other, stealing, and women are raped continuously. Behind the wall the children learn to read and write at the school where Lauren’s stepmother, Connie teaches. Lauren is a sharer, which means she shares other people’s pain, and this happened because her birth mother did drugs before she was born. Lauren’s father is the preacher and the church is inside their house on Sundays. The people respect him and their family. Lauren writes poetry about the way she sees everything, and she wants to invent a religion called Earthseed that helps people deal with the messed up world. Life is decent and bearable until drug addicts come and burn down the neighborhood, break down the walls, and kill almost everyone.

This novel reminded Ms. Hen of some other things she has read. The part about the neighborhood where Lauren lives reminds Ms. Hen of paradise in the Bible, when Adam and Eve lived in peace before the apple was eaten and they were banished to the ordinary world. The section where Lauren is walking north with her group is reminiscent of THE GRAPES OF WRATH because the people are poor and are traveling somewhere they think life will be better. And also, the lists of things that the travelers buy and carry remind Ms. Hen of the short story, “The Things They Carried.”

Ms. Hen thinks this is relevant today because of politics and where it is moving, and the sharp line between the rich and the poor. The country isn’t in this bad shape yet, but we could be getting there. It frightens Ms. Hen that this novel might tell us where we are going.

Ms. Hen likes this novel, and she thinks it might be the best book she has read so far this year. Not just for the story, the writing is also exquisite. It’s only the beginning of the year, but she’s pretty sure that this will make it to Ms. Hen’s Top Ten. Ms. Hen does not want to be a pessimist and fear the future, but books like this make her think about the twisted way the world works, and the downward spiral that we are taking.

Ms. Hen reviews Hazards of Time Travel

Hazards of Time Travel

Joyce Carol Oates

The Ontario Review

2018

This book had been on Ms. Hen’s library list for quite some time, and she finally got around to reading it. She had never read a book by Ms. Oates before, but she did read her famous short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” when she was a hen in college. Ms. Oates has published a mountain of books, more than Ms. Hen can imagine. This novel is a departure for her, since she does not usually write science fiction.

HAZARDS OF TIME TRAVEL is about a teenage girl, Adriane Stohl, in a futuristic United States that takes place after 9/11. The country has become a state under surveillance, and everyone is watched, and people have to do what the government says. Adriane’s father was penalized for having radical ideas, and he is not allowed to practice medicine, though he went to medical school, and is qualified to work as a physician. In school, Adriane and her classmates are not encouraged to do well, because that could be considered dangerous. Girls and boys are not supposed to be friends with each other, and the system tells everyone that boys are naturally smarter than girls.

When Adriane is about to graduate from high school, she discovers she is the valedictorian. She gets a “Patriot Scholarship,” and is supposed to give a speech at graduation. She writes a speech of questions, but is not allowed to read it, because it is considered subversive. She is arrested, whisked away to the police station, and is told she is in trouble. She gets banished to Zone Nine, which is 1959 in Wisconsin at Wainscotia College where she is a freshman in the scholarship girls' dorm. She is traumatized by what has happened, and misses her family, and she doesn’t know if they are aware of what has happened to her. She eventually makes friends with and falls in love with an assistant psychology professor, Ira Wolfman, who is also from the future and has been banished.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is similar to other novels she has read, but the difference is that this one directly addresses the possibilities of a transformed world after 9/11. It’s comparable to 1984 in the way that it’s about a world where nobody has any privacy, and everyone is watched but it’s different because this novel was written during the age of the Internet, so the author and the reader know what has actually already happened.

Ms. Hen liked being in the world of 1959, and enjoyed how messed up it was. Adriane is from the future, and is appalled by the way the people live in 1959. She faints the first time she sees a typewriter, and she is terrified when she tries to use one because it is so difficult to press down on the keys, unlike the computers in the future. She also gets disgusted by the food the people eat, and is confused over the clothes the young women wear. Wainscotia is known as “The Happy Place," but nobody is happy there, because they are so naïve, the people don’t understand what the meaning of intelligence and originality.

Ms. Hen thinks that the end of this novel is weak, and it could have been breathtaking. She doesn’t want to tell you what happened, but she thinks that a novel with this much tension should have ended on a more dramatic note. She read reviews of this novel, and some thought the writing was rushed, which Ms. Hen thinks is true. Ms. Oates produces an enormous amount of work, and maybe she doesn’t have time to edit them thoroughly, since she writes so much.

This is not the best novel that Ms. Hen has read, but it is not the worst. It’s worth reading, if you like science fiction, and like to explore the possibility that anything could happen. But don’t expect an avalanche of snow to fall on your head and wake you up from your dreamless slumber, because Ms. Hen doesn’t think will happen.

Ms. Hen reviews Brave New World

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Harper Collins

1932

Ms. Hen read this novel years ago, when she was a young hen, but not when she was in high school. She had been trying to remember what happens in it, but she couldn’t. She decided to revisit the book to see how it is relevant to today’s world, which is what the hot topic about BRAVE NEW WORLD is about right now.

This novel is about the world in the future, in which babies are made in factories in test tubes, and everyone is happy, people sleep with whomever they want, and nobody gets married, and mother and father are disgusting words. People are assigned a caste at birth: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and they perform jobs that are equal to their station. The Deltas and Epsilons are made into twins, sometimes up to twenty-four identical twins, in order to perform the factory jobs completely the same. Women's roles in this society are mostly decorative; they are seen as objects, and when the women talk, they talk mostly of men. Women do not seem to have the high ranking jobs, and the medical students walking through the fertility center are all boys.

Bernard is an Alpha Plus who does not fit into the mold of an Alpha because he is small in stature. This causes him to have low self-esteem. He likes a girl, Lenina, whom lots of men have had, and he reluctantly asks her to go to New Mexico to a savage reservation for a vacation. She goes with him, and they are horrified by the Natives, but they also meet a woman named Linda from the civilized world who has given birth to a child, John, who has grown up only among the Natives. Bernard and Lenina bring the Savage and Linda back to London where the mother and son are scrutinized and fawned over.

This novel has aspects of the world today that are prophetic since this was published in 1932. Promiscuity was not as prominent in those days as it is today, and the critics who wrote about the novel when it came out thought this aspect of the novel was perverted. Also the notion that everyone should be out to have fun all the time is a widely held belief today. Ms. Hen thinks that the desire of trips to Disney World and the expansion of the park, and also casinos popping up everywhere is an example of people’s desire to forget about their troubles.

And of course, there’s the Internet. Mr. Huxley wrote in the 1946 introduction that he regretted that he did not include nuclear fission in the novel. If he only knew what was coming in the world, he would be astounded. The fact that everyone can be connected, and not live in reality is an example of how BRAVE NEW WORLD is becoming fact. The Feelies are similar to virtual reality, which will be more widespread soon, Ms. Hen believes.

The Savage found THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE when he lived on the reservation, and he studied it backwards and forward, and that is how he learned about the world. The Savage was discussing writing with one of the writers for the Feelies, and he told the writer that he should write something like Othello. The Director explained how this was not possible, “You can’t make flivvers without steel. And you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy, and they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get.” Ms. Hen thinks that it’s interesting that in a world of prosperity, there can be no tragedies. What kind of world would that be? Younger people growing up today want to be coddled and accommodated in school and at work, and this is where society might be headed.

The characters say things like, “Oh, Ford,” for Henry Ford, like he is God, and the year is A.F. means After Ford. Ms. Hen thought this was funny, until she learned about Henry Ford. He perfected the assembly line, and was a pacifist, and thought that consumerism led to peace. He was also an Anti-Semite, and was the only American mentioned in MEIN KAMPF. Ms. Hen doesn’t know if Mr. Huxley knew or cared about this when he wrote BRAVE NEW WORLD.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is important today for understanding someone’s vision of the future almost 90 years ago. Mr. Huxley got some things right, but it’s not about getting things right, it’s about trying to see where we’re headed to attempt to curb the problems before they get out of control. But is it possible? Ms. Hen does not know. She doesn’t think people want to give up their distractions, and honestly Ms. Hen does not want to do that either. She tries to not be too attached, but it’s difficult. It’s important to live in the real world as much as possible, even though it's terrible, it’s the only one we have (so far).

Ms. Hen saw this in Somerville, MA while she was reading the novel

Ms. Hen's Top Ten

It's that time of year again, when we are bombarded with top ten lists for everything. This year it's worse, because now is the beginning of a new decade, and everyone has their lists for the decade. Ms. Hen has not been alive for an entire decade, so she will not barrage you with her opinions on the best of the last ten years. But her ten favorite books of this past year have been decided, and she's happy with them. She read some fantastic books this year, and traveled to some beautiful places. In our yearly picture, you can see in the background the painting we acquired this past year. We have become art collectors. Ms. Hen convinced me to buy this, and I always do what she says, because she's the boss.

Happy New Year!
S.O.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/12/ms-hen-reviews-moveable-feast.html

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/11/ms-hen-reviews-manhattan-beach.html

Leila by Prayaag Akbar
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/10/ms-hen-reviews-leila.html

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/10/ms-hen-reviews-librarian-of-auschwitz.html

Famous Men Who Never Lived by K Chess
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/08/ms-hen-reviews-famous-men-who-never.html

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/07/ms-hen-reviews-my-year-of-rest-and.html

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/07/ms-hen-reviews-tigers-wife.html

Severance by Ling Ma
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/05/ms-hen-reviews-severance.html

A Free Life by Ha Jin
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/04/ms-hen-reviews-free-life.html

Lust for Life by Irving Stone
http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2019/03/ms-hen-reviews-lust-for-life.html