SpoilersKind of engrossing but not in an enjoyable sort of way, the main characters were far too unlikeable and frustrating to fully enjoy the story, everything they said and did irked me in some way or another. On the plus side, the premise, the setting, and certain secondary characters managed to more than hold my interest and were enough incentive to keep me reading.-Thought the premise was really interesting, with a black woman (Dana) from the 1970's travelling back in time to the antebellum South so she could save her white ancestor (Rufus). Dana being trapped in a time where she had no protection or rights, and her trying to survive and navigate around that world made for very tense and rage inducing reading. I was hooked as to how Dana would cope, she went from being a free woman in modern times to a slave who was constantly in danger. It was difficult to read Dana oppressing herself and submitting to Rufus and his family - I know if she hadn't done so there was no way she would have survived, but I wanted a bit more fire from her.-I wasn't satisfied with the explanation of Dana's time travelling, there was no logical explanation for it. Why could Rufus call Dana from the future? How did Rufus get that power? Did other people have that ability? Why did he call Dana and not one of his other descendants? How could Dana travel back to her time just by being scared? How did fear equal time travel?-I found Dana and her husband (Kevin) way too accepting of the whole time travel situation, I expected more disbelief and pain but there was nothing but calm logic and rational thinking. Kevin saw Dana disappear before his eyes and then a few seconds later reappear on the other side of the room bloodied and bruised and instead of freaking out, he just sat there talking normally as if discussing what to have for dinner. And Dana seemed to take it all in her stride, anyone else would have been shocked and traumatised by the experience. There should have been way more emotion, wonder and horror at everything that Dana was going through. The reactions were so flat. -The further I got into the story, the more I hated Dana. She started off okay and was easy to root for, but the more time she spent in the past, the more insufferable and vile she became. She showed very little compassion and empathy to all the slavery, brutality and degradation around her, even when she was suffering it herself. There was no rage or hatred or emotion or anything, I didn't expect her to have some sort of epic break down or stupidly get revenge, but I did at the very least expect a decent amount of inner turmoil and anger. I was waiting for her to flip internally but it never came, for the most part she just acted indifferent and uncaring, it just didn't ring true that a modern black woman with freedom and rights would be so nonchalant about slavery. It didn't help that she acted weak when it came to Rufus and her husband, she let them treat her like rubbish and excused all the bad they said or did. There was never any moment where she properly stood up for herself, she didn't even acknowledge most of the awful things they did/said. She was such a doormat.What I hated most about Dana though was her shrugging off Rufus raping Alice and acting like he was still a good guy. The silly cow even left a hurt, comatose and vulnerable Alice alone with Rufus in bed a mere few days after he'd raped her. Dana just took his word that he wouldn't rape her again, there was no hesitation or worry, she just let him sleep next to her despite knowing that Alice hated him and had no way of protecting herself.Not only that she more or less encouraged Alice to give into Rufus's demands and let herself be raped by him over and over. I would have expected Dana to show some sympathy towards Alice after all she'd suffered, but all her sympathy was saved for rapist Rufus. Ugh, after everything Rufus had done all Dana did was make excuses for him, it was only at the end when she herself was in danger that she actually properly started to hate him. And by then it was too little, too late.-I LOATHED Rufus, he didn't have one redeemable quality. Even as a child he was nothing but a self-pitying brat, and when he was older he turned into a cruel, rapist, entitled, slaver.Dana was an idiot to think she could positively influence Rufus in any way, she witnessed how barbaric he was but for some reason she just shrugged it all off. She should have killed him as soon as he hurt Alice, instead she thought only about herself and her own survival.-Hated Kevin, he was a rubbish husband. He was so dense and insensitive to Dana's struggle, she was being abused horribly and he was more or less cool with that all because he was having a good time, he even went so far as to say that he thought it was a great time to live in. How could he think that when his wife had to act the slave, was beaten, punished and got all sort of verbal and physical abuse day in and day out? What sort of person would want to live in a time where there partner had to face those kinds of injustices? Why would he think a fucked up time like that was so great? I was so disappointed Dana never called him out on his insensitive remarks, she should have given him a few home truths.-It pissed me off how Dana kept banging on about Rufus's destructive love for Alice, as if his viciousness and brutality towards Alice couldn't be helped because he just loved her oh so much. Not once did Rufus show any feelings of love for Alice, he didn't respect her or care about her or even think of her as a person. She was just an object to him that he wanted to possess and break. After all Rufus had done to Alice there was no way he loved her, but stupid Dana romanticised his actions and kept insisting he loved her when he clearly wasn't capable of it. Ugh.-Why did Dana keep sticking up for Rufus and thinking the best of him despite witnessing his cruelty and manipulations time and time again?! What was wrong with her?-Why on earth did Kevin leave Rufus and the plantation and move miles and miles away when he was trapped in the past? He knew Dana could pop back at any time and go just as quickly so why would he move so far away knowing he could lose his chance of returning home?? Not only that he knew that Dana would be more vulnerable without him yet he still decided to piss off somewhere else instead of staying close to protect her from all the dangers she faced when she did come back. And why did none of that bother Dana?-I felt like punching Dana any time she felt sorry for rapist Rufus and bitched about Alice wanting to escape, she pretty much villainized Alice when she was the one who was the victim. Then there was Dana claiming that Alice was finally enjoying being with her rapist and violent abuser, as if Alice was just being difficult before. Really Dana?! She was fucked up to think so little of Alice. -Loved Alice's character the most. She suffered and lost so much but kept on going so she could to protect her children all whilst still holding onto her integrity (unlike Dana). I loved how Alice was never a martyr or a forgiving doormat, Dana just expected her to forgive and forget all the pain and abuse Rufus doled out to her, but she never did. I was also glad that Alice was never afraid to say what she thought of Dana, someone needed to put Dana in her place. -Liked that Dana/Kevin were an interracial couple, it was an effective way of showing the difference in treatment and power between blacks and whites in the 1800's.-Really wanted to find out what happened to Sarah, Nigel, and Carrie and where their kids ended up, and whether they got to stay together or if they were ever reunited. All in all, I had a lot of mixed feelings for this, mostly down to the fact that the main characters were insufferable. I usually enjoy unlikable characters but Dana, Kevin, and Rufus were just too much.
4.5/5Butler's yet another one of those names that I feel I should be hearing float by a lot more frequently than I do. A female person of color who is not only well regarded in the field of science fiction, but also the first science fiction writer to have won the MacArthur "Genius Grant". Much as I am a fan of DFW and Pynchon, their ivory towers of public awareness need little help in terms of circulation via word of mouth.Now, I like it when my fiction tries to achieve something beyond the boundaries of a logical plot and decent characterization. I am much more interested in themes, especially ones concerned with the intersection of the written word with reality, and as such am forgiving of the more eclectic aspects of certain branches of literature so long as they get the job done. Besides gorgeous prose and immersive writing constructions and all that straining of fiction towards the very limits of the conveyance of reality and beyond, I am a sucker for social justice and all of its underlying metafictional contexts. In that light, this book had much to offer.However, there were also problematic issues that are as much a matter of previous readings and personal preference as the potential delights. Having been deluged with the masterpiece that is Beloved less than two months ago, the comparisons were unavoidable. Tying in the fact that I'd never had much interest in the field of science fiction until encountering a pinnacle of such within the last year (thank you, The Dispossessed), I was all set for appreciating the book, but not as much as I could have without such esteemed baselines. Lucky for me, this book holds its own.A major factor in said holding this own is the writing's practicality, thus from the beginning veering away from the more eloquent descriptions of that both TD and 'Beloved' share. I disliked it at first, but grew increasingly appreciative of it as the story continuously reached new heights of complexity. Butler set out to portray a California woman of 1973 time traveling to Maryland of the early 1800's, and did so in such a way that the reader is caught up in the world to a comprehensible degree. The reality may not be nearly as psychologically indoctrinated to a brutal degree as 'Beloved', but the results of cold facts meeting human sensibilities are all there, and nowhere is there a simple line of black and white.What I particularly admired was the skillful twisting between past and present, ugly lines of common accordance that I can recognize today despite the novel's present having been set forty years ago. While the critical essay inserted in the last pages asserts that this work is not actually science fiction, in this case I would rather stick to the popularly mandated Genres tag than academic opinion. If there's one thing I don't like, it's passing something up on the basis of overarching stereotype rather than actual experience, a fate to which SF has been long consigned to. It's books like these that are wearing away my instinctive imaginings of lasers and extended technological treatises and general conformance with sociocultural structures of today, and I'd like that encouragement to continue.Now, I just need Dhalgren to still be stocked at a particular bookstore when I return, and I'll be set.
Do You like book Kindred (2004)?
When this book arrived, I picked it up, skipped past the introduction and came to the first two sentences of the prologue."I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm"Reading that, I knew I had to read this book- just to see what had happened. This is not an easy book to read, because of the subject matter. The phrase "man's inhumanity to man" takes on real meaning. I have never been able to comprehend how one culture or ethnic group can actually believe that another , different one is not human, simply because they are not the same. The idea of "simple natives" or "dumb animals" from early explorers seems the hight of arrogance to my modern mind. And the idea of slavery is repulsive to me. But it is a fact that slavery existed in this beautiful land I call home. I do not like it, but know that it did exist.That this book took place in Maryland also was interesting. Usually when people write fiction about this subject, it is set in the deep south. This was set very close to the town where my husband and I married (Easton), allowing me to envision the area very easily. It came to me that Dana experienced slavery at several levels- not just the physical domination of whites over black, but also the slave to the whims of time, taking her against her will between two worlds.
—bookczuk
Octavia Butler appears oasis-like as an answer to all that clinical, super-non-human, detached science fiction with Kindred, in which time travel is used to confront our contemporary relationship with the history of slavery.Dana, a young black writer in 1973, finds herself inexplicably transported to 1820s Maryland just in time save the life of a drowning white boy. This boy, Rufus, is the son of a cruel plantation owner, but also, dismayingly, a long-forgotten ancestor. Try as Dana might to prevent Rufus from growing into a copy of his father or distance herself from his world, they are incontrovertibly linked-- some force keeps pulling her back to his antebellum South world.As a survival story, Kindred is tense and thrilling. To return home, Dana must adapt quickly to ensure both that she will be born AND that she will survive these disorientating trips to a world in which she is seen as mere property. As a historical piece, Butler succeeds in reconstructing the world around a small plantation, simmering in tension before the War Between the States that we and Dana know is forthcoming. But it is as Butler ties these genres in a time-travel bow, that Kindred derives the most of its power. As Dana finds herself unwillingly entrenched into this past, she’s challenged to see beyond the people around her as the mere ‘types’ she expects of the era --the slave owner, the field slave, the cook, etc.-- and instead as fellow beings in a world full of hard choices.So with such laser-guided intent, it’s understandable that sometimes the story is pulled too tightly to its message, relying on telling rather than letting the conflicts play out more naturally. It’s the rare book that I think should be longer, but here it really seems there is more tension to be milked out of well-timed natural “breathing” points rather than rampant action.Octavia Butler herself considered Kindred soft sci-fi or even a fantasy for the lack of hard science explaining the mechanics of time-travel. However, I'd argue that the use of time travel in the metanarrative shows how quintessentially sci-fi the story really is. Octavia Butler interrogates how we use convenient historical narratives to separate ourselves from the "past" and how a truer experience of the past through some proxy can destabilize such convenient categories as "then" and "now".If people are people, what really separates us from the horrors of the past? That, I'd argue makes Kindred not only good science-fiction, but an essential American novel. Rating: 4 stars
—Kaion
Time travel is so cool! What beats traveling back several hundred years in to the arms of a handsome Scottish highlander … or traveling back in time to meet your spouse while she is still a child … or traveling in time to solve a supernatural mystery in an attempt to save the future … or traveling back in time to learn of the world’s beginning or forward to witness its collapse. There are so many different ways time travel can come in to play in a story. I honestly thought I had seen and read them all when it came to time travel, but I could not have been more wrong. I had never before read a time travel novel, where the main character travels to an incredibly dangerous and distasteful time. The set-up of Kindred could not be more extreme – the main character is a young African American woman who is, repeatedly and without any control of her own, sent back in time to the antebellum south where she finds herself enmeshed in relationships on a plantation occupied and run by slave-owners and slaves. As an African American woman, such a trip into the past is not an easy one, nor is it safe. Each trip back becomes increasingly dangerous and more disturbing. But who was safe during that time period? Definitely not blacks, whether free or slave. Kindred does not shy away from telling their stories. Kindred was published in 1979, yet for some sad reason I only recently discovered the author, Octavia Butler. Having finished Kindred in the space of two days, I intend to hunt down each and every book written by her. She is not an author I want to miss out on. Occasionally, reading a book written and published decades ago, particularly in the science fiction genre, makes the book less accessible and less enjoyable. This is absolutely not the case with Kindred. Kindred pulled me in from page one, the main character – Dana – seemed real; she seemed modern. Her thoughts, her concerns and her actions were not dissimilar from my own. Dana is a writer, who is married to another writer. They are a mixed raced couple living in Los Angeles. Their status as a mixed couple becomes important as the story progresses; it is a factor that allows the story to be broader than just Dana’s experience. The pace of the book is intense and I could not put it down. I was pulled in and terrified at almost every step for Dana. Terrified for her well-being and for her life. Terrified that she would never see her husband again. Shocked at the brutality of the events as they unfolded. Time travel and science fiction are labels that work to make this book seem more whimsical than it is. Kindred addresses heavy topics between the front and back covers – freedom, love, ownership, and survival. How does an individual survive in an atmosphere where every minute puts them at risk? How does an individual survive in a situation where their survival comes at the cost of another’s loss of family and loss of life. How does one survive the loss of their children – taken at the hands by a cruel slave owner? How does a woman preserve her integrity – again at the hands of a cruel slave owner? The topics are dark and disturbing (as they should be), but the main characters are so genuine and likeable that while the subject matter is gruesome, it is still fed to the reader in the form of entertainment. In between the dark images and storyline, are bits and pieces of the love story shared between Dana and her husband and her desperate desire to remain in her own modern time with her husband.
—Regina
