Reviews

What a spectacular read!!

I went into Kindred without any expectations (book club read). Not being from the US, I hadn’t really heard about either the book or Butler before.

The premise itself is bewildering: a black woman from the 70’s is thrown into the past repeatedly to save a white kid (turns man) who happens to be her ancestor from the 1800’s.

I’ve always loved any work of fiction that meddled with time travel (as a Doctor Who girlie). As a woman, you’re already used to the knowledge that going back to past would most likely not be very fun and adventurous in real life. And although that is quite true, the same can be said for people of color in a much more extreme and dangerous way going back to any time period, really. That is a point of time travel which I have not seen being explored that often so it was really interesting and difficult to see it unfolding in Kindred.

Dana, the protagonist, meets Rufus a couple of times whilst he’s still a kid. His father is the owner of a plantation and the structural racism of the society in which he was brought up shows up pretty quickly when faced with a modern black woman (gotta take modern with a grain of salt because she is from the 1970’s). But Dana puts in an effort of attempting to influence him in the right (non-racist) direction. Both her and I were quite hopeful that Rufe would not grow up to be a mirrored version of his father. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

Not only is Rufus a racist, but he’s a fucking rapist and a stubborn twat. I truly find it confusing to understand how Dana continues to feel compassionate towards him, up until the very end. I understand how the relationship is very complicated and toxic, but still.

In one of her periods of time in the past, Dana says that she “never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery”. For me, that is the biggest takeaway from the book. After so many books, movies, TV shows about the subjection of black people to slavery, I still think a lot of people don’t really understand how much courage there was in staying and conforming to that unthinkable reality.

Dana’s 70’s knowledge is nearly useless in the Antebellum South. Every single time she starts getting dizzy, I started getting anxiety thinking of what would be in store next for her.

Octavia is able to write an array of characters that both fit and break stereotypes and are wonderfully realistic and well-written.

The addition of Kevin is really interesting because I feel like in a way he mirrors Rufus and his father. I think he only really grasps the reality of slavery after spending 5 years in the past.

I know the lack of sci-fi explanation behind the phenomenon that’s going on with Dana bothers a lot of readers, but I honestly didn’t mind. From the get-go, I could tell that the story wasn’t about that, and that was ok. The one detail that does bother me is her last trip on “The Rope” because it doesn’t make a lot of sense as to why she was going back if Rufe and Alice’s kid had already been born.

Another “negative” point that people point out is the abrupt ending. I, on the other hand, thought it was quite perfect. The last chapter picks up where we start the story and leaves the reader lost and confused in a much similar manner (as does the whole book in reality). But I think this fits the narrative and as it was put in the reader’s guide “Kindred, one could say, is no more rational, no more comfortably explicable than the history of slavery itself.”. The book is real and raw, and truly the reader is left with that uneasy feeling as opposed to ending the story with all of the answers (which we now couldn’t be farthest away from the reality of slavery).

As for Dana’s loss of an arm, I also really liked a quote from Octavia herself on the matter: “I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.”.

My final thought is how much of a timeless book this is! As I said, I went into it blind so the between the first couple of times that Dana came back to the “present” and her and Kevin were trying to research I was just like GET ON FUCKING GOOGLE!! Until of course I realized their present was actually 1970 something, and not Y2K. Very Gen Z of me.

Anyway, very obviously an extremely difficult read but one that I really enjoyed.

avaas221's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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