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A review by withanhauser
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
4.0
I began “Kindred” with hesitancy. I like Butler a lot—I found her Xenogenesis trilogy to be uniquely weird and fun. But, I was concerned that by tackling the slave narrative genre, her weirdness would either be lost or misplaced. I was very wrong. “Kindred” cleverly fuses science-fiction travelogue and slave narrative; and, in doing so, brings slavery into the present (or, at least, to 1976).
In “Kindred,” Dana Franklin, a 26-year-old African-American woman, finds herself mysteriously transported from her 1976 California home to an early 19th-century Maryland slave plantation. The temporal and geographical travels occur without explanation, but are always prompted by her great-great-great-great grandfather, Rufus Weyland, experiencing a near-fatal incident, and are always ended (with her transportation back to the present) by her suffering a similarly near-fatal incident. During these trips to the past, time in the present moves at a much slower rate, resulting in Dana spending long periods of time in the past while missing little time in the present. In total, Dana travels back to 19th century six times, and watches Rufus age from a curious, negligent child, to a sometimes-cruel slave-holding master.
Dana’s travels between the present and the past offer a good commentary of the ongoing presence of racism in the United States. Dana returns from each trip to the past with some wound (always resulting from the brutal actions of white persons), clearly suggesting that the wounds of 19th century slavery still exist today. Dana’s relationships with white people in the present—namely, her white husband, Kevin—also show the enduring effect of 19th century racism in contemporary United States culture. Butler intentionally makes Kevin similar to slave-owning Rufus in minor ways (e.g., both ask Dana to act as their secretary at different points in the book). Butler seems to suggest that although things are clearly different today, the cultural pattern of white-man dominance remains in some form.
Butler does a great job at creating multi-dimensional characters. Rufus Weyland is a perfect mix of tortured, cruel, and dependent. He relies on Alice, his slave concubine, for her sex, and Dana, his descendent–guardian, for her mind (e.g., help writing letters and reading, help recovering from illness). He realizes his own cruelty and tries, at times, to lessen it (e.g., by sending his slave children to school), but is ultimately destroyed by it. Relative to other white men of the time, Rufus is an arguably good man—but, even a good white man in the 19th century antebellum South is a fairly bad person. In making Rufus a sort-of good person, Butler is able to criticize the culture more broadly (“He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper.” (134)).
Butler also does a good job at showing how impossible it is to understand other persons’ experiences. Dana, as a black woman, probably thought she understood the black-female experience of the 19th century to some degree. But, in traveling to the past, she quickly realizes how little she understood about the cruelty of that time (“Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future has helped me to escape.” (177)). By the same token, Kevin, despite his own travels to the past with Dana, cannot understand her experience as a black woman. Butler shows us that although we can try to understand the experiences of others, we can never fully understand them without living them ourselves.
Overall, I really liked “Kindred.” It reads like “Time Cat” at times, but is smart and powerful. Its characters are great, it’s message is clear and succinct, and it’s a different take on a somewhat familiar genre.
In “Kindred,” Dana Franklin, a 26-year-old African-American woman, finds herself mysteriously transported from her 1976 California home to an early 19th-century Maryland slave plantation. The temporal and geographical travels occur without explanation, but are always prompted by her great-great-great-great grandfather, Rufus Weyland, experiencing a near-fatal incident, and are always ended (with her transportation back to the present) by her suffering a similarly near-fatal incident. During these trips to the past, time in the present moves at a much slower rate, resulting in Dana spending long periods of time in the past while missing little time in the present. In total, Dana travels back to 19th century six times, and watches Rufus age from a curious, negligent child, to a sometimes-cruel slave-holding master.
Dana’s travels between the present and the past offer a good commentary of the ongoing presence of racism in the United States. Dana returns from each trip to the past with some wound (always resulting from the brutal actions of white persons), clearly suggesting that the wounds of 19th century slavery still exist today. Dana’s relationships with white people in the present—namely, her white husband, Kevin—also show the enduring effect of 19th century racism in contemporary United States culture. Butler intentionally makes Kevin similar to slave-owning Rufus in minor ways (e.g., both ask Dana to act as their secretary at different points in the book). Butler seems to suggest that although things are clearly different today, the cultural pattern of white-man dominance remains in some form.
Butler does a great job at creating multi-dimensional characters. Rufus Weyland is a perfect mix of tortured, cruel, and dependent. He relies on Alice, his slave concubine, for her sex, and Dana, his descendent–guardian, for her mind (e.g., help writing letters and reading, help recovering from illness). He realizes his own cruelty and tries, at times, to lessen it (e.g., by sending his slave children to school), but is ultimately destroyed by it. Relative to other white men of the time, Rufus is an arguably good man—but, even a good white man in the 19th century antebellum South is a fairly bad person. In making Rufus a sort-of good person, Butler is able to criticize the culture more broadly (“He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper.” (134)).
Butler also does a good job at showing how impossible it is to understand other persons’ experiences. Dana, as a black woman, probably thought she understood the black-female experience of the 19th century to some degree. But, in traveling to the past, she quickly realizes how little she understood about the cruelty of that time (“Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future has helped me to escape.” (177)). By the same token, Kevin, despite his own travels to the past with Dana, cannot understand her experience as a black woman. Butler shows us that although we can try to understand the experiences of others, we can never fully understand them without living them ourselves.
Overall, I really liked “Kindred.” It reads like “Time Cat” at times, but is smart and powerful. Its characters are great, it’s message is clear and succinct, and it’s a different take on a somewhat familiar genre.