July
4, 1976. It is the two hundredth birthday
of the United States of America. Dana is
celebrating her 26th birthday with her husband in their new apartment
in California when she abruptly travels through time to a 19th
century plantation in Maryland just in time to save a young boy, Rufus. Dana is a black modern woman, her husband
Kevin is white, and Rufus is the white son of a planation owner. Dana keeps traveling back and forth through
time to save Rufus. She comes to realize that Rufus and a young freed woman
name Alice are her ancestors. She must
keep them save to ensure that her own family line exists. Will Dana be able to keep them and herself safe?
I
have read a lot of great books lately, but this is definitely one of the best
fiction novels I’ve ever read. I have heard
of Octavia E. Butler for a long time and this is the first book I’ve read that
is written by her. Butler put together
this novel in an innovative way that makes you feel like you are experiencing
the horrors of slavery. The novel is
told from Dana’s first-person point of view.
Dana being a modern woman transplanted back and experiencing slavery
made it relatable to a modern-day audience.
I also thought it was eye opening when Dana’s husband travels back with
her and as a white man, he experiences things very differently from Dana.
I
really loved how Dana was able to meet various people on and around the plantation
and to understand what they were going through.
Each character had their own story and how they were able to pull
together the strength to survive. I
cared for the characters and was pained by their suffering. What I realized when I got to the end of the
novel was that slavery changed all people that it involved for the worse. The slaves had to endure and act in ways they
would not naturally to survive and the owners became cruel creatures that took
what they wanted without care for their own souls. Dana’s ancestor Alice as a free woman of
color who was forced into slavery had a very tragic story that I cannot stop
thinking about. The way that children
were taken from people and sold for literally anything including new furniture,
was heart breaking.
My
copy of Kindred had a great Reader’s guide that discussed the story in more
detail. It said that Butler had heard a
classmate rale against his ancestors and their submissiveness before the civil
rights and black power era. Butler
extensively researched slavery and came to understand that the seeming submissiveness
was a way that some people survived during a brutal time. While they outwardly appeared submissive,
their souls were in rebellion. There were also great discussion questions at
the end of the book. This would make an
excellent book club selection.
I
love time travel books. In this novel,
there is no scientific or really any explanation at all for why Dana travels through
time. The question is not really the why,
but the journey that Dana experiences. I
read that Butler’s other novels dive much deeper into science fiction. I need to check them out. I have mostly read white male sci fi authors
throughout my life and I would love to see another perspective.
Favorite
Quotes:
"The
fire flared up and swallowed the dry paper, and I found my thoughts shifting to
Nazi book burnings. Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger
of ‘wrong’ ideas."
“This
could be a great time to live in," Kevin said once. "I keep thinking
what an experience it would be to stay in it— go West and watch the building of
the country, see how much of the Old West mythology is true."
"West,"
I said bitterly. "That’s where they’re doing it to the Indians instead of
the blacks!"
He
looked at me strangely. He had been doing that a lot lately."
"I
am not a horse or a sack of wheat. If I must seem to be property, if I have to
accept limits on my freedom for Rufus's sake, then he also has to accept limits
- on his behavior towards me. He has to leave me enough control of my own life
to make living look better to me than killing and dying."
Overall,
Kindred is an excellent novel that puts the reader into the middle of slavery
through the first-person perspective of Dana, a time traveler from the modern
era. It delves into how slavery was
morally corrupting for all involved and truly evil, but it also gave hope for
the future.
Book
Source: Purchased from Amazon.com
