Timeless in every sense of the word. A one-of-a-kind trip in a novel that will exceed expectations for years to come.
Summary:
Dana and her husband Kevin live a quaint life in 1976, when all of a sudden she is transported back into a plantation in 1811. As a black woman in Maryland, her life is dangerous to say the least, but she’s not there for herself. She’s actually been transported over thousands of miles and hundreds of years to rescue a white boy named Rufus from danger. As Dana’s time jumps seem to last longer and become more and more perilous, she finds that her life may be more intertwined with that of the past than she thought. Will she ever return home for good or even in one piece.
Verdict: 8/10
This novel is on so many recent lists (best sci-fi, top historical fiction, best teen books) as well as reading lists across the country. Co-workers were recommending it like it had just been released in the past ten years. So imagine my surprise when the book that I thought was up-and-coming turned out to have been written almost 50 years ago! Kindred was released as the first of its kind on many fronts, being one of the first in the genre to have an African-American woman author and to take a completely different look at time travel.
Kindred was full of surprises. Even though the reader and even the protagonist thinks they know the history of the antebellum south, this story puts it in a whole new light. It makes it real… yet in a fantastic and unreal way. Like Dana, you feel like you are transported into that barbaric time and are experiencing everything firsthand. And while slavery is a huge focus of the book, the main topic is really the people and relationships within it.
It all begins with Dana and Rufus’ inexplicable connection across time and space. Though the book never really explains the reason for Dana’s time travel, it doesn’t really have to. The reader just comes to accept the concept and focus more on the action at hand more than the cause (already setting it apart from other time travel storylines). I thought it would irk me, but I was so enamored with Dana’s reaction and survival throughout, that I forgot to even ask the question of ‘why’ because it just wasn’t as important. Though Octavia Butler does set up the general rules around the concept well: Dana is called back to Rufus when his life is in peril, Dana is called home when she finds herself in life-threatening situations, anything she touches during that transportation goes along with her, etc.
I find the book being about more than race or gender or time but about survival. Each character is put into difficult situations and must work hard to survive. Whether that’s by playing the part of a slave and obeying impossible commands or by pretending to be a master in such an inhumane time.
We see Dana having to make impossible decisions, ones that tear her and the reader apart ethically. But what added a wrinkle even further was when Dana and her white husband were called back together. Seeing how a husband and wife had to adapt to 1820s society was so interesting. As you try not to have the culture change you, inevitably Kevin isn’t exposed to the horrifying events that Dana is and therefore they come out with different views of the level of treatment. Even when they both know it’s wrong, their lives and responses vary exponentially.
The book is also a great character study into the people at that time, not just those thrust into it. Seeing the psychology of the slaves and servants and masters play out against each other was almost more fascinating than the time travel.
Throughout the book, you see how a curious, if a bit reckless, boy is transformed into a mistaken and violent master. Even with Dana’s coaching and honest conversations with Rufus, he becomes someone that she barely recognizes by the end of the novel. But in examining all of the events in between, you can clearly see the progression. There are no full-out monsters except for the ones society and others force them to become.
There were so many complexities to the plot, all woven together with extreme craftsmanship. Race, survival, education, psychology and upbringing, sexism, history, and ancestry. As if there wasn’t enough to get the reader thinking, Butler throws in the complication of having Rufus and Alice, a free woman near the plantation, be Dana’s great-great grandparents. At first, one thinks that Dana can shape Rufus into someone that doesn’t care about race, as opposed to the white population around him, and fall in love with Alice. While Rufus does claim to love Alice, we find that his intentions do not match his chauvinistic and masochistic actions towards her.
Altogether it shows that both our country’s history and Dana’s own family history are not as rosy as we want to believe. Slavery cast a dark shadow and ugly shadow on what we have now. But Butler emphasizes that it’s not something we should ever forget. It’s important to remember where we came from to shape where we are now. And that’s what’s really at the heart of this book.
I could keep writing an essay on the background characters or symbolism or details of the layout and timeline or just masterful writing (seriously, the opening line is “I lost my arm on my last trip home. My left arm.” How brilliant is that?!). But I’ll let you read it yourself for all of that. A one-of-a-kind trip in a novel that will exceed expectations for years to come.
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