“My back had already begun to ache dully, and I felt dully ashamed. Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.”
Hello Adventurers!
This book was also recommended to me by a friend and after reading this one, I needed a moment. Or two. Or a couple hours.
Octavia Butler’s Kindred tells the story of Dana, a black 26-year-old woman from 1976 who finds herself pulled backward through time repeatedly to save the life of Rufus, a young white boy living in the ante bellum south. On each trip back, she becomes more and more enmeshed in the dangerous world of American slavery, and it becomes more and more difficult to maintain her sanity, or obtain her safety.
There is no comfort for you in this one. I’m not the kind of person who believes that all stories should have a happy ending or should make you feel good. I believe that stories should take you somewhere, and when you get there, if they’ve spoken well and you’ve listened well, they should leave you changed. But I can say that from a couple chapters in, I found myself looking for a light at the end of the tunnel for these characters, and after a certain point, I knew that there wouldn’t really be one.
This story is hard. That’s kind of a plain way to put it, but it’s true. When Dana is amongst the slaves, being treated like a slave herself, we observe them speaking about the nature of their situation – how they work, what they aren’t allowed to do, what the masters will do to them – so casually. No, casual is not quite the right word for it. They are not at ease with their situation. They speak in hushed tones. They have rage, and fear, and desperation, and despair. But there is no surprise in it. It’s very matter of fact. These emotions are everyday life to them. And what makes this tale so different from our limited school education or many slavery stories we are told is that Dana is a free woman from a time where she is not conditioned to think of herself as a slave. When she is thrown into slavery, she can’t readily conform to the cruel ways of the time, she struggles over and over again with what is expected of her and what is done to her in that time, and through her we experience the era with a sickening newness. It tears the bandage that time has slowly placed over the historical wound and asks you to actually examine it, bloody and gaping. And you experience Dana’s mental, emotional, and physical battle with others and herself as the expectations of the time slowly threaten to change her.
The other element of this work that cannot go without mention is the relationships between Dana, her white husband, Rufus, and the other slaves. I don’t want to spoil too much, but Butler does not let you get away with simply hating all the white people and loving all the black people. Time and time again she shows you how you can have complicated, intense feelings for someone no matter how much you have been hurt by them, and how these feeling may not all be negative. Chapter by chapter, you see these characters care for one another, be abusive, trust each other, betray each other, hate each other, and question their hate. I wouldn’t even begin to say that you will love the slaveowners of the ante bellum south, but you will see them fully. And you will see the slaves fully. As ugly as it gets, you see them because Dana sees them. And just like Dana and her husband Kevin, you must reconcile what you see with what you’ve been taught.
There are so many more gems in this amazing story that I would love to talk about, but if I did, this review would literally never end. I think I must be a glutton for punishment, because despite the fact that there is so much anguish and fear in these pages with very little break from it, I could not put it down. It is a truly gripping page-turner, and I could not recommend it more.
Family Friendly Content Considerations:
Best for older teens and adults
Violence (including sexual violence)
Have you read this one? If so, what do you think? Leave a comment below or hit me up at chat@nookandbook.club. I would love to hear your thoughts!
