Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Genre: Historical Fiction Main characters: Edana “Dana” Franklin, Rufus Weylin Time and place: 1976 Pasadena / beginning of 19th century Maryland First sentence: “I lost an arm on my last trip home.” Summary: On her twenty-sixth birthday, in 1976, Edana sits with her husband Kevin, unpacking some books, when she is overcome by dizziness. She comes to her senses to find herself in a completely different place, somewhere near a river where a little boy is drowning. Without hesitating she jumps in to rescue him — and this is how she first meets Rufus. When the little guy is safe she finds herself once again in her home. This will not be her only encounter with Rufus though, as time and time again she will find herself once more by his side, rescuing him from various threats on his life he runs into at various ages. An adventure not without danger to herself, as Edana is a black woman and Rufus lives in the pre-Civil War US.

The novel is, for lack of a better word, dark. There are a lot of moments of violence, as the author intended to present the lives of the black slaves back then with the utmost sincerity, without masking anything. Dana herself is being taken by surprise at how violent those times were, and how much real violence differed from the imagined one, or the one on TV. The usual punishment of the time was a savage whipping, degrading and inflicting a lot of pain to the punished one. Dana herself, although a visitor from another time and the main character of the book, is not spared any suffering. While this book has been a less heartbreaking read for me than Uncle Tom’s Cabin (ages ago), it wasn’t an easy one either, and I repeatedly wondered at the

For me (as a white person) it was a bit sad to notice there are no actually good white people all throughout the book, other than Dana’s husband, who comes from a different time than the rest. I am not sure how I feel about this. First of all, it is obvious that all the white people of the 19th century that we get to meet in the book have had a certain kind of upbringing, one that insisted that slaves are nothing more than animals. It is also obvious that a person acting by that time’s standards cannot be considered good by the standards of today. And yet I was a bit sorry to see whites presented in such a cookie cutter manner, unlike the black people who had actual personalities, ranging from the always unpredictable Alice to the subdued Sarah who was always aware what the “masters” can do and as such she was always wary of them.

Although to be completely honest no character is as complex in the whole book as Rufus is. My feelings towards him were just as everyone else’ around him, just as Dana’s: I cared for him, as he had some good moments, but there were also moments when I was horrified by what he could do (to Dana or other people). You know, this alone would be a reason for me to consider Ms. Butler a great writer: the fact that she has created such a conflicting yet very believable character. In a way, Rufus reminded me of Bruno, the German boy in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, because, although older, he was just as oblivious about people’s feelings as nine year old Bruno was. Yet he also had a sort of innocence (or should I call it overconfidence), firmly believing that his choices in matters are the only possible choices (not out of being evil but because that’s the way he was taught), making me care about him even though I didn’t much agree with the way he acted.

I think that this book was, at least partially, the result of the author’s imagining herself in such a strange situation. After all, she was bound to have an interest in slavery, given that she herself has had first hand contact with the mindset of the 1950s (Ms. Butler about the way her mother was treated at work: “I used to see her going in back doors, being talked about while she was standing right there and basically being treated like a non-person, something beneath notice.“). It is obvious that the inspiration for Dana was Ms. Butler’s own life: they both come from a devout Baptist family, Dana also tries to become a writer, taking as many writing classes as possible, they are both from Pasadena, and their ages were similar too (Ms. Butler was 29 in 1976). For some reasons I am always a bit fonder of characters that seem inspired from their author rather than not.

An interesting quote, Dana’s thoughts about Kevin’s (possible) life in the 18th century:

A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn’t want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn’t have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn’t do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn’t like either possibility.

Thoughts on the ending: Due to the prologue I knew right from the start approximatively how the book will end (it is obvious from the first sentence actually). While I wasn’t surprised when I reached the actual ending, I was happy to discover there is a part of a chapter where Dana and Kevin try to find out the whereabouts of the black people at the Weylin’s farm after Dana left for good. I’m always a fan of these types of endings (when “what happened to them next” is revealed) and of course I liked this one too :)

As a tiny aside, the book is for some reason classified by many as Science Fiction. I really don’t see how that’s the case as no science is ever mentioned, and I think it belongs way better in the Fantasy genre (because of the time travel, of course).

What I liked most: The differences in perception between Dana, the black female, and Kevin, the white male. It is obvious that they both filter whatever they go through according to their knowledge and previous experience, but also according to some very basic elements such as race. Dana feels a lot more powerfully the plights of everyone around her in the 18th century, going so far as becoming a part of them, identifying herself with that group of black people she ended up among, despite the fact that they didn’t have that many things in common other than the skin color. Kevin tends to be more the observer kind, watching the events around him unfold with a detached eye, and it is only natural it should be so because, among other things, he is never in that close contact with the black people as Dana is, he is never “one of them” but “one of the others”. I found these considerations interesting, all the more so because I am not sure I would have thought of them on my own, had the author not had pointed them out.

What I liked least: Once again I am back to the first sentence. I hated hated hated the fact that Dana lost her arm like that — she was so courageous and tried to help everyone around her and to see such a thing happening to her was quite sad. My copy of the book had a commentary on this event, among other things, and whoever wrote it saw this as a strike of genius because it has lots of symbolic meanings (among other things Ruth Salvaggio seems to have said about it that the lost arm is the emblem of Dana’s disfigured heritage). While I do get (parts of) the symbolism the critics are talking about, I still can’t help feeling very sad for Dana’s irreparable loss.

Recommend it to? Anyone. I read this book in just one day, that’s how fascinated I was with it. Be warned though that there are some violent scenes inside.


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