KINDRED by
Octavia E. Butler (1947- 2006). There
is a strange connection between Rufus and Dana. Whenever Rufus is in mortal danger he somehow calls Dana to him. This first time he was a young boy drowning
in a river. Thanks to Dana’s quick
thinking and some mouth-to-mouth she saved him. This “calling” happens throughout all of Rufus’ life.
The problem?
Dana lives in the 20th century
and Rufus lives in the antebellum south.
Dana is a 26-year-old black woman married
to a white man.
Rufus is the son of a plantation owner – a
plantation complete with slaves.
When Dana is called to Rufus she is treated
as a slave. In the 20th
century Kevin is her husband. The one
time they travel back together he is her “owner”.
Rufus is, admittedly, accident prone, clumsy
and enjoys getting into fights so when Dana is called back, totally disrupting
her own life, why does she keep saving him?
She must, because through some quirk of fate, Rufus fathers her great-great-grandmother. If he dies what
becomes of her family and herself?
I’ve enjoyed other books employing the time
travel theme in a wide variety of ways.
Once I suspend belief it makes for interesting story telling. In Ms. Butler’s book it is a brilliant
tool. It allows comparisons of
attitudes about love, language, race relations, sex, violence and education
between the two time periods. The book
also demonstrates, in Dana and Kevin’s family’s reaction to their interracial
relationship, that no matter how many years separate Dana’s two realities, some
things have not changed enough.
Despite Dana's 20th century
education she is still naïve about many aspects of what slavery meant. As she is expressing her puzzlement about
why slaves do not just leave and go north one of the plantation’s slaves explains the danger to her:
She lowered her voice to a whisper, “You need to look at
some of the niggers they catch and bring back,” she said. “You need to see them – starving, ‘bout
naked, whipped, dragged, bit by dogs … You need to see them.”
“I’d rather see the others.”
“What others?”
“The ones who make it.
The ones living in freedom now.”
“If any do.”
“They do.”
“Some say
they do. It’s like dying, though, and
going to heaven. Nobody ever comes back
to tell you about it.”
With this book
Ms. Butler has taken a difficult topic and woven it into an interesting, highly
readable and educational novel. She
does not shy away from the horror and brutality that was slavery, but makes
those things an integral part of the story.
She does not offer excuses or explanations, simply treats it as part of
everyday life for her characters. Her
characters are complex and very real.
If anything – the slave characters are written with more richness and somehow
feel more real than Rufus and Dana. The
book spans many genres including science fiction and historical fiction. I also discovered that this book has become
mandatory freshman reading for some college courses in Women’s Studies and
Black Literature and Culture. There are
so many themes in this book that can be explored further which would make “Kindred”
an excellent Book Club selection.
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR (from her
biography page on Amazon.com)
Octavia Estelle Butler, often referred to
as the "grand dame of science fiction," was born in Pasadena,
California on June 22, 1947. She received an Associate of Arts degree in 1968
from Pasadena Community College, and also attended California State University
in Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles. During 1969 and
1970, she studied at the Screenwriter's Guild Open Door Program and the Clarion
Science Fiction Writers' Workshop, where she took a class with science fiction
master Harlan Ellison (who later became her mentor), and which led to Butler
selling her first science fiction stories.
Butler's first story, "Crossover," was published in the
1971 Clarion anthology. Patternmaster, her first novel and the first title of
her five-volume Patternist series, was published in 1976, followed by Mind of
My Mind in 1977. Others in the series include Survivor (1978), Wild Seed
(1980), which won the James Tiptree Award, and Clay's Ark (1984).
With the publication of Kindred in 1979, Butler was able to
support herself writing full time. She won the Hugo Award in 1984 for her short
story, "Speech Sounds," and in 1985, Butler's novelette
"Bloodchild" won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and
an award for best novelette from Science Fiction Chronicle.
Other books by Octavia E. Butler include the Xenogenesis trilogy:
Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989), and a short story
collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995). Parable of the Sower (1993),
the first of her Earthseed series, was a finalist for the Nebula Award as well
as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The book's sequel, Parable of the
Talents (1998), won a Nebula Award.
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