general

Not so long ago I've read for the first time a book from Ms Butler. I was immediately captivated by her amazing imagination and quality of her prose and became instantly a fan of the author. This first impression was corroborated as I read more of her writings.
All her books showed a rich mixture of imagination, complex and interesting characters and conflictive situations to test their mettle.
In *Kindred* the story is presented in a sci-fi framework, in order to give an entry point to a world distant more than a hundred years from us, but the substance is about getting in touch with slavery. Unearthing the relationships between slaveowners and slaves, drawing a huge fresco of that society.
Dana, an Afro-American woman, is drawn time and again to the past with the specific mission of saving Rufus' life, the son of a slaveowner and his heir. Each time Dana is transported backward, the drama increases. Poignant and vivid scenes are shown, reaching deep into the reader's sensibility, but with an earnest and straightforward approach. You can't elude perceiving the *reality* of the world shown in this amazing book. After reading it, I keep wondering about what strange compulsion make a human being to despise another one based on racial, religious or even political or social differences, without perceiving that we are kindred to each other.

Kindred, a novel written by Octivia E. Butler is a book that can actually hold the audience's attention throughout the whole story. I love this novel because it combines history with a specific story line. From the beginning Butler immediately gets to the story's purpose, making it hard for the reader to be distracted. It is filled with adventure and excitement, mixing a pinch of suspense. . I felt somewhat sad for the main character, mostly because she never had any real control of what she was going through. I recommend Kindred because the story is so consistent and easy to follow. Taking place in 1976 Los Angeles, California the main character Dana is African American and travels in time to the year 1815. She finds herself in Maryland where she meets a boy by the name Rufus, who Dana later happens to be her white ancestor. As she travels between 1976 and 1815, Dana learns more about slavery and her many ancestors who have to suffer with this life style daily. She too experiences slavery in order to survive. Facing death on several occasions she is beaten, whipped and even almost raped two times. She watches families get torn apart because of slave trades and also other slaves whipped half to death.

Octavia Butler's "Kindred" is both startlingly interesting, and a little contrived. It's a quick read, and well worth the weekend it takes to finish. However, it is not really a book of inexhaustible depth. Just a good (if harrowing) little novella, that makes its not-so-subtle point by trying to get the reader to experience the past as a modern time traveler would. Sometimes called a science fiction novel, the book's one "sci-fi" trope---time travel---is used simply to place a modern character in a historical setting. I would predict that science fiction devotees would not find that part of the novel at all impressive.

Inexplicably, the novel's protagonist (a 20th century black woman, named Dana) is transported to ante bellum Maryland, where on a slave plantation, she meets (and repeatedly saves) her great-great-grandfather. The twist: this particular grandfather was slave-master to her great-great grandmother. As the novel progresses, Dana realizes her goal is to help ensure their fertile coupling... and her own future. But climbing this branch of the family tree won't be easy, given that she must experience all the horrors of slavery in order to make that happen. Hence the double entendre which is the basis of the title (Kindred = "kin dread").

Along the way, the reader has the opportunity to watch as Rufus Weylin grows up from careless little boy to crass slave-holding plantation owner. Back and forth Dana travels between her familiar modern-day life as a young writer, and the dreary hell of a southern plantation. When Rufus' life is in danger, she comes to him. When she feels her own is in danger, she returns... but always with reminders of this horrific past scarred into her body.

Butler tries to present her reader with something like the grand tour of the old south... a Colonial Williamsburg of the slave plantation, but with none of the predictable horrors expunged. Rapes, whippings, disease, and the sale of human slaves (often done to intentionally divide families) bluntly fills up the bulk of the book. But the real pathos of the book is the effect all this has on four major characters: Dana, Rufus, Dana's husband Kevin (who is white), and Alice.

Alice is a free woman who is taken into bondage by the Weylins after she tries to help her lover (a slave) escape. Dana's quest is to ensure that Alice and Rufus produce a healthy offspring... thus ensuring her own lineage and future life. That's not going to be easy, given the fact that Rufus is a repulsive lout whom Alice understandably despises.

Reading "Kindred", I couldn't help but feeling that the novel was somewhat contrived. First, there are the repeated attempts to remind the reader of famous black Americans of the period (Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner), making the book at least partly a vehicle for a PBS-like history lesson. Secondly, its attempt to present the customs of the era is not really entirely precise. It focuses too much on those parts of the past that its liberal-minded audience would find most uncomfortable: mostly, the attitudes of slave-holding whites' towards this proud, literate protagonist, but also the complex relationship between field hands and house slaves. Where it tries to recreate the mundane details of 19th century life---say, medicine, language, cooking, farm life, religion or education----the book comes across as tepid at best, and misleading at worst.

Then, of course, there are the very unusual hopeful notes. That Dana eventually convinces Rufus to allow her to school the slave children seems an utterly modern contrivance. Skeptical readers will wonder how Dana, a pants-wearning, back-talking feminist, who is not only the wife of a white man, but also has the peculiar habit of vanishing into thin air, is not simply killed outright by the semi-literate, superstitious, and violent plantation owners. Instead, she becomes their trusted servant, privy to their most innermost secrets. Go figure.

Still, it's a good little page-turner... the kind of breezy read that keeps the impatient interested in what will happen next. The book would be an excellent vehicle for a high school class studying African American history or literature. But for real depth and historical imagination, I would recommend Toni Morrison's "Beloved" or Shirley Ann William's "Dessa Rose," or even William Styron's "The Confessions of Nat Turner," all of which are perpetually interesting and challenging in a way that "Kindred" simply isn't.

3 and 1/2 stars (rounded up)