Kindred

Rating:
Summary: Powerfully written
Review: This is one of Octavia Butler's earlier books where she tackles the subject of time-travel, slavery and inter-racial relationships. This is a great read that is both atmospheric and suspenseful as it moves between the 19th and 20th century, telling the story of Dana, the time-traveler and Alice, a 19th century slave. These two women are inextricably bound together by time, blood and history. However, only Dana has a real understanding as to why she is going back and forth in time and part of it is has to do with saving the life of a white boy called Rufus, who eventually, becomes Rufus the slave-owner, and the father of Alice's two children. Dana is a reluctant witness in history, forced to push Alice towards a destiny that is both cruel and savage, making Dana realize that however hard her life as a Black women in the 20th century is, Alice's life is by far, far worse. Quite simply an amazing book that should surely be made into a film one day.

Rating:
Summary: Draws you in and spits you out.
Review: Since I had to read this book for a class, I wasn't altogether excited about beginning it. Still, it grabbed my attention from the first page--Butler definitely has the ability to get a reader interested! As the book progressed, however, I got increasingly annoyed with the characters--ALL the characters. I was frustrated that none of them seemed capable of positive development and just wanted to yell at them. The reading was enjoyable to begin with, but unsatisfying in the end.

Rating:
Summary: fantastic book!
Review: I was coerced into reading Kindred for a class in high school, but,6 years later, I keep coming back to it. It is a wonderful book, that is historical, sci-fi, and emotional all at once. It definitely evokes the whole sense of the deep South pre-Civil War, and Butler describes it very vividly. To be honest, I really couldn't put it down the first time that I read it. This is a fantastic book, written by a wonderful author, with a plot full of twists and turns.

Rating:
Summary: compulsively readable, yet unsatisfying
Review: Despite the fact that the ideas and events in Kindred make it "unputdownable," the writing was a disappointment. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I was reading a book targeted at a "young adult" readership -- one that needs to be educated about American racial history. When Dana makes a comment about slave life, then follows it up with "or so I read in my book," it comes across as contrived.

Time travel wasn't used as anything except a plot device. It would have been nice to see some exploration of the reasons Dana gets called back to Rufus, other than the fact that he's always in trouble. I realize that this is secondary to the plot, but if Dana exists in the future, Rufus must have been alive long enough to father her ancestor -- without her help. I had a little trouble getting past that.

I found the changes in Rufus interesting and believable -- he grows from a likeable little boy, into the ruthless, self-involved man he has to be in order to continue living as a slave owner. It would have been great if there had been more detail about Kevin's experiences in the five years he was stuck in the past. It would be interesing to compare how the two white men dealt with their race and their relationship with black people.

Overall, Kindred is a very readable book -- if a little simplistic.

Rating:
Summary: A Converted Sci Fi Fan!
Review: Athough many say Kindred isn't really sci fi, I went into the book thinking that I would hate it and ended up being truly enlightened. I'm not a fan of slavery-type reads but found this book entertaining and the story so captivating I felt I was in the south tryiing to escape myself. Butler made us believe that right before our eyes people can just disappear into thin air!

Rating:
Summary: simply terrific
Review: To me, one of the most instructive and disappointing aspects of the Modern Library's Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century was the relative absence of what we'll call genre fiction. There were only two mysteries--The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Maltese Falcon . There were no Westerns. And, except for the dystopic classics A Clockwork Orange , Brave New World, 1984 and Animal Farm, there were no Science Fiction or Fantasy novels. Now among others, this means that Raymond Chandler's Lew Archer series, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Frank Herbert's Dune were all left off of the list. Never mind how far superior these books are to most of the dreck that did make the cut, what really stands out is the fact that high brow critics still fail to take authors seriously if they work in these mediums.

This is truly inexplicable. It seems that these genres still bear an indelible stigma from the days of the pulp magazines. The intelligentsia appear to be incapable of separating these often vital and fascinating stories from their humble beginnings. In a more just world, Toni Morrison's Beloved would be ignored because it simply isn't very good and Octavia Butler's Kindred would be celebrated, regardless of its time travel elements, because it is truly excellent. The premise of this fine novel is that a modern black woman is thrown backwards in time whenever her white, slave-owning ancestor's life is threatened. Beginning in his childhood she is repeatedly called upon to preserve him, that she might one day be born. To a certain and disconcerting degree, she eventually becomes complicitous in the system of slavery and in this master's action of getting a slave with child.

Butler does not bother trying to explain the mechanics of time travel, nor does she seek some elaborate justification for why these events occur. Instead, she simply utilizes this plot device to raise really troubling ethical questions and to give the reader an immediate experience of the horrifying legacy of slavery which so often seems quite remote. This is, by any measure, a great and haunting book.

GRADE: A

Rating:
Summary: Valuable, but could have been so much more...
Review: I agree with many of the comments made in the other readers' reviews of "Kindred," and overall I would strongly recommend this book. If nothing else, "Kindred" gives you a better feel for slavery, and more of an understanding of what African-Americans have gone through in this country.

HOWEVER... I believe that there is a glaring ethical problem in "Kindred" which seriously weakens the book as a work of fictional literature. I realized the magnitude of this ethical problem largely thanks to a conversation with an African-American colleague of mine (I'm a white male), who is a great admirer of Octavia Butler's writing and who I accompanied to a speech and booksigning by Ms. Butler held at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. To state the ethical problem as succinctly and clearly as I can: How can Dana make the decision to keep a complex, but ultimately disgusting, repulsive human being like Rufus alive solely in order to ensure that she (Dana) will eventually be born, when that dooms another human being (Alice) to a horrible life (and eventual suicide) as Rufus' sex slave?

To me, and to my African-American colleague, the obvious (albeit extremely difficult and courageous) ethical choice would for Dana to let Rufus die, even if it meant sacrificing her own future existence, in an attempt to prevent another human being's (in this case Alice's) terrible suffering. By this reasoning, the fact that Dana allows Rufus to live and hence Alice to suffer so horribly in order that Dana might be born years later, is both a horribly selfish and ultimately a totally unethical decision.

But the problem with "Kindred" is not Dana's decisions (or lack thereof) per se but Octavia Butler's decision as the creator of "Kindred" not to have Dana at least agonize over this major ethical dilemma. Let me be clear: Octavia Butler's decision ultimately to have Dana act as she does in the novel is not necessarily wrong from a literary perspective. The problem is that Ms. Butler should have used Dana's choices to open up an important and potentially fascinating ethical discussion (selfishness vs. selflessness, is there anything worth dying for?, are there some conditions under which it is not worth living?, etc.). As it is, unfortunately, Dana shows close to zero self-awareness of the ethical choices she is making (or failing to make). Sure, Alice might still have ended up in a terrible situation or dead no matter what Dana had or hadn't done, but isn't this worthy at least of a discussion (or at the minimum an internal debate in Dana's head) in the book?

Despite this glaring problem, "Kindred" is an excellent and important book; at a minimum for its ability to make contemporary readers FEEL slavery (as opposed to reading about it in a textbook), and also for its demonstration of how easily it would be for many of us, if put in such a situation, to find ourselves following the path of least resistance ("there but for the grace of God go I") and either becoming a slaveowner or at a minimum accepting (and not resisting) slavery (or whatever other evil. All in all, "Kindred" is an excellent book, but it could have been much more. Still, I enjoyed it a lot, frustrations notwithstanding, and believe it should be read as widely as possible (and definitely NOT just by black female science fiction fans!) as a means of bringing a critical part of American (and human) history to life.

Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding and bewitching
Review: Kindred is my first book by Octavia E. Butler and definetely not my last. The story about a 26 year old black woman , Dana who is suddenly brought back to the 19th century to continually her white ancestor, Rufus from death therby ensuring her own exietence. The story is further complicated by the fact that her ancestor is a slave owner and is very racist. I found Kindred to be a spellbinding book. Mrs. butler does a fine job at not only making the story interesting by adding other complications but she also makes the story flow which makes it hard to put down once you 've started it. It also asks some very profound questions, the most significant being what would you do to survive as a slave? Kindred was a definete suprise to me. I expected to read a story that was entertaining but i didn't expect to read one as thought provoking and profound as it was.

Rating:
Summary: In a word; "WOW!"
Review: I could not believe how...well...addicted I was to this book. From the moment I started reading, I could think of nothing else but finishing the book. For 2 days this everywhere with me. Took it to work, read it while I was in traffic even (only at long traffic signals). Ms. Butler did a wonderful job and bridging fact and fiction into a work of art. This has got to be in the top 5 of my all time favorite books.

Quick advice to you readers; If you have the version of this book that has the intro by Robert Crossley, DO NOT read the intro first. I started with the intro and skipped ahead for two reasons. 1. I got a little anxious to "get to the story" and 2. I sensed a bit of a spoiler lurking after I got through a little bit of the intro. I went back and read the intro after I'd finished the book and was glad I waited.

This truly is a wonderful piece of work.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing...
Review: When I found this book at our local bookstore I wasn't sure about it as this genre has never interested me much. But I opened to the beginning and read the first page, and then the first chapter, and then the second... I couldn't stop. Butler's writing style is simply effortless and evokes characters and places so real that when you finish you feel that you have returned from a far away place. Her prose is as haunting as it is captivating, and the questions it presents will remain with the reader for a long while. You won't be able to put this book down.