Book Review: "Kindred" by Octavia Butler
Kindred by Octavia Butler is what I would describe as science fiction mixed with historical fiction and horror elements. I am not surprised that this book has been adapted into a TV series. Octavia Butler has an ingenious way of getting to big truths, which is clearly on display in Kindred.
Our protagonist is Dana, a burgeoning writer recently married to fellow author, Kevin. The book itself takes place in the summer of 1976 yet still feels modern. After only a few days of being in their new California apartment, Dana finds herself traveling back in time to antebellum Maryland (early 1800s). Where she lands is near a plantation run by the Weylin family, and she is mistaken for a runaway slave that dresses like a man (e.g., wearing a shirt and pants, not the simple dress worn by slave women of the day).
It is at this plantation that she
meets a young Rufus, heir apparent to the plantation. Rufus
turns out to be one of Dana’s ancestors. Despite herself and
the poisoned atmosphere Rufus is raised in, she finds herself becoming
protective of this child. (After all, their first encounter comes when Dana
saves Rufus from drowning, only to end up at gunpoint by Rufus’s father.) She
finds that she pops in and out of the 1800s whenever Rufus is in danger, a constant
whiplash of movement between her life in the present (1970s) and the distant
past.
“Someday Rufus would own the plantation. Someday, he would be the slaveholder, responsible in his own right for what happened to the people who lived in those half-hidden cabins. The boy was literally growing up as I watched—growing up because I watched and because I helped to keep him safe. I was the worst possible guardian for him—a black to watch over him in a society that considered blacks subhuman, a woman to watch over him in a society that considered women perennial children. I would have all I could do to look after myself. But I would help him as best I could. And I would try to keep friendship with him, maybe plant a few ideas in his mind that would help both me and the people who would be his slaves in the years to come.”
Kevin eventually gets sucked into this nightmare of chattel slavery and takes on the role of slave owner, of course, before it gets out that Dana and Kevin are married (something that was blasphemous in the 1800s, a time of emergent anti-miscegenation laws).
One of the most unsettling things of Kindred is how easily Dana and Kevin get sucked into their respective roles in the antebellum hierarchy. I suppose that is the point that Butler is trying to make, yet it is haunting how quickly the 1800s becomes more of a reality for our characters than the time Dana and Kevin come from.
“Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.”
Another haunting element was the
character of Rufus, who becomes the symbol of everything wrong with slavery and
its racial hierarchy and that system’s continued impacts on our present-day
lives. At times sweet, curious, and generous, Dana observes a dangerous undercurrent
of possessive love towards the important figures in his life, herself included.
He longs for authentic relationships with other people, yet ultimately can’t
have them because of how twisted he is made by growing up within a system where
he assumes he can—and must—have whatever he wants.
Overall, Kindred explores the exploitative and traumatic system of slavery and its legacy from the perspective of a Black woman who is forced to give up her freedom in order to survive. It explores slavery from the nexus of gender, power, and sexual politics, and shows how the system has very real impacts on the present.
I would highly recommend Kindred to anyone wishing to explore the present-day echoes of antebellum slavery manifest in such issues as continued racial discrimination, generational trauma, social justice, and the huge wealth gap remaining between white people and people of color.
We have come a long way but have much further to go.
Happy reading!
--BookOwl
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