Review: Kindred by Octavia Butler

[megwrites]

Title:Kindred
Author:Octavia Butler
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 287*
Publisher: Beacon Press*


Reviewer's Note: The page count and publisher are for the 25th anniversary edition of the book published in 2004. Other editions of the book may come from other publishers/imprints and have varying page counts.




Basic Plotline: Dana, a black woman living in 1976 California, is brought back in time to the early nineteenth century to protect Rufus Weylin, the accident prone son of a white slave owner who will go on to father one of her ancestors. Each time that Rufus finds himself in trouble, he is able to summon Dana, who is only able to leave when her life is endangered. Dana must protect him through time as he grows up, risking her life in an era when she is considered subhuman, to ensure that she and her family will even exist, but even this simple thing comes with a great cost.

The Positives: I think everyone and their brother has reviewed this book on 50books_poc, because Octavia Butler is easily the most popular, most recognizable, and most mainstream of science fiction writers of color. Deservedly so, as Butler was unquestionably a master of her craft.

So, this review may be less an objective examination as an exploration of what I dervied from this book.

I think Kindred may stand out to be Butler's finest work, and it is undoubtedly her most emotionally and politically infused work. Dealing with the topics of slavery, prejudice, dominance, abuse, and self-preservation are not done lightly or without careful thought in this book.

I read this book a little slower than was actually necessary. Butler's prose is a study in clarity and economy. She does not waste her words, and says only what she needs to, leaving the rest to the reader. However, there is a lot to be read in the words and in between in them. There are powerful statements on what slavery as an institution and practice really is, and the effect it has not only on the slaves, but on the slave holders. I think one of the oft overlooked aspects of slavery is what kind of perversions it bred in those who practiced it, and what happens when you give the few permission to take out their every whim on the many.

Once, I had a history teacher who said, when speaking of slavery that, "Slavery is always the worst possible condition. It is worse than death. No matter how kind your master is, it is always the worst possible condition."

I didn't understand that when it was said to me as a white, privileged 8th grader in a fairly affluent middle school. I didn't understand how it would be better to die than at least to live, even as a slave - and I've debated that statement in my head and argued with it ever since my teacher said it.

This book revealed to me why it is that death might be better than slavery, even with a master who had the potential to be kind. Because even in the moments when Rufus is benevolent, when he comes close to be a decent human being, there is no sense of security for Dana, for the slaves on the Weylin plantation, for anyone.

No more is that more apparent than when Sarah talks about her children being sold just so that money could be raised to buy fine things for the mistress of the house, Margaret - or that Rufus sells another slave to pay off debts the plantation has accrued.

For me, that really brought to the fore why there is no such thing as a benevolent master when it comes to slavery. Because the slaves, even when they did everything right and pleased the master, were subject to being sold, separated, beaten if the crops failed and money needed to be raised or someone wanted new china plates or if an example needed to be made, if the master was in a bad mood.

Slavery is, in simplest terms, living life with the words "safety" and "security" utterly erased from your vocabulary, and the word "humanity" getting fainter and fainter each day. Some people can't hold on to it at all, can't continue to think of themselves as human and survive a world that tells them they aren't. They have to give into the prejudices just to survive.

I found myself wincing and tightening my muscles up when Dana or Alice or another slave would speak of running away, or say something that I knew might get beaten, whipped, sold, raped, or killed. I found myself wanting to tell Dana, "Be careful. Don't say this, don't do that. Just keep your head down, don't make them angry, don't speak up!". I couldn't allow myself to celebrate even simple things like the birth of a child or love or marriage or a good day, because they seemed like terrible illusions. A child was just another thing that could be sold, a marriage a thing to be broken, a good day a reminder of how bad the others could be.

Though this is undoubtedly a narrative of slavery, there is an interesting study made of the effect of slavery on the slave holders. Because, even for the slave holders, there must always be a constant vigilence. The next generation must be taught abuse, dominance, indifference. All the white members of the Weylin household suffered from this, as though they'd all caught a terrible disease from each other and it displayed itself in different ways.

It made Tom Weylin cruel, cold, indifferent. It made Margaret high strung, jealous, co-dependent. And it turned Rufus into a possessive, jealous, cruel mix of his parents, who made the entire world revolve around him and managed to pervert love into an evil, awful force of destruction. Rufus's sympathies and affections in this book were as terrible as his hatred. Even his best moments are his worst in this book.

I find it interesting that Rufus, and indeed the children of many slave owners, were allowed to play with slave children. I think, in a way, it was training in how to become the kind of person who could ignore humanity on short notice, who could smile at someone and live side by side with them, get to know them and their name and their voice and then take the skin off their backs or sell their children.

There are a lot of statements about racism and prejudice that go unsaid but are very clear in the book, but the clearest is that racism and prejudice are forces that warp everything around them. They warp the people they're aimed at and the people doing the warping. It's all a kind of gangrene that rots everything.

It warps the world to the point where it turns good and evil on it's head. No where is this more clear than when Dana finds herself, for the sake of her future family, needing to encourage Alice, who's husband has had his ears cut off in front of her, to continue to allow Rufus to have sex with her after he's already raped her.

As a woman, I felt very uncomfortable with the idea that in order to keep rooting for a strong, wise, and common sense protagonist, I would have to condone rape, have to condone a woman being turned into just a carrier for a future she would pay the price for but never enjoy. I won't deny it gave me the shivers to see Dana going to speak to Alice in that way.

This book is beyond powerful, and I wish I had something very scholarly or wise to say about it. I don't. I just know that there are so many thing I learned, subtle things, and things I cannot express properly, from this book. I also know that I'm glad she wrote it. I'm glad this book is one of the most read and reviewed books on 50books_poc or that it's one of the great classics of the SF/F genre.

Because there is no person that cannot get something valuable, powerful, maybe even a little frightening or painful (in a good way) from this book. And I am no exception.


The Negatives: There are very few negatives in this book, but I think it should be noted that in my reviews, when I say negatives, I don't necessarily mean faults or flaws. Sometimes a negative is a thing that will make the reading experience harder for a reader.

But sometimes, the reading should be harder.

For white readers, this may turn out to be a difficult book. Because it does not make the usual "well, most white people were nice and not racist, it was just those terrible Southerners" or the "here's the nice white person" excuses and apologies. It does not fall into the trap of pretending that though the North was free that it was somehow a magical happy land where nobody was racist.

I think white American readers from up North may find themselves upset by these things, because the popular lore seems to old that racism and slavery were only a Southern problem. But it's made clear in this book that African-Americans were often pulled out of free states and brought back, even if they did have papers to prove their freedom.

Not even Kevin, Dana's white husband, escapes being tainted by the racism in the book or the tension it causes when Kevin is able to easily insert himself into the situation and make judgments on Dana's actions from the perspective someone who neither has to save his family nor be put in such imminent, constant danger.

At one point, he waxes nostalgic and says it would be nice to go out West to see it when it was still wide, illiciting a stunned response from Dana who reminds him that the West, the mythology and awe surrounding it, are really just Native Americans being treated as badly as African American slaves. It is clear that Kevin, because he is white and a man, is so clearly able to overlook so many things that become daily facts of life for Dana. Things like where she can go, who she can discuss her ability to read and write with, what clothes she wears, who she dares to look in the eye.

As a white Southerner (I'm from Tennessee), this book brought out a lot of the ugliest parts of my heritage and history that I often don't like to think or talk about. Because as much as I let myself root for Dana and take her side in things, there is always a distance between us because I must realize that it is all the pain her ancestors suffered that benefitted mine.

I do not know precisely whether any ancestor of mine ever owned a slave. It's a good bet that someone, somewhere owned at least a couple. Even if none did, they all benefitted from it. They benefitted from the towns and industries that could crop up because the region's economic base was supported through slave labor and the slave trade. They benefitted from being able to buy cheap cotton and cheap food, cheaper than it would have been with paid workers. They benefitted from knowing there were people out there who were lower than them, that they were somehow inherently superior.

Aside from the harshness of recognizing these things will no doubt bring uncomfortable, queasy feelings up for white readers. As well it should. But you have been warned. If you're looking for a cozy beach read, then don't pick up this book.

But if you're looking for something powerful, if you're willing not to flinch, this book will reward you in it's way. It's certainly a story worth whatever discomfort it causes you.


CoC Score 10.

GLBT Score 0. No GLBT characters or issues appearing or mentioned in this book.

Gender Score 10. This novel is written by a woman, about a woman, and though it is not overtly mentioned in the way the racism and slavery are, there are a lot of very interesting gender issues in this book. The women in this book are numerous and varied from the weak, fawning Margaret Weylin, to the strong, sensible Dana.