Helpful Score: 6
My second reading was even better than the first. One of Octavia Butler's best works of some really stellar stuff. Probably the best if not only way a modern person can close to understand the horror and contradictions of slavery. Impossible to put down.
Helpful Score: 4
I've never read a book about time travel. I have read about slavery before. This book combined the two and it was fantastic! There are also discussion questions at the end to make you ponder even more.
Helpful Score: 4
I couldn't put this book down. A cross between science fiction and black history, it crosses from 1976 to the early 1800's and back again and perfectly parallels a black woman's life between the periods. Highly recommended reading!
Helpful Score: 1
Octavia Butler is one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy writers of our time and this book is one of her best. Like all great sci-fi, this book can be read on two levels and both are equally engaging. The first is the surface, narrative level. The trials and tribulations of Dana, an African American woman living in the mid-70s, who suddenly finds herself being transported back to the 1800s to a slave plantation are riveting from the first page. I found myself staying up into the wee hours of the morning reading this because I just had to know what happened to Dana and the other characters.
The second level is that of metaphor; it's a response to the more militant attitudes in the African American community at the time this book was written. It wasn't uncommon to hear people condemning those who didn't try to escape slavery as weak and "house slaves" or slaves who had sexual relations (voluntarily, or as close as one could get to it as a slave) as traitors. Butler uses Dana's journeys into the past as a way to explore how the oppressive social systems of the time work on people's minds. Even someone like Dana, who grew up in the comparatively more free and liberated 60s and 70s can feel changes in herself, in spite of her best efforts to fight against it. The result is a much more compassionate view of slaves as complicated people with sometimes conflicting feelings and impulses trying to get by the best they can within a horribly oppressive social structure.
Such a message could seem heavy handed coming from a lesser writer, but Butler never lets the message overwhelm the characters and the story. I highly recommend this book!
The second level is that of metaphor; it's a response to the more militant attitudes in the African American community at the time this book was written. It wasn't uncommon to hear people condemning those who didn't try to escape slavery as weak and "house slaves" or slaves who had sexual relations (voluntarily, or as close as one could get to it as a slave) as traitors. Butler uses Dana's journeys into the past as a way to explore how the oppressive social systems of the time work on people's minds. Even someone like Dana, who grew up in the comparatively more free and liberated 60s and 70s can feel changes in herself, in spite of her best efforts to fight against it. The result is a much more compassionate view of slaves as complicated people with sometimes conflicting feelings and impulses trying to get by the best they can within a horribly oppressive social structure.
Such a message could seem heavy handed coming from a lesser writer, but Butler never lets the message overwhelm the characters and the story. I highly recommend this book!
Helpful Score: 1
Science-fiction meets slavery in the antibellum south? I know its crazy but this is one of the most creative and gripping books I have ever read. I started reading while my son was taking his afternoon nap on a Saturday and finished it Sunday night. Yeah, its that good. Dana is a young, black woman living in the 1970's with her white husband, Kevin. While they are unpacking boxes in their new home, she's suddenly transported to a plantation in South Carolina where she must carefully interact with the masters and slaves in order to survive. You gotta read this book and you'll understand exactly why its been celebrated for over 25 years.
Helpful Score: 1
An amazing and believable blend of history, time travel and interacial relationships. Don't miss this one--highly recommended!
Helpful Score: 1
I'll admit, I much prefer Butler's straight sci-fi novels-I find them compelling and captivating in a way I don't with her other topics. That said, this was a powerful and intense book that should be required reading for anyone reading about slavery in the US in the 19th century. Butler's spare writing lends itself to graphic descriptions in places, but it's actually kind of refreshing to see that in this kind of novel. Recommended even with a four-star rating
"Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South".
An intriguing, well written book which was sometimes acutely painful to read.
An intriguing, well written book which was sometimes acutely painful to read.
A book that was written in 1979, but is still relevant today. I know it's listed as Science Fiction, but it's really more than that. Time Travel aside, it's a story of the beginnings of a family, a black woman finding her white ancestors from centuries ago, and her relationship with them, as well as with her white husband.
Certainly a different kind of time-travel book, and for a 70+ yo white man, a grim glimpse into slavery in the US. Lots of questions about why Dana did or didn't do this or that (like bring more useful items with her into the past); but all in all it was a compelling read. Wish the author had created a family tree and that we'd been given more information about the fate of some characters.
I found this copy of Kindred on a book trading site after reading several good reviews of it online. This is a fantasy/sci-fi time travel novel first published in 1979. The narrator is a young black woman, Dana, who is transported from 1976 back to the antebellum South of the early 1800s. She is apparently summoned there by her ancestor, Rufus, the son of a plantation owner who is in danger of drowning. Dana is able to save Rufus and is flung back to 1976 when she is threatened with a gun by Rufus's father. But that's not the end of her time travels. Every time Rufus is in peril, Dana is sent to his rescue and when Dana is in peril she is able to return to her present. During one of her time trips, her husband Kevin, who is white, is taken with her and winds up stranded in the past for five years. While Dana is in the past, she becomes somewhat of a fixture on the plantation and lives alongside the slaves (some of which are her ancestors) and the whites who own them. Butler describes the brutalities of life on the plantation including the selling of family members by the plantation owners, beatings and whippings, harsh conditions in the fields, and maimings of runaways. Every time Dana returns, she is taken back to 1976, but it is sometimes years that pass in the past in between her time trips. The people in the past age while Dana remains ageless.
Butler does a great job of showing the harshness and brutality of slavery from the point of view of the people of the time as well as from the perspective of Dana and her husband. The means of the time travel is never really explained and I have read that Butler considered this more of a fantasy novel. One reviewer points out that this was published two years after the Roots TV miniseries which could have been an influence on the story. I haven't read any of Butler's other science fiction but I will be on the lookout for them.
Butler does a great job of showing the harshness and brutality of slavery from the point of view of the people of the time as well as from the perspective of Dana and her husband. The means of the time travel is never really explained and I have read that Butler considered this more of a fantasy novel. One reviewer points out that this was published two years after the Roots TV miniseries which could have been an influence on the story. I haven't read any of Butler's other science fiction but I will be on the lookout for them.
I love science fiction, but I'm not a huge fan of most time travel stories despite their importance within the genre. Too many time travel stories are seemingly based on the premise that you'll be impressed at the gimmickry and while that may have worked for me when I was twelve it doesn't work for me today. The time travel stories which work are about a more universal theme which just happens to include traveling through time. H.G. Wells' The Time Machine works because of its lens on the potential distortionary effects of class stratification while Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch seems to emphasize the importance and power of individuals making moral choices to changes things for the better for whole societies. Kindred works because it gets you to examine history from the perspective of the slaves and the circumscribed sphere of often bad choices they had. At an emotional level you feel the frustration and powerlessness of a modern black woman as she is transported into slavery. I heartily recommend it both as a story and as a window into a time of tyranny in America.
There were many things I liked a lot about this book. Having a modern black woman personally experience slavery and speaking in the first person of that experience was extremely powerful for me. Yet the time travel conceit grew old for me as the book went on, and I found my attention wandering a little. I just wanted something new and unexpected to happen. But don't get me wrong....I still found it a powerful and compelling narrative, tho not a perfect one.
Pretty good considering I don't usually read Sci-Fi
This is the first book I have read by the author. I could not put it down. In the past, I have not enjoyed books with time travel. However, this was such a gripping story and characters. I will definitely look for more by this author.
Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler is a most interesting story. It fits into the Science Fiction genre, but it's most important as a depiction of slave life in the southern United States. It is well written and most exciting.
The book was ok. Did not think it was as good as others. Interesting concept (going back in time) though.
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. after this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to teh plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father the daughter who will become Dana's ancestor.
This is a great book. Very hard to put down.
This is a great book. Very hard to put down.
Excellent page turner!
enjoyed this book, It was well written and grabed me from chapter one, I could not put it down. great read.
This book was "off da chain", it was definitely a page turner and the characters instantly came alive......I really, really enjoyed this book............
There were many things I liked a lot about this book and others I didn't enjoy as much.
The fact that a modern black woman travels back in time and experiences slavery and narrates her life among her pre ancestors in the first person enthralled me. I would have loved to read about Dana's husband experiences too, after all, he was trapped back in that time for 5 years alone.
However, at the same time her travel conceit grew a bit stale for me as the book went on, and I found my attention wandering a lot, trying to follow some other character. I just wanted something new and unexpected to happen which it did at the end.
I enjoyed the story and best of all, I loved Alice; she' is the reason I chose the 4 stars and not 3.
The fact that a modern black woman travels back in time and experiences slavery and narrates her life among her pre ancestors in the first person enthralled me. I would have loved to read about Dana's husband experiences too, after all, he was trapped back in that time for 5 years alone.
However, at the same time her travel conceit grew a bit stale for me as the book went on, and I found my attention wandering a lot, trying to follow some other character. I just wanted something new and unexpected to happen which it did at the end.
I enjoyed the story and best of all, I loved Alice; she' is the reason I chose the 4 stars and not 3.
This book was a fantastic story. A young black woman is swept back in time from modern 1976 to the days of her slave ancestors. Her interactions with the people of that day will determine how her family begins and survives, and if she herself will eventually be born. The writing is very easy to read and well done. Loved it!
The story centers around a young black woman (Dana) and her husband (Kevin, who is white) in 1976 living in California. One day she experiences a dizzy spell and blacks out. When she comes too she is in the country watching a woman screaming for help to save her son. Dana helps resuscitate the boy and finds herself in another place and time. Then she returns to present day. This happens throughout the young mans' life when he finds himself in mortal danger. The concept of time travel is not something I generally read about. However, Dana is transported back to an area outside of Easton, MD during the early 1800's and the young man is the heir to a slave plantation. Vividly describes the unbearable pain and torture of slavery and shows the bonds that existed between the owners and their slaves. Engaging and interesting twists and turns in the story!
First book I read by this author. Really excellent story-line. Author is a GREAT sci-fi original. I was sorry to have this book come to an end.
This book got me reading science fiction. It is an amazing story, that really makes you think about what you would do!!
This is an incredible book. A friend of mine had to read it for a Fantasy/Science Fiction class. I borrowed it and could not put it down. Beautifully written!
