Kindred

Book Title: Kindred

Author: Octavia Butler

Date Started: June 19th 2020

Date Completed: July 25th 2020

Genres: Historical, Science Fiction

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

Why, oh why, have I never heard of this book before? Well, racism, obviously. But it's also a weak excuse just to blame that while I haven't necessarily been making the effort to open my own awareness of literature. That changes now. Science fiction, especially time travel, is not typically my jam, but intelligent female characters in fraught and sometimes conflicting situations such as hell is. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because Kindred is fantastic, accessible and important whatever your preference.

The obvious importance of Kindred is to do with its portrayal of slavery and the Black people held hostage within its system. I will not claim to be formally educated in the matter, but I hope I've taken steps to be accurately informed to be able to say that the book manages the themes with necessary bluntness, but also honesty and dignity. By humanising the history into these three-dimensional characters' experiences, the subject is elevated past simple facts and onto an emotional level. It's explored in a way that people can understand, even if not empathise with their own experiences and/or cultural history (though, by the way, it's the majority of the Western world's cultural history and we have a responsibility to be aware of it - i.e. the English were slave traders too).

This is also a story in which the use of time travel has a very specific and useful purpose. Sure, the mystery of working out why Dana keeps being pulled through the centuries practically to the other side of the country is a really good reader motivation, but it also allows Butler to draw parallels to the contemporary setting of the book (the 1970s) and how things aren't all roses there either, even if things have progressed (which is very timely for right now in 2020, as well).

I also want to mention Dana's relationship with her husband Kevin. There's a lot of things that Butler does with these two (they're a mixed-race couple, they're from lower-income backgrounds, the time displacement has its impact on Kevin too), but I have to say how honestly wonderful it was to see such a well-balanced couple. The portrayal of slavery, Black history, and being a woman in the early 1800s in America aside, the representation of Dana and Kevin as equals (as much as society will let them, anyway) was really damn good. It has its challenges and there are a lot of parallels constructed throughout the story, but I did not especially expect to see a healthy husband and wife relationship and for it to be so refreshing.

After going back and forth about whether it's uncomfortable to call this book 'enjoyable' given the subject matter, I've decided it's important I do say so. Kindred is intensely engaging, and Butler uses the storytelling potential of a novel to explore the tough subject matter in a way that makes you turn the pages because you need to know what happens next. I spent most of this book trying to draw the strings together, and loving it. In doing so, I also learnt far more about slavery than I was ever taught in school. We should not need to be happy or excited to listen to injustices on human rights and our history, but Butler reminded me what a powerful tool storytelling can be.