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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
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Kindred

Kindred

byOctavia E. Butler
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Top positive review

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Marvin L. Many
5.0 out of 5 starsIt pulled me in and wouldn't let go!
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2017
I am a 72 yo white male who was born and raised in the deep South. I left that environment as a teenager, which probably made the difference in my attitude toward the significance of race. Butler made me feel like I was that 26-year-old black woman. Her skillful writing transported me to a place and time that I am certain truly existed in the manner she constructed. I found myself doing some soul-searching after reading the novel kindred. I wish I had been exposed to her while she was still alive, But I will probably wind up reading all of her books now.
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424 people found this helpful

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SassyPants
3.0 out of 5 starsAmbivalent Feelings
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2018
First, I am not a big fan of science fiction. For a reading challenge, I was tasked with reading a work of science fiction by an author of color or with a main character of color. Two birds, one book with Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Plus, it gives me a reason to read a prolific writer who I have been ignoring. Extra bonus, I would consider this Sci Fi light. There are no aliens, no robots, and no weird machines. Only time travel with no devices required.

The novel is set in 1976 in California. African American Dana is newly married to white guy Will. They are both writers, he more successful. They move into a new home. Dana feels dizzy and poof—there she is in antebellum Maryland saving a white boy named Rufus from drowning. Task accomplished and she returns home, finding that she was gone for only a few seconds in 1979 but for a longer spell in the 1800’s. Rufus is the young son of a plantation and slave owner and is also a distant relation to Dana. Whenever he is in danger (which is often) she is somehow summoned to save him. Her visits to the south last for longer periods of time and sometimes her husband Will accompanies her. Dana believes she must continue to save Rufus otherwise he will not be alive to father a child with a slave; that child being one of Dana’s ancestors. No Rufus, no Dana. Dana obviously does not fit in and passes herself off as a free black from the north, though Will is her “master” and lover. On the plantation she is often treated as a slave because there is nothing more threatening to slave owners than an educated black woman. She herself is often in danger and suffers atrocities along with the other slaves.

This was a quick read and an interesting story, but I did not love it. I’m not a fan of time travel in novels, but that was a very minor part of the story. It was fairly easily accepted by all involved, including those on the plantation. Most of the book takes place on the plantation and these are the most compelling sections. That said, I don’t think that those scenes were much different than any other book set in that period. Toni Morrison and Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House and Glory Over Everything) are much better writers. Also, some of the interesting dynamics were not explored in enough depth for me. Dana’s love/hate relationship with Rufus, her relationship with her white husband both in current and past times, and her fear that her husband would be altered by his exposure to conventions in the early 1800’s. In fairness, this book was written in 1979 and the author may have gone as far as one could go with those issues. This book is 3.5 stars for me. I am unlikely to read another of Ms. Butler’s books.
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From the United States

Marvin L. Many
5.0 out of 5 stars It pulled me in and wouldn't let go!
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2017
Verified Purchase
I am a 72 yo white male who was born and raised in the deep South. I left that environment as a teenager, which probably made the difference in my attitude toward the significance of race. Butler made me feel like I was that 26-year-old black woman. Her skillful writing transported me to a place and time that I am certain truly existed in the manner she constructed. I found myself doing some soul-searching after reading the novel kindred. I wish I had been exposed to her while she was still alive, But I will probably wind up reading all of her books now.
424 people found this helpful
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Chuck Grimmett
5.0 out of 5 stars An atypical sci-fi novel dealing with time travel, slavery, and familial connection. A Gem.
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2018
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I love sci-fi, so when I first heard about Octavia Butler, I jumped on Amazon and bought the first book I saw.

In Kindred, Dana, a modern young African American writer who recently married an older white man, gets mysteriously transported back in time to a pre-Civil War plantation owned by the family of her oldest known relative, Rufus. Dana is called back to save Rufus’s life over and over again, presumably preserving her own life in the process. What happens to her in the past stays with her in a very real way.

This novel is incredible. I couldn’t put it down. It was written in 1979, but it could have been written last year. Elements of Butler’s own life and frustrations with race issues during her life shine through in parts.

This novel deals with love, familial connection, loss, time travel, slavery, and the complex emotions that arise when these things interconnect. To quote Dana:
"Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just about the same mixture of emotions for him myself. I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such a strange relationship. But then, slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships. Only the overseer drew simple, unconflicting emotions of hatred and fear when he appeared briefly. But then, it was part of the overseer’s job to be hated and feared while the master kept his hands clean."

This is a great book. It makes the deep personal toll slavery takes on its victims very real. I’m seeking out more of Octavia Butler’s books in the near future.
138 people found this helpful
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Jason Galbraith
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars Read It In High School
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2019
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Almost everyone in a United States public school reads Orwell's "Animal Farm" because during the Cold War, it was necessary to see just how ridiculous and perverted Communism was. Now that Soviet Communism is dead it's time for high school English (or perhaps history) teachers to turn their sights on the legacy of American slavery.

"Kindred" (1979), Octavia Butler's breakthrough novel, is about a 26-year-old African-American writer living in 1976 Los Angeles who keeps traveling back in time when summoned to save the life of her ancestor Rufus Wylin, a slaveowner in early 19th-century Maryland. Rufus and his concubine Alice Greenwood are the oldest ancestors specified in Dana's family Bible. The complicated relationship between Rufus and Dana is what makes this novel a great work of art. It is more healthy when Rufus is a good deal younger than Dana and becomes more exploitative as he grows older. Dana first appears in 1812 to save five-year-old Rufus from drowning. When she discovers his true identity three years later, she realizes that she will only truly be safe in 1831, after Rufus and Alice's child Hagar is born. The final time she is summoned back is after Hagar's birth and is also the time things REALLY start to go off the rails.

There were a lot of ways even for white slaveowners to die in the early 19th century and Dana saves Rufus from most of them, but the older he gets, the less he appreciates it. On one occasion Dana's white husband Kevin (also a writer) is summoned back with her only to be stranded in the eastern US from 1819 to 1824 when she goes back to 1976 alone. Both of them are permanently transformed by their experiences but the novel is of course told from Dana's point of view.

Why Dana travels in time is clear -- to preserve the timeline and her bloodline -- but how is never made clear. Some people may complain about this but I won't even though I said "Somewhere in Time" was a silly movie because of the way Richard Collier traveled in time. This book masterfully confronts the reality, and to some extent even the legacy, of American slavery. Thinking about that should be a part of every American's education. Five stars.
38 people found this helpful
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Dan S. Tong
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2020
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I"m a big fan of Octavia Butler's books, although I do think that her later works are far better than some of her earlier books.

Kindred, is different from her other books because it delves with our historical past, rather than the unknown future. If you read the negative reviews you quickly understand that they written by people who basically fail to understand the book either because they are mostly incapable of reading above early grade school level, and or they totally lack empathy.

For me, Kindred Kindred succeeds in evoking the most powerful, emotional understanding of slavery. One can read some of the history of slavery, or watch some movies about slavery and understand the horror in a rational manner and abhor the practice and be very upset about it, but Kindred more like experiencing a body blow than just reading about a body blow. Not that I can ever forget that reading about slavery, no matter how well it is done, can never be anything even close to living it.

One of the best reviews is by a white man who grew up in the South who says Butler made him feel like a Black Woman living back in those terrible times. What more could you ask for ?

Go read the book and if you understand it, you will be changed forever by the experience.
5 people found this helpful
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Jonathan Maas
5.0 out of 5 stars A Wrecking Ball of a Book - Incredible
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2016
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An absolute wrecking ball of a book, Kindred takes a familiar literary premise - the world of antebellum slavery, and gives it an eye-opening twist by having an educated African-American from the modern day, or rather 1976 - it's modern day - get magically transported to 1815 Maryland. This is a loose SciFi trope - this is a literary work more than a Science Fiction one. The character goes back and forth between the then modern day, sometimes bringing her Caucasian husband with her.

The punch that gets the reader is that the narrator is us - we see the abomination and humiliation of slavery not through a slave's eyes, but our modern-day eyes, and it makes it all the more powerful. The writing style is unadorned - no fancy description of scenery, no prescient John Updike-like pearls of wisdom sprinkled in every paragraph. But Octavia E. Butler's style makes it all the more powerful. Should be required reading - in any case 5 Stars, great for Science Fiction, Historical Fiction and fans of Literature in general.
49 people found this helpful
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SassyPants
3.0 out of 5 stars Ambivalent Feelings
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
First, I am not a big fan of science fiction. For a reading challenge, I was tasked with reading a work of science fiction by an author of color or with a main character of color. Two birds, one book with Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Plus, it gives me a reason to read a prolific writer who I have been ignoring. Extra bonus, I would consider this Sci Fi light. There are no aliens, no robots, and no weird machines. Only time travel with no devices required.

The novel is set in 1976 in California. African American Dana is newly married to white guy Will. They are both writers, he more successful. They move into a new home. Dana feels dizzy and poof—there she is in antebellum Maryland saving a white boy named Rufus from drowning. Task accomplished and she returns home, finding that she was gone for only a few seconds in 1979 but for a longer spell in the 1800’s. Rufus is the young son of a plantation and slave owner and is also a distant relation to Dana. Whenever he is in danger (which is often) she is somehow summoned to save him. Her visits to the south last for longer periods of time and sometimes her husband Will accompanies her. Dana believes she must continue to save Rufus otherwise he will not be alive to father a child with a slave; that child being one of Dana’s ancestors. No Rufus, no Dana. Dana obviously does not fit in and passes herself off as a free black from the north, though Will is her “master” and lover. On the plantation she is often treated as a slave because there is nothing more threatening to slave owners than an educated black woman. She herself is often in danger and suffers atrocities along with the other slaves.

This was a quick read and an interesting story, but I did not love it. I’m not a fan of time travel in novels, but that was a very minor part of the story. It was fairly easily accepted by all involved, including those on the plantation. Most of the book takes place on the plantation and these are the most compelling sections. That said, I don’t think that those scenes were much different than any other book set in that period. Toni Morrison and Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House and Glory Over Everything) are much better writers. Also, some of the interesting dynamics were not explored in enough depth for me. Dana’s love/hate relationship with Rufus, her relationship with her white husband both in current and past times, and her fear that her husband would be altered by his exposure to conventions in the early 1800’s. In fairness, this book was written in 1979 and the author may have gone as far as one could go with those issues. This book is 3.5 stars for me. I am unlikely to read another of Ms. Butler’s books.
65 people found this helpful
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LaBouquinisteImpertinente
5.0 out of 5 stars Well-Written Historical Fiction Gives Perspective
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2017
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I picked up this book on a Saturday evening, and by Sunday afternoon I had finished it. I kept telling myself I needed to put it down so I could accomplish other things, but it was not to be so.

Many of us had the opportunity to read this book in high school, I, (un)fortunately did not. However, it has been on my reading list ever since my sister read it when she was in high school.

I've read some of Octavia Butler's other work, primarily her trilogy, Lilith's Brood. She is typically a more science fiction writer, and a wonderful one at that. Nevertheless, her writing abilities are not bound by genre.

Kindred brings to perspective the reality that when you ask the question "If you could go back in time, what time period would you go to?", you are not considering that for many people, primarily people of color, there is no time period in modern history (or even some cases ancient) in which it was a safe place to be a person of color. Time travel, were it to exist, would be reserved for the few, primarily white men.

Octavia does an amazing job of making this reality clear, particularly with her juxtaposition of Dana, an African-American woman, and her husband, Kevin, a white man. Both end up traveling back in time to antebellum Maryland, and both have very different experiences because of the color of their skin. It resonated with me that Octavia did not make this differential experience subtle; Dana says on more than one occasion how different her lived experience is than Kevin's. Although this seems unnecessary, since it should be obvious to the reader that Dana's skin color would dictate her treatment in an era with slavery, it is all the more powerful that you read Dana explicitly explaining to Kevin that they are no longer anywhere close to being on the same playing field.

Octavia also does a splendid job of describing the cognitive dissonance Dana experiences in relation to some of the slaves she ends up befriending, as she becomes a part of their world. It is easy to think, retrospectively, that had you been a slave yourself, you would have done everything in your power to be free. However, as you dive into "Kindred" you realize that it isn't that simple, and that everything was constructed in such a way to ensure it was nearly impossible to escape. During the beginning portion of the book, Dana judges one of the slaves for she seems complacent about her fate as a slave. But, as the story progresses, you see Dana's knowledge of the era grow and thus her judgment is replaced by an understanding.

Definitely a must read for all, particularly for those of you hoping to continually expand your knowledge and understanding of the racist history of the U.S. Nothing like a well written historical fiction book to give you some perspective!
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B. Wilfong
3.0 out of 5 stars “She had done the safe thing-had accepted a life of slavery because she was afraid.” (3.5 stars)
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2018
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“Kindred” is a novel I would not have picked up on my own, but it was a book club selection so I dutifully read it. Although I do not think it is a great text, it is a good story. When I accepted the limitations inherent in a story about time travel, and focused on the aspects of the writing that are quite good, and not those that are weak, I found I read it quickly and was no worse for the wear.
In short, the story is that of a black woman from 1976 who is transported back and forth to 1815 and the Maryland farm on which her great great grandfather (a white man) and her great great grandmother (a slave) meet. Octavia Butler (the author) does not flinch from the brutality in slavery, and yet it is evident (from an author interview in the text and from the book itself) that she is using the daily aspects of slavery in service to her story, which thus gives them more power. As she says, “The route to readers’ heads is through their guts and nerves, and that requires good storytelling, not just a good set of issues.” With that in mind, she wrote a novel that is not polemic, a danger for any book with a focus like this one.
As I read ‘Kindred” I kept thinking this is a text that would be good for high school students. The characterization is not particularly deep for any one character (is that a limitation of the science fiction genre?) yet there is enough there to discuss and extrapolate a bit more from. At times, I felt the book took the easy way out by not examining some issue further, but again that is not the kind of book Ms. Butler was trying to write. This is not “Beloved” and never was meant to be. Yet, serious issues are there if you care to focus on them, and they are given thoughtful attention. There are numerous times in the novel where some idea or thought was beautifully rendered and I had to stop to appreciate and digest it. However, you could also gloss over them if you so choose and just read a historical time travel science fiction novel.
The choice is the readers, and I think either is probably correct.
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Danielle
5.0 out of 5 stars Brutal but necessary
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2020
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This book had me wanting to slap a lot of people. Mind you, I've only slapped one person in my life. If I've already committed to the action by thinking about it, this a significant increase.

After reading the first chapter and rolling my eyes a little, I'm thinking Dana will save this white kid and he'll love her and be a good person and all that jazz. Yeah, no...I got a kick-in-the-pants surprise.

Rufus develops this need for Dana that at first is childlike and a response to trauma, but as he gets older and needs her more often, he starts to show his true colors. Dana still sees him like a child and knows his actions are driven by trauma and his world, but she can't give up her self-respect. She can try and blend into the environment though, and her husband helps and hinders at the same time. This complex tug-of-war is what makes everyone so slappable and the ending so sad and satisfying at the same time.

"Good person" is a difficult thing to understand. My modern sensibilities have a really hard time with it, and Butler takes opportunities to put "good" behaviors in a historical perspective while reminding the reader that it's still not OK. With a few exceptions, too many authors shy away from these issues alltogether, or don't show how complex they are. I appriciate autors who "go there" very much, and Butler doesn't hold back.

This book is brutal and yet somehow necessary.

I've been reading author's notes in all the books I come across, and this book as some amazing notes resources for more information.
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Dbeautyangel
5.0 out of 5 stars good book but hard to read.
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2021
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I started this thinking it’s fictional- a thriller. Well it is. But the slave scenes we’re so difficult to read. I felt her despair about being powerless. She had no choice as to when she would be whisked away to hell. And no choices as to how long. The pain sorrow anxiety and frustration I felt for her and the other characters oh my God. The power dynamics of the slave/ master relationships was alarming but made perfect sense. Abused victims. Stockholm syndrome. Self hatred. Religious indoctrination. Ptsd. Whew boy!! I could have not survived like Dana did. We share a name and that made it even harder to read. Loved the book but glad it was over.
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