Octavia E Butler - Kindred

I made a slight error in this readalong I only realised last week that Kindred was next in publication order rather than the next Pattermaster I am however so so glad I’ve now finally read a book I can easily call a masterpiece and one that’s reputation was one of the reasons I chose Butler for the author I wanted to explore fully for the first time. And yes, it is a stone-cold classic in fantasy

Published in 1979 this book arrived in the year of the Iranian Revolution, the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, the arrival of The Dukes of Hazzard and the launch of the Muppet Movie. I’m 3 years old and remember nothing of this.

Publisher – Headline

Price - £9.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle eBook

In 1976, Dana dreams of being a writer. In 1815, she is assumed a slave.

When Dana first meets Rufus on a Maryland plantation, he’s drowning. She saves his life – and it will happen again and again.

Neither of them understands his power to summon her whenever his life is threatened, nor the significance of the ties that bind them.

And each time Dana saves him, the more aware she is that her own life might be over before it’s begun.

When we tend to think of history, we tend to just pull out key events – the war of this, the invention of that and this change or that change in society. A lot of the time we don’t like to think too closely what our ancestors were doing at the time or how they saw the world. In particular as a white male I admit while I’m conscious that when I hear slavery I think of a terrible thing I know my country was involved in for many years but I’ve avoided not thinking too closely as to what the day to day life of a slave would be like – my mind goes’ that will be horrible’ but sometimes you can read a story that just helps you see the past in a clear naked spotlight exposing the true scale and horror of such an event and then the tale also becomes a mirror helping you understand why in only a little over century later the repercussions and issues of racism are still causing the death of black people on the streets of today and why that generates justifiable anger.

The story appropriately begins in 1976 (when the US celebrates the biennial of the country’s birth). Dana is a young black woman working on writing. Suddenly she feels dizzy and finds herself taken away from her LA home and finds herself by a river in front of a young white boy; Rufus who is drowning. She dives in, rescues him and using CPR saves his life. Its only then she notices the strange dress of the people around her; their open hostility to her and she gets a gun in her face. Suddenly Dana is back in her home with her very concerned husband Kevin staring at her covered in river-mud and scared. A few hours later she travels again and finds an older version of Rufus setting fire to his bedroom curtains and Dana finds out it’s 1815; Rufus is the son of a slave owner in Maryland and she also realises there may be a strange family connection between the two. In this plantation there is a slave named Alice who will eventually have a child that becomes Dana’s great grandmother. Dana realises her trips are focused on saving Rufus’ life, but she is arriving in an America where slavery is normal and black people are property with no respect for their rights or freedoms. Each trip presents huge dangers and returning back to her own time is never certain.

A warm hearted time-travel tale would perhaps have made this a tale where Dana helps Rufus see the error of slavery and through her guidance he becomes a better person but the genius in Kindred is saying that actually the scale of slavery that permeates society means however much Dana is kinder and more educated than anyone else in Weylin’s family and able to state her case as to why slavery is wrong – the simple fact that she is black makes all her in their eyes less than human. Slavery will continue to be the norm for another forty years. Rufus as a child is kindly disposed to her and knows she will save him but very quickly he feels whenever she is stepping over the line he just sees as slave and master he feels entitled to tell her when to get back into line as he would any other slave. This story explores that relationship and the destruction of lives it will lead to.

In common with the last two novels in the readalong the story finds a central dynamic between two characters representing freedom and control. There can be a dotted line drawn from Rufus to with Doro in the patternmaster series who wants everyone to follow his leads and from Dana to Anyanwu and Mary who are trying to resist falling into becoming his property. In Kindred this is less a battle for power but survival. If Dana is felt to cross a line she is in a land where she can be whipped, hit, sold on, tortured or killed and it is completely legal. This is not grimdark fantasy this is actual history – her skin colour means she is seen as a non-person just a property to be sold/used as her owner sees fit. That Dana sees herself as an equal is not viewed as showing the white people of the 19th century the potential of the future but instead she is felt a threat to their current way of life that could encourage more slaves to flee their control. The Weylin family seek whenever Dana arrives to place her in the only place she fits – amongst the rest of the slaves serving them. For Dana this becomes a battle to keep herself from losing her ability to think as a free woman.

This leads to the main theme of the novel exploring what is slavery. Butler really makes you see how black people were treated and this is all based on things that happened. Speak out of turn – you will be struck; push your luck with your master – you will be sold to the even more dangerous plantations down south; have children – watch them be sold and taken from you; refuse sexual advances from your master – you can be killed. Education is not permitted; religion will tell you that you must be a good slave – everything Dana sees around her is about a country enforcing control and putting pressure on them to see this as normal and not to resist. This a novel that uses violence, sexual threats and racist language – none of this is gratuitous but all of it serves the point of showing you how terrible this period was. In one powerful sequence in the book Dana’s white husband goes back with her – initially he is very blasé about how Dana is being treated and the stark difference in how he gets respected from the Weylins but he is separated and when he returns we see a man fully haunted by the horrors white people are inflicting on people and there was so little he could do. He realsies this experience has shaped Dana’s own background and history in ways he had never preciously understood – he was always surprised that Dana’s family were not happy about him dating a white man. In Keven we see someone realise they’ve airbrushed the view of how bad slavery was and when confronted with the truth it changes you – and if you lose any hope of freedom that makes control so much easier. In the novel Butler notes the actions of the Nazis in WW2 and apartheid in South Africa – she reminds us that slavery was a crime just as huge and yet perhaps one the white population always seems to slightly shy away from how equally terrible it was ignoring the many consequences for the descendants of slavery that we continue to see even in 2020.

On top of this Butler weaves a powerful story as the dynamic between Rufus and Dana. Between the two is Alice a slave that has grown up almost a friend of Rufus but one he increasingly feels an attraction to. Alice will bear children that creates Dana’s family so Dana is keen to get her out of the plantation, but Rufus wants Dana to help Alice see a sexual relationship with Rufus is fine – let me clear this would not a consensual one.. We see a confrontation coming that will have deadly consequences. Its a tale where the tension on each trip mounts as both parties realise that they can’t get what they want from the other.

Kindred is an amazing novel. I loved how it forces me to see what slavery actually was on a day to day level rather than a conceptual one. Butler works hard to make various slaves well rounded characters who we get to know, and we realise how the Weylins have taken away their chance of a future. I think it works because it doesn’t try to sweeten the pill by making it a cosy story of redemption and forgiveness. Instead it’s a story of survival and staying true to who you are despite the effort to control you. Butler achieves this quietly with a tale focused like a laser making you explore how this system worked and people supported it. A really good book makes you have a book hangover that stays with you a few days – a brilliant book makes you see the world differently forever. I think Kindred easily falls into that latter category – uncomfortable, unflinching and stunning.

Next time – return to the Patternmaster series with Clay’s Ark