Kindred by Octavia E Butler

 Kindred 

By Octavia E. Butler 

Published Year: 1979

Page count: 300 pages 

 Medium Used: Paperback 

Genre  : Science Fiction, Horror, Historical fiction, Ancient American, Black History, 2024-read. 

Rating : 4.5/5 

I have been reading and watching a lot of these time, space travel books and movies lately. This book I didn't expect to turn out the way it did. I didn't expect this quality work from a black woman writing this in late 1970s. It superbly mixes the worlds of science fiction, time travel with black history and drama. Her writing and prose are superb. Very much like a memoir by a real character, not fictional. 

Much as I have enjoyed the story, I couldn't wait to get to the end. I wanted to have all my exasperating and probing questions answered. I wanted to see how this ordeal of harrowing time travel would end. Time travel ought to be fun. And in some form, controllable by the traveler. But for the most part, in this story, it is not. There is physical and emotional, mental torture involved. Traveling back to the time of slavery in Maryland (an antebellum south state) in the 19th century can be very sickening for a free spirited, free born and free raised black native. Our main character is a black woman who is caught in this web of time travel back to the past. Each of her journey is triggered by a call of help from one of her ancestors, a white male who is also a slave lord. Each time she goes, she helps set him right. How he is able to summon her and have her with him in the time of need is not explained. She just goes. And when she perceives to be in a life threatening situation, she just flows back to present. It was short lived and ok when the ancestor Rufus Weylin was young but as he grew older, into a sinister and possessive individual/slave lord, her situation got more and more dangerous and porous. How does she end this vicious cycle of always fretting about when she will be pulled back? How does she take control of this journeying? It is interesting. 

Some instances of brutality and human denigrating are more than I could stomach. I felt squeamish enough to stop reading those parts and gladly skipped them. I was also constantly scared what would happen to the main character. But the tension always ebbed with the thought that any life threatening experience she has , she will be transported back to her reality, find whatever comfort she could for a little time.  

A very different beast of time travel. That doesn't involve lots of explanations and yet makes its mark at the right center spot. :)