I don't have a name for the thing that happened to me, but I don't feel safe any more.

Kindred by Octavia Butler
Originally published 1979

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary

Kindred is a story that takes place in two temporal worlds: 1976, in Altadena (near L.A.), over about a month, and 1811-1830, in Maryland (not far from Baltimore), over a complicated amount of time. The story follows Dana, an aspiring writer and twenty-six-year-old black woman, as she unexpectedly begins time traveling to the same location (and same person) over a hundred years in the past. Dana has recently married Kevin, a white man, who is also a writer, during their time in the 1970s. It takes her a while to understand the pattern, but what eventually becomes clear is that Dana is sent to save Rufus Weylin, a young white man, when he is in danger of dying. The connection is further complicated by the fact that Dana later realizes that he is an ancestor of hers. Once this connection is made, Dana is forced to save Rufus until her own line begins with Hagar, a child born from Rufus and Alice, one of his slaves.

Tons of incredible (and I mean that in the truest sense of that word - unbelievable on so many levels) things happen, and it's too much to capture all here, but I've given you a snapshot of the trips that Dana takes so you can get a sense of the general arc of her travels. As you'll notice, the time she covers during the trips to the past spans a much greater arc than the time in the present (19 years vs. a few weeks) and while she isn't actually in the past for more than a few months at a time [though Kevin gets stuck for five years without her] it obviously takes its toll.

1811 - The river (saves Rufus from drowning; ends at the butt of Tom Weylin(Rufus's father)'s gun)
1815 - The fire (stops Rufus from lighting the house on fire; ends with pateroller trying to rape her)
1819 - The fall (gets Rufus help and medical care after a fall from a tree; Kevin comes along this time; ends with being whipped for teaching Nigel to read, but Kevin gets stuck for five years)
1824 - The fight (saves Rufus from almost being killed in a fight with Isaac after Rufus tries to rape Alice, Isaac's wife; Rufus tries to shoot her to keep her from leaving, Kevin and Dana both go back)
1830 - The storm (saves Rufus from drowning in a puddle when he's drunk; she slits her wrists because Rufus has begun to treat her as a master and he hits her for the first time - It's on this visit that her ancester, Hagar, is finally born)
1830 - The rope (Alice hangs herself, Dana stops Rufus from committing suicide; He tries to rape her, she kills him, loses an arm in the journey back)

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Well hello, dear blobbers! If you haven't read this book, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it. I think it really ought to be required reading, but I can't make you read a book you don't want to, so I'll just strongly suggest it. ;) If you do want to read it, you should stop reading (in fact, I hope you didn't read the spoiler yet) and go read it now. You can always come back here later. 

If you aren't going to read it, or you've read it already, feel free to continue to hear my thoughts. I'd like to start with this quote from the author, Octavia Butler:

Why aren't there more S[cience] F[iction] Black writers? There aren't because there aren't. What we don't see, we assume can't be. What a destructive assumption.

Yes indeed. What we don't see, we assume can't be. I haven't read a ton of science fiction for this blob, but I did read The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin for one of my book bingos, which I also highly recommend, and I've loved digging in to Ursula LeGuin's world (not black, but a female sci fi author, which is still something of a rarity). Yes to all the authors, yes especially to more black sci fi lady authors and all authors of color and authors who've been marginalized in other ways. I believe you are all there, even if I can't see all of you! Write and I'll read. I pinky promise. 

Here are some of my thoughts...

Impotence/total loss of control and power
This is a running theme in the book, and as Dana continues to get sent back (which she can't control - it happens when Rufus is in mortal danger) she loses more and more of her sense of self and her power and her personhood, and this is so lyrically and painfully captured. Each time I found myself thinking maybe she would still be better off, knowing more about the future than the black people of that time, or having Kevin with her, or being able to read and write, but ultimately she was as trapped and impotent as her fellow slaves, and this was so poignantly portrayed. 

Guardians
Making Dana Rufus's guardian was a kind of perfect pain to witness. She needed him to survive so that she could come into being, but his very existence posed a threat to her life. Here's a line that captures this:

I was the worst possible guardian for him - a black to watch over him in a society that considered blacks subhuman, a woman to watch over him in a society that considered women perennial children. I would have all I could do to look after myself. But I would help him as best I could.

Race and its descriptors
The more I read (and the more I write), the more I become interested in how writers portray (or choose to portray by omission) the race of their characters. It was really interesting to piece together Dana being black and Rufus being white, but what I found really fascinating was that Butler doesn't explicitly mention that Kevin is white for some time, and knowing this flipped my perspective for a little while on how I'd imagined his character and their relationship. I thought this was really artfully done. 

Life saving trips to the library
After one of Dana's trips, Kevin suggests that they go to the library to learn as much as they can about that period in history, and maybe try to forge her some realistic-looking free papers to take back with her. She ends up getting called back before this trip can happen, but I love the idea of literally life-saving trips to the library. For a reminder of my own life-saving experience with reading, re-read my blog on finishing the first 100 books. Here are a few other library moments from this blob:

Virginia Woof, A Room of One's Own

Ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction.

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I wouldn't miss Mrs. Flowers, for she had given me her secret word which called forth a djinn who was to serve me all my life: books.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

In the West he'd spent a third of his time in the poolhall, a third in jail, and a third in the public library. 

We don't want to come. 
Dana, in attempting to explain her travels with Kevin, says: 

We come from a future time and place. I don't know how we get here. We don't want to come. We don't belong here. 

For some reason, this reminded me of Ender's Game, and the way the Buggers explain themselves:

We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again.

Nostalgia
When I was reading another one of my book bingo reads, Enlightenment Now, it forced me to reflect on the way that we (or perhaps it's more accurate to say white people) romanticize the past. In his book, Stephen Pinker lists a ton of reasons why things were actually never better in the past, from mortality to retirement age to modern medicine, but it also reminded me that, while no one would argue that black people have it "good" in America today, there was no time in their history in America (or in most places outside of Africa) where things were better or easier for them. I thought Butler captured this beautifully in a conversation between Kevin and Dana when they first travel back together:

Kevin: There are so many really fascinating times we could have gone back to visit.
Dana: I can't think of any time I'd like to go back to.

Would you read to me?
While Rufus is a complicated character, and ultimately pretty awful, though also a very predictable product of his time, one of the redeeming parts of his friendship with Dana is that she reads to him. The first book she reads to him is Robinson Crusoe, which I've actually never read (I started it once, didn't get very far). Her reading to him reminded me of Faber offering to read to Montag:

Faber: Would you like me to read? I'll read so you can remember. I go to bed only five hours a night. Nothing to do. So if you like, I'll read you to sleep nights. They say you retain knowledge even when you're sleeping, if someone whispers it in your ear.
Montag: Yes.

Reading to someone, or being read to, feels so beautifully intimate to me. 

The ease
In addition to Dana's impotence, and her deeply complicated relationship with her own existence and coming into being in America, Butler intricately examines the ease with which slavery becomes 'normalized' both for Dana and for the people at the plantation around her. 

There's this line - I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.

And this one, when she's returned a third time, and is returning to the plantation at night - I was startled to catch myself saying wearily, 'Home at last.' I stood still for a moment between the fields and the house and reminded myself that I was in a hostile place.

This comment, from a slave on the plantation, about freedom - It's like dying, though, and going to heaven. Nobody ever comes back to tell you about it.

And this moment, after Dana has tried to run away and been whipped for it - Would I really try again? Could I? I tried to get away from my thoughts, but they still came. See how easily slaves are made?

Books
We don't spend too much time with Kevin and Dana in the present, but we do get a sense of what drew them together, and while there were practical reasons (they worked together) they were also drawn together by words. I loved this exchange, when they're trying to move in together:

Kevin did suggest once that I get rid of some of my books so that I'd fit into his place. 'You know,' he said, 'Just some of the book-club stuff you don't read.' To which I replied, Let's go to your place and I'll help you decide which of your books you don't read. I'll even help you throw them out. heheheheheehehhe #youcanthavemybooks #ineedthemall

Lines I Liked

• They made their own limbo and held me in it.

• What we had was something new, something that didn't even have a name.

• I wouldn't dare act as though I didn't believe.

• Don't matter what ought to be. Matters what is.

• She didn't kill him, but she seemed to die a little. 

• You can't come back all at once any more than you can leave all at once. It takes time.

I'm off to read some Joan Didion, The Decade of Mystical Ponderance, or something like that. I'll leave you with this line that I liked about Kevin, because it reminded me to keep writing: 

He'd gone on writing - unreasonably, against the advice of saner people. He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.

Hold your dear ones close, blobbists, and remember that while it never really feels like it, we are actually living in the best time right now. Keep faith, keep safe, and have a good night.