Kindred is a first-person narrative of a woman, Dana, and her husband, Kevin, being pulled back in time to save the life of her ancestor, Rufus, who seems perpetually prone to disaster. The catch is that she’s African American and Rufus is white, and lives in Antebellum Maryland. I loved this book so hard. The germ of this book occurred to Octavia Butler after she heard the anger of a young black consciousness activist targeting the subservience in older generations towards oppressive white culture. Paired […]
Just Read This Book Already
I literally read this book 6 months ago, but kept putting off writing the review because there’s no way anything I can say will do any justice to Kindred. Seriously, Octavia Butler is working on a completely different level than most authors. If I were a teacher, I’d be pushing this on my students like crazy. Dana, a black woman, and Kevin, a white man, are a married couple living in the 1970s. They’re both very modern, educated people. On Dana’s 26th birthday, she is […]
Why did I wait so long to read this book?
I’m almost ashamed to admit that until this year, I had never read any Octavia Butler. When I went through my original SciFi reading phase in high school, she was never even mentioned amongst my nerd-kin friends, and now, though I’m late to the party, I know I have found one of the best writers, of any kind, of the modern age. Kindred is Butler’s best selling novel and is still required reading for many university and college writing and gender studies programs. The story […]
Be the Change You Wish to See in the World
The Parable of the Sower, by the brilliant Octavia Butler (author of Kindred), is a piece of dystopian fiction set in California in the 2020s. It’s not clear precisely what happened, but rule of law and access to utilities, education, and basic necessities have been severely curtailed. Our narrator is Lauren Olamina, a teenager who lives inside one of the remaining walled communities on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Lauren is a “sharer” or “feeler,” i.e., a person who has a condition called hyper empathy […]
Why didn’t I read this sooner!?
This is straight up going to be one of those reviews where I don’t do the book justice, in this case it’s mostly because I feel kind of overwhelmed by what I just read. I wish I had time to sit down and re-read it, pen in hand, and then attend a series of lecture classes with likeminded people where we totally dissect it and wallow around in its lovely nuance. Maybe I just miss grad school. (The people and the atmosphere and the stimulating discussion, […]