Kindred in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Oct 19, 2017 Loretta rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy, audiobooks

After reading James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, I went down a bit of a rabbit-hole. I've started and almost finished Uncle Tom's Cabin, which I found challenging to read because of the language and stereotypes (but it got easier as I went along, and I'm almost finished it now); I've just started Native Son by Richard Wright; and then I needed something to read for the car so I went with Kindred, because Butler has been on my to be read list for ages.

I loved this book. The narration was exc After reading James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, I went down a bit of a rabbit-hole. I've started and almost finished Uncle Tom's Cabin, which I found challenging to read because of the language and stereotypes (but it got easier as I went along, and I'm almost finished it now); I've just started Native Son by Richard Wright; and then I needed something to read for the car so I went with Kindred, because Butler has been on my to be read list for ages.

I loved this book. The narration was excellent. But the story is what is outstanding. I might have more to say after finishing Uncle Tom's Cabin and Native Son, but what I think Butler accomplished really well, using the device of the modern woman being dropped into the antebellum south, was depicting, in a way, the banality of evil. That slave owners could be monsters, but they could also be human beings, recognizable characters but caught up and deformed by an institution that deformed everyone human being it touched. One good reads review I read was upset that the Weylans weren't "evil" enough, but I think that is exactly the point. I think Butler clearly exposes the utter evil and dehumanization brought about by an institution that allows the ownership, sale and purchase of human beings - and shows that it dehumanizes not just the slaves (although of course they pay all the costs of this system), but also the owners, and the bystanders, and everyone who works in and benefits from this society. And it's too easy when the portrait of slave-owners is a demon - it's too easy for white people to sniff and condemn and NOT RECOGNIZE that even though THEY could never be that evil, their ancestors were never owners, that all white people were complicit and part of the system, whether or not they actually whipped a slave. That slave owners and those who benefited from the institution were not different from us. They were us. We are them. Forgetting that (and encouraging the forgetting of that) is what the system of white supremacy urges upon us and encourages every day. We can't forget it.

When I saw the movie Schinder's list, I was struck at one point by Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of the Nazi soldier - I saw that in today's society, he'd be a sleazy used car salesman - dishonest, getting away with whatever trickery he could, probably abusive to his wife but not a "monster". But in a society in which that kind of evil was encouraged and allowed to flourish, he became a monster. And looking around the world today, it's a different form of monstrosity which is being encouraged and flourishing - but not that different. And it is being encouraged. And we can't pretend our society is immune from that kind of bigotry because clearly, we're not.

And this is why I loved this book. It was populated by real people, in a real society that we aren't that far removed from. And we can't forget that reality. ...more

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Aug 31, 2014 Adriel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: feminist, fiction, historical-fiction, sf

Astounding, and hard to put down, says after reading it I am still considering the literary implications of how the the characters related to each other and their times and environments. Despite the subject matter of slavery in the south, this book felt less depressing than I remember the parable books to be. It is heartwrenching, but with enough emotional complexity to make it feel like an honest exploration into life choices and relationships.

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Aug 20, 2012 Ruth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This novel, like Parable of the Sower, made me absolutely terrified. Very very powerful. ...more

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Dec 31, 2020 Kerry rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 05, 2013 Julianne Dunn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It's an interesting story of a woman who travels back in time to save her ancestor every time he is in danger. She is an African American woman based in 1976 and her ancestor is a slave owner in antebellum Maryland. ...more

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Jul 07, 2017 Krystal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, fiction, quick-reads, read-harder-2017, 2017

I just loved this book. It is very different than the kind of book I think I would normally get excited about, but I found it really well done. It is definitely less sci-fi than I expected from Butler but nonetheless a very cool piece of speculative historical fiction from an amazing and trailblazing novelist.

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