Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is our New School read for May 2019. This was published in 1979 and has a Goodreads rating of 4.23

Awesome! Will be starting as soon as I finish The Haunting of Hill House.

I am about halfway through and absolutely loving it. Looking forward to discussing it with you all.

Rachelnyc wrote: "I am about halfway through and absolutely loving it. Looking forward to discussing it with you all."

That's good to know. We usually like the same books.

Milena wrote: "Rachelnyc wrote: "I am about halfway through and absolutely loving it. Looking forward to discussing it with you all."

That's good to know. We usually like the same books."

I think you'll really like this one Milena. I was absorbed from the beginning and love the main character.

I also think this is the perfect book to fill the Sci-fi Bingo category for people who don't generally enjoy that genre or for those looking for an entry into it.

I actually loved this book, and yes, I am one who doesn't like SciFi. But the historical fiction element was so interesting to me.

The Kindle says I'm at 36%. Fascinating read so far.

Finished today, just couldn't put it down to do my chores.

I'm so glad everyone seems to like it. I can't wait to start.

I finished this and thought it was terrific. Dana was such a great protagonist with believable actions and motivations. And Rufus was a tool but of course was a product of his time and how he was raised. Although, I think Dana gave him more of a pass on that than he deserved.

Growing up knowing what life is like in the future should have been enough for him to at least try to be a better person. I guess we saw a few glimpses of that but not nearly enough but clearly he had his demons.

I started reading last night, and I really like it so far. I am finding this book so much scarier than The Haunting of Hill House. Not sure if that has to do with the writing quality, or just the idea of a modern black woman traveling back to the time of slavery. Maybe both? I am only at 10% so we shall see.

Just finished it and loved it. Like many of you I was hooked from beginning to end.

Philina wrote: "Just finished it and loved it. Like many of you I was hooked from beginning to end."

Cool, Philina. If you and Rachel both loved it, then I will also. I definitely do so far, but I am only less than 20% in.

With slavery and concentration camps we have some heavy subjects this month.

Finishing both books - Kindred and Night - on the same day I cannot but compare and contrast those two horrors of human history. In my opinion, the concentration camps were worse, because their goal was extermination, whereas slaves at least had some value as property and no slave owner wanted to destroy property for no reason. I‘m not sure if it’s even morally right to debate what was worse. Both events were so utterly horrible that I feel like saying concentration camps were worse I downplay slavery.

I agree, Philina, that comparing two evils to pick which is the lesser has the danger of making it seem you are justifying one, when you are not. However, I would have to agree with your choice, if forced to choose. Slaves were meant to survive and multiply, while all concentration camp victims were meant to die, and all their children with them.

This book is light and easy in some respects...the use of time-travel as a medium and the need to deal with that for Dana gives it that element, but it has a deeper level and that appeals to me. I thought Butler did an excellent job of portraying slavery for what it very likely was, an almost confusing thing for both slaves and slave owners. I think most slave owners considered themselves quite moral (in Kindred, Rufus and his father certainly would have seen themselves that way), but how on earth do you reconcile that with the cruelties you inflict on other people daily? How do you profess to love a person and then do to Alice what Rufus did? What kind of ego does it take to believe that you have that kind of dominion over another human being?

I'm glad that this was chosen as the group read, and especially glad that Bob reviewed it early and praised it (because I had already decided to pass). It was a surprise for me, in a genre I generally do not gravitate toward.

I listened to an audio edition and really enjoyed it, much more than I thought I would. I couldn't wrap my tiny little brain around the antebellum south and time travel. I think the author did an amazing job of not sugar coating the historical aspect of it, and then to intertwine the time travel. It came off pretty seamlessly to me.

Rachelnyc wrote: "Although, I think Dana gave him more of a pass on that than he deserved. "

I was thinking she was terribly brave to be as bold as she was under the circumstances.

Sara wrote: "What kind of ego does it take to believe that you have that kind of dominion over another human being?"

Then? It was commonplace so not much of an ego at all, it was their way of life. It's hard (for me) not to judge, however, I'm always careful about imposing 21st-century morals on 19th-century characters. We believe such different things then. I was recently watching Ken Burns' Civil War and the people of the time would take children to watch hangings... I can't imagine exposing my children or grandchildren to that but then, again, it was commonplace. That certainly doesn't make it right (at least by our standards...) kind of barbaric actually but the fact remains it is what happened.

There were plenty of people in every period of history who had morals, and left written testimony of such, before such morals were considered fashionable by public consumption. I'd rather pay attention to these forthright folks than the masses who only stopped being evil when it became illegal.

I understand what you are saying. I always allow for the differences in time when I read and do not hold the past to modern standards. Still, I think it takes a lot of ego or sense of superiority in a person (any place, any time) to be comfortable with owning someone else and think that you have the god-given right to take their life if you please.

I agree about the hangings. It always amazes me to think that people packed lunches and made a sort of holiday out of watching someone else die.

Aubrey wrote: "There were plenty of people in every period of history who had morals, and left written testimony of such, before such morals were considered fashionable by public consumption. I'd rather pay atten..."

I agree, to an extent. We are a product, at least in part, of our environment and upbringing. It takes a lot of self-reflection to undo what we learned in childhood, and some folks never get to that point. It's hard work and the majority of people live their lives without necessarily questioning what they have been taught, they just take it at face value.

I think that's one of the amazing things about the times we live in, we've got access to so much information at our fingertips, should anyone ever want move past their childhood and environmental "norms."

I'm just going to drop my review here. Most of what I have to say is in it, although I did try to avoid spoilers.

"Wow. Not only is this book brilliantly unique, it grabs you in ways you never expect. I expected to find the usual slave narrative, fictionalized, but I didn't expect to have a love-hate relationship with one of the main characters. I expected to either love him because he was a better man than most slave owners, or hate him because he wasn't. That would have been much, much too simple. To be honest, it also wouldn't have been very realistic. Slave owners weren't across-the-board evil even in the real world, although I suspect some of them came pretty close, treating their dogs better than they treated their slaves. Slavery seems, to me, a system ripe for the abuse of power and it probably attracted a certain kind of person because of that. Much like certain political systems are inherently attractive to those who believe women were meant to serve men.

"That said, I really had a hard time with the character of Rufus. How could anyone be so blind that, even knowing what he does about Dana's origin, he can't see her as someone worthy of respect? I wanted to reach through the pages and knock some sense into him. He's so ignorant that he can't see past his own wants, and the fact that forcing himself on someone who has no choice will never endear her to him. Poor Alice. I wasn't expecting that part of the storyline. I honestly believed this would be about a man who saw the inherent inhumanity of slavery and saw them as human beings. He was, after all, Dana's ancestor. He never did. I'm not convinced he even saw his own children as human, even though he clearly loved them.

"After reading the entire book and thinking about it for a day or so, I think Rufus was a flawed and damaged human being from childhood. What else explains burning down a stable because you didn't get a horse you wanted, and then following that up with trying to burn down your own home? He had a distant and strict father that he was afraid of, and a neurotic and smothering mother that he had no respect for. His attitude towards his mother, which we see fairly early on, should have been a big clue. He was manipulative until he couldn't get what he wanted, then he was rude and disrespectful, and he got away with it, so he repeated the pattern often. In essence, he was a spoiled child and he grew into a spoiled man, partly because of his parents and partly because of a system that taught him he was better than others.

"This book should be required reading. Nonfiction slave narratives are important too, but they don't always have the power of a well-written fictional account of an otherwise similar series of events. This hits hard, without introducing any events that we don't already know were common due to the various nonfiction accounts.

"It loses one star only because it's often billed as science fiction, but the time-travel, which is never explained or described and is only used as a means of placing modern sensibilities in the past, is the only element that could be considered science fiction. Brilliant book, just not really science fiction."

Rachelnyc wrote: "I finished this and thought it was terrific. Dana was such a great protagonist with believable actions and motivations. And Rufus was a tool but of course was a product of his time and how he was r..."

Yeah, she definitely gave him a pass he didn't deserve, although that was at least in part to make sure he fathered the daughter needed to preserve her own family line.

Philina wrote: "With slavery and concentration camps we have some heavy subjects this month.

Finishing both books - Kindred and Night - on the same day I cannot but compare and contrast those two horrors of huma..."

I didn't finish them on the same day, but they were less than a week apart, so I had the same reaction.

Everything I wanted to say has already been said so beautifully by Aprilleigh, and others before. I can't help comparing Rufus to Esteban in The House of the Spirits. They were both despicable human beings by today's standards certainly, but were both products of their time and circumstances. This strikes me because I just finished The House of the Spirits a few weeks ago. Octavia Butler used the time travel premise very cleverly to set up Dana's dilemma. If she had no personal interest in seeing Rufus live, she could have just gone around killing slave owners at will. After all, she eventually figured out how to get back to her own time.

Anyway, it was a great book. I agree it was barely SciFi, but I used it for that square in my classic bingo since that's what I had planned.

Agreed, I would consider using it there as well, but I have other deeply sci-fi books lined up as potentials for that square.

I will have to read The House of the Spirits soon. I picked up a used copy at some point, but my TBR is ridiculously huge (and I just bought a Kindle, so now it includes another 70 or so ebook titles). You just gave it a shove to a more prominent spot.

Aprilleigh wrote: "Agreed, I would consider using it there as well, but I have other deeply sci-fi books lined up as potentials for that square.

I will have to read The House of the Spirits soon. I picke..."

Do it! It was a 5 star read for me this year. I gave Kindred 4 stars.

This is such a random thing. My town has signs up all over the place for school board elections, and one of the people running is named Dana Franklin. It's not an uncommon name, but also not that common. I don't know a single Dana in real life.

Well said, Aprilleigh!

⊱✿Gem✿⊰ wrote: "Rachelnyc wrote: "Although, I think Dana gave him more of a pass on that than he deserved. "

I was thinking she was terribly brave to be as bold as she was under the circumstances...."

I agree about her being brave but even inwardly, she seemed to forgive him for reprehensible behavior. I agree with Aprilleigh though that in large part that was due to the fact that her very being relied on him living until her ancestor was born, at least.

Milena wrote: "Everything I wanted to say has already been said so beautifully by Aprilleigh, and others before. I can't help comparing Rufus to Esteban in The House of the Spirits. They were both des..."

I definitely see the similarity between Esteban and Rufus. As others have said, I try not to judge by current standards but it's difficult to believe that a person with any moral compass didn't at least question that the owning (and raping) of human beings was reprehensible, especially since so many of them were supposedly Christian.

ETA: Oh and (shocker) I rated Kindred and House of the Spirits the same as you did Milena.

⊱✿Gem✿⊰ wrote: "I listened to an audio edition and really enjoyed it..."
I also listened to the audiobook read by Kim Staunton on my commutes. It has some similarities to the Outlander series, but this book was written 12 years earlier in 1979. This book is a bit more fast paced with back and forth time traveling. Dana must learn to survive living on a plantation in the slave state of Maryland where she has no rights. She meets a couple of her ancestors and learns about her surprising black and white family tree. She experiences physical trauma similar to the women of several generations past. There isn’t really a science fiction device for the time traveling, so it is more fantasy based. Sometimes time travel stories can be full of loopholes and anachronisms, but Butler has very carefully constructed the plot based on history that the hero Dana cannot so easily change for the better. I agree with others who have posted here that the complex characters and historical fiction setting kept me intrigued throughout.

So after reading this I picked up Beloved by Toni Morrison. A good followup and beautiful writing on this one also.

I found a set of nice discussion questions here: http://www.beacon.org/Assets/ClientPa...

If nothing else they are good for a reflection on the book.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is our April 2026 New School Group Read. This is a spoiler thread.