kurtwombat's reviews
883 reviews

 A confoundingly great novel. It is alive with all the complexities of living and moves with the weight of history. Appearing a simple time travel tale on the surface, KINDRED presents a blistering indictment of American slavery, the ongoing socio-psychological burden of history, female empowerment, racial relations and how we pay for our sins. You are not forced to entertain these thoughts—they are made available to you—KINDRED is just as good a story without the deep reading. Octavia Butler pulls off another amazing trick. A novel about two specific times feels timeless. Of course the slick new paperback version I was reading contributed to this but while reading I didn’t think once about it having been written in the mid 70’s—40+ years ago. I especially loved how the author destroyed the lazy view of history—most books present people from the past as being like modern folks just dressing or talking differently--like a high school play. Butler nails the entirely different mindset of a another era and better yet posits that proximity and time will lead even a modern person to gradually assume the mindset of that era. Brilliantly conceived and presented. One of my favorite books. 

 

Fascinating. From the investigative work uncovering the vast history of Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults on women to the powder keg of the ME TOO movement ignited by that work--fascinating. I'm almost sixty (I write the word because I find the number daunting) and fortunately have been quite liberal from a young age. Even so, gender stereotypes that served a male dominant power structure were deeply ingrained in me. Sure more women should be doctors but having a just a few around seemed satisfactory. Someday there will be more. Sure women should be directing major motion pictures--there are a couple. One day there will be more. Etc. And by extension, sexual abuse and harassment are bad but it doesn't happen that often and it will soon go away (and it's only done by strangers). Our culture has long been calcified by these conceits. I knew better. The smartest and most dedicated people I knew were mostly women. I was blessed to be considered a good listener and was stunned to find out how many women I knew had suffered abuse. Once I was married a whole new pipeline of second hand stories entered my life. The extent of such things is heartbreaking. Even knowing all this, I can still feel the box of stereotypes around me. Maybe I had just given up hope that serious change was possible in my lifetime. But the world feels different now. Sure it appears chaotic but that's what happens when you find that crack and push your way up through the ice. There have been advances before but the battles today for racial, gender, and Lgbtqi+ rights feel like they will not stop. I just have to see the fear on the faces of their oppressors to feel this way (fear is most often expressed as hate). So this book fascinates as a You Are There at the dawn of great possibilities.

This book opens like the first morning light that eases the burden of the night sky. Subtly the light increases and the world begins to turn. Gently our naive but perceptive narrator awakens and begins to decipher the world--and her potential place in it. And by proxy, she seeks to find out where we all belong. In this vaguely future world are we abdicating our humanity. Is religion to be abandoned whole cloth or is the yearning a necessary part of who we are. Are we never more human than when we seek answers. Is it our lot to find our own way -- a job we used to outsource to God. Is it just simple compassion that makes the sun arc across the sky. Sweet without being saccharine, touching without being manipulative--there is a scene of such desperate longing that it literally look my breath away--I had to put the book down. This book is a miracle of simple narration crafted to be both poetic and dreamlike with an ending that is beautiful, heartbreaking and necessary. 

 

This is pure delicious Thompson. He pulls you in with a protagonist to pity--Dillon who spares no chances to tell you how mean the world has been to him. Then he meets a sweet gal equally under life's thumb. Maybe he can save her...and himself at the same time. Quickly though you begin to figure his intentions ain't so pure and his luck not so much the result of a cruel world as it is the residue of his character. But you still humor the idea of redemption--the girl at least is worth saving. Thompson keeps pulling the thread--unravelling hope for this guy. And then the fall as if pushed out the back of a moving truck. The story slides across hard asphalt, Dillon is dumber, blinder and crueler than we feared, sliding off the road to a hard stop in the bushes. As he so often does, Thompson supplies a great ending. In this case two-- and you are then left wondering who the title actually refers to. 

Warm, self effacing and funny. Took a couple chapters to catch my ear but then I was able to just settle in and smile. Her problems are definitely not my problems but the humor pulls you in and you feel like it is your life.

 As they say, I received this ARC for an honest review from Library Thing. And thank you. I didn't feel like I was reading a novel so much as having one described to me. This disconnect stems largely from the clunky translation. Amusingly there is a point in the book where the main character says he only speaks Russian and if he had to explain anything in English he'd be in trouble. Profanity is thrown in at random points seemingly as proof that the translation isn't in trouble. It all hurt my ears. The time travel concept was interesting -- a unique take on the actual travel technique -- and I did appreciate the author mixing religion and Marxism into a far flung dystopian stew but the set up before time travel was too long for such a short work. And it is unpleasant. When he finally does arrive in the future he asks all the wrong questions for a person in his position -- he is asking questions to move the story not questions that come from who he is or reveal how he feels (he should be scared but instead seems annoyed). The final crushing blow was a character in the future world called Junior. He is an uneducated child member of a slave race that seems to know everything and can express complicated sociopolitical concepts like he just rolled out of a community college. His full name should be Junior Exposition. The long set up before the time travel begged for more of a wrap up upon his return than there is. The novel just kinda drifts to a stop.