Kindred
Octavia E Butler
Slavery seen through compassion
Kindred shows slavery in the antebellum South of the USA through the eyes of a young Black woman, Dana, born in 1950, and 26 years old when the action begins. Dana is married to a white man, Kevin Franklin and lives in Los Angeles when the story begins.
How does Dana experience slavery? On her 26th birthday she suddenly becomes dizzy and falls down to find herself in Maryland, 1819, although she doesn't learn the location and year until later. Shortly thereafter she is transported back to her home in LA. Over the course of the next few weeks in LA, she, and also Kevin on one occasion, are repeatedly transported in this unpredictable way to a Maryland plantation, where they spend months or years. There, as a Black person (that's not the word they use) with no papers showing her to be free, Dana is treated as a slave.
I did not enjoy this book. I won't say it is impossible, but I certainly have a hard time imagining how anyone could experience enjoyment while reading it. In case you were in any doubt about the matter, let me assure you that slavery is not happy fun times. Dana and other characters repeatedly experience dehumanizing brutality and degradation.
What most struck me is that no one escapes Dana's compassion. There are good people and bad people: the slaves who help each other even at great cost, the white masters, slaves who snitch on their fellows or who cooperate in the degradation of their fellow slaves... None of them are simple, and none of them is beyond reach of Dana's empathy. This doesn't necessarily mean that she excuses their behavior, but that she tries to understand. It is not a gentle view of slavery, and it is not a simple one.