Since I didn't get a chance to do an introductory reactions post about Kindred, I'm just going to go ahead and jump right in. It started off very strong and held my interest for quite a long time. As I progressed and I realized that the book was focusing more on her relationship with Rufus and her living in 1815 than the fact that she was traveling through time. It never did end up explaining how that happened. Personally, I think she took it rather well. I don't think I'd adjust terribly well to the time traveler's lifestyle. But back to Rufus.
At first, like everybody else, I accepted him for being a somewhat selfish and rather self-destructive child but essentially not a bad person, just a product of his environment. I was rooting for him, as a matter of fact. Every time he did something stupid or mean natured, I would be say, "He'll grow out of it" or "His passion got the better of him." However, as the story progressed, he would just get more and more out of control with his acts of violence and demonstrations of control. I guess the proverbial hair that broke the camel's back, for me, was the point in which he actually swung his gun out at Dana. At this point, I was really just plowing through the book to finish it. I enjoyed it up until that point almost entirely because I had hoped there would be a happy ending between their relationship but it didn't seem like it would happen. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that I agree with Nikita--after Hagar was born, I was just mentally telling Dana to gtfo. Perhaps not go so far as to kill Rufus herself, but once Hagar was born, she was secure and the whole time paradox idea was more or less safe.
Finally, the way Butler ended the whole story did not sit too well with me. I liked how she described Dana's personal torment when it came to literally ending the life she had worked so hard and spent so much effort in saving. However, I still just had this feeling of, "okay, so now what--wait, that's it?" As if Butler simply got bored with writing and decided to kill it off. I agreed (silently) with Juliana's point in class about how she left a part of her behind, quite literally, because she had invested so much of her time and life in 1815 and I suppose I could see how Butler wanted that to be a symbolic point... but I don't know. Although I can't come up with a particularly better ending, I still didn't really like this one.
I've been going back and forth with Nikita about this, as well, and for me the question centers on realism and the ways that Butler's story is bounded by its historical setting: what kind of "happy" or satisfying ending is really possible in this context? The "journey" of the historian confronting the ugly truths of slavery yields nothing comforting or reassuring--in fact, it actually *wounds*. Dana is not a "hero"--she's improvising, doing what she can, and her role is impossibly confusing for a number of reasons (some connected to the time paradox, some more strictly ethical in nature). Killing Rufus (finally!) does not provide a satisfying resolution, as in fact she learns that the remaining slaves are sold off, and now his recently freed children are orphaned. One basic way to look at it is that American history simply doesn't allow for a conventional happy ending to this story, and Butler chooses to make it instead a jagged, open wound. This may be frustrating to a reader's sense of plot-satisfaction, but it's consistent with the novel's themes.
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