Book Challenge 5/12
Feb. 27th, 2016 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsMy next fill in the 2016 Book Challenge is the "book published before you were born":
"Kindred" by Octavia Butler
(I also considered counting it as the "book you should have read in school," but I already had another idea for that one. And this way offers a certain kind of style points; the book and I came out in the same year, but it's just a few months older.)
This is for the Millennials book group at the Library; the discussion of it isn't for a couple of weeks yet, but I went ahead and did the assignment early.
I'd long been meaning to read Octavia Butler, a highly-recommended black feminist sci-fi author, and this was the push I needed to go there. This novel in particular tells the story of Dana, a modern African-American woman who is mysteriously and repeatedly pulled back in time to the antebellum south to save the life of her own slave-owner ancestor. Trigger warnings abound for this book: slavery, rape, humiliation, abusive relationships, torture... in short, slavery.
On the one hand: black feminist sci-fi classic! Yay, w00t!
On the other hand, the classic status accorded to this, while I think a good thing in itself, does fit into a problematic pattern of, how to say, black-suffering Oscar bait. The ever-awesome Roxane Gay has the story [Trigger Warnings for more of the same; she reviews and describes scenes from "12 Years a Slave"].
This was brought home for me in particular because someone in my online circle (whom I won't identify if they don't want me to) coincidentally tried to read it at the same time I did, and for them, the slavery content was beyond the wall of NOPE, which I totally respect. In fact I'm a bit disturbed at how disturbed I wasn't --- like the n-word is all over this book, and it didn't bother me like it should have, or like a book peppered with, say, homophobic slurs probably would, no matter how historically accurate they were. White privilege gives me the distance to comfortably contextualize this.
But what is going on with the larger pattern? Are we white people mentally watching this from the sidelines identifying with off-camera Abraham Lincoln and getting our White Savior fix? Would we rather be the villains than be irrelevant? I'll admit to a flaw in my character here that I am less likely to engage with media that has an all-black cast of people just doing their thing, and I guess the irrelevancy factor enters in --- but then I'll watch all-Asian casts no problem (and I'm not just talking about anime, either; Zhang Yimou movies, Saving Face, yeah, I'm there). It looks like I have some work to do here.
To the specifics of this book, I enjoyed the passages about Dana's modern-day life (and her interracial marriage), and I would have liked more of it, but the meat of the story is the time-traveling depiction of slavery.
I found it interesting and powerful how it frames that depiction with an abusive relationship --- seriously, the slave-owning ancestor who keeps needing to be rescued is a stalker/rapist/abuser who has the law on his side, but he's not a cartoonish villain, either. He sincerely falls in love with a black woman, but he's too immature to take "no" for an answer and in the legal regime of white supremacy, his immaturity is enforceable. This brute power destroys any possibility of the kind of connection he really wants, but he never seems to understand that. He also constantly pulls the abuser's trick of foisting responsibility for his actions onto his victims. He's a sad, screwed-up, self-destructive person, screwed up by the system in his own way, but the book clearly does not allow this as an excuse for his behavior, and indeed any sympathy we or Dana have for him ultimately makes him more dangerous, not less.
With that as the point of reference, the book depicts slavery and white supremacy as a system that corrupts or at least compromises every relationship it touches, not only between races but within them. We see the mistress drive everyone crazy in attempts to deny her own irrelevance. We see slaves turn against each other as safe targets and competitors for more livable work positions. We see slaves marry and have children, only to have their love used as another lever of control.
And the system compromises people. The white masters choose between power and humanity/connection, although none of them ever seem aware of the choice. The slaves are aware of their dilemma between disaster-avoidance and dignity --- Dana is acutely aware of it, and it's the choice she faces at the climax, but the book treats either choice as worthy of respect. To survive and protect what little you can is strength. To risk everything for integrity is also strength. And a system that makes the two mutually exclusive is a crime against humanity.
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you can finish in a day
-A book you've been meaning to read
-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
-A book you should have read in school
-A book chosen for you by [a loved one]
-A book published before you were born
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
Next fill... Well, I think I'll start on that aforementioned other plan for the "book you should have read in school," but it may not be the next thing I finish...
"Kindred" by Octavia Butler
(I also considered counting it as the "book you should have read in school," but I already had another idea for that one. And this way offers a certain kind of style points; the book and I came out in the same year, but it's just a few months older.)
This is for the Millennials book group at the Library; the discussion of it isn't for a couple of weeks yet, but I went ahead and did the assignment early.
I'd long been meaning to read Octavia Butler, a highly-recommended black feminist sci-fi author, and this was the push I needed to go there. This novel in particular tells the story of Dana, a modern African-American woman who is mysteriously and repeatedly pulled back in time to the antebellum south to save the life of her own slave-owner ancestor. Trigger warnings abound for this book: slavery, rape, humiliation, abusive relationships, torture... in short, slavery.
On the one hand: black feminist sci-fi classic! Yay, w00t!
On the other hand, the classic status accorded to this, while I think a good thing in itself, does fit into a problematic pattern of, how to say, black-suffering Oscar bait. The ever-awesome Roxane Gay has the story [Trigger Warnings for more of the same; she reviews and describes scenes from "12 Years a Slave"].
This was brought home for me in particular because someone in my online circle (whom I won't identify if they don't want me to) coincidentally tried to read it at the same time I did, and for them, the slavery content was beyond the wall of NOPE, which I totally respect. In fact I'm a bit disturbed at how disturbed I wasn't --- like the n-word is all over this book, and it didn't bother me like it should have, or like a book peppered with, say, homophobic slurs probably would, no matter how historically accurate they were. White privilege gives me the distance to comfortably contextualize this.
But what is going on with the larger pattern? Are we white people mentally watching this from the sidelines identifying with off-camera Abraham Lincoln and getting our White Savior fix? Would we rather be the villains than be irrelevant? I'll admit to a flaw in my character here that I am less likely to engage with media that has an all-black cast of people just doing their thing, and I guess the irrelevancy factor enters in --- but then I'll watch all-Asian casts no problem (and I'm not just talking about anime, either; Zhang Yimou movies, Saving Face, yeah, I'm there). It looks like I have some work to do here.
To the specifics of this book, I enjoyed the passages about Dana's modern-day life (and her interracial marriage), and I would have liked more of it, but the meat of the story is the time-traveling depiction of slavery.
I found it interesting and powerful how it frames that depiction with an abusive relationship --- seriously, the slave-owning ancestor who keeps needing to be rescued is a stalker/rapist/abuser who has the law on his side, but he's not a cartoonish villain, either. He sincerely falls in love with a black woman, but he's too immature to take "no" for an answer and in the legal regime of white supremacy, his immaturity is enforceable. This brute power destroys any possibility of the kind of connection he really wants, but he never seems to understand that. He also constantly pulls the abuser's trick of foisting responsibility for his actions onto his victims. He's a sad, screwed-up, self-destructive person, screwed up by the system in his own way, but the book clearly does not allow this as an excuse for his behavior, and indeed any sympathy we or Dana have for him ultimately makes him more dangerous, not less.
With that as the point of reference, the book depicts slavery and white supremacy as a system that corrupts or at least compromises every relationship it touches, not only between races but within them. We see the mistress drive everyone crazy in attempts to deny her own irrelevance. We see slaves turn against each other as safe targets and competitors for more livable work positions. We see slaves marry and have children, only to have their love used as another lever of control.
And the system compromises people. The white masters choose between power and humanity/connection, although none of them ever seem aware of the choice. The slaves are aware of their dilemma between disaster-avoidance and dignity --- Dana is acutely aware of it, and it's the choice she faces at the climax, but the book treats either choice as worthy of respect. To survive and protect what little you can is strength. To risk everything for integrity is also strength. And a system that makes the two mutually exclusive is a crime against humanity.
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you should have read in school
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
Next fill... Well, I think I'll start on that aforementioned other plan for the "book you should have read in school," but it may not be the next thing I finish...
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Date: 2017-01-30 02:30 pm (UTC)