1st thoughts

I am not fond of the topic of time travel, but I liked the presence of evidence of Dana's time travel (returning with wet clothes, etc.). We aren’t left to wonder until the end of the book if she was really traveling through time or whether it was one huge hallucination; other evolving issues can be focused on.
Kevin and Dana adjusted to everything far too quickly, I felt. Kevin’s initial reaction of disbelief, confusion, and so on was much more believable and expected than his fairly calm demeanor by the end of the chapter.
The difference in how time passes between the two eras is interesting. I don’t know if the ratio will remain consistent, though.

1st thoughts

My first thoughts after reading the first chapter of Kindred were relatively positive. I loved the way Butler so easily drew me in as she began the book with such a mysterious, vague scene unfolding. I didn't want to put the book down because I think I secretly hoped Butler would explain to me why Dana's arm was missing...
I was also somewhat surprised that the book was associated so frequently with science-fiction. I thought maybe as the book continued that the time travel aspect would be elaborated upon more, but from reading the first chapter alone, it seems like the author chooses more to allow the reader to understand Dana's thoughts and emotions rather than delve into the details of time travel. I do also remember being extremely intrigued by the fact that the author chose to create such a distinguished time difference between the past and present in the sense that, while Dana is in the 1800s for a decent amount of time, merely ten to fifteen seconds passed in her absence in the present.

1st thoughts

The prologue captured my attention right away. I was surprised by how much excitement Octavia Butler was able to fit into a few short pages. By simply reading the prologue, one can already tell that this book will be filled with adventure, fear, and confusion. It is evident to me that while Dana's travels start out short, they will escalate throughout the book until finally resulting in massive amounts of lost time. The more Dana helps, the more she will be needed. She is depicted as a strong woman: one who has a good sense of priority. She is shown in sharp contrast to Rufus' mother, who is the stereotypical woman in distress. Dana knows that she has no time to think about how she appeared by a random river. She instead uses her first instincts in knowing that she must save the drowning boy. I believe that as the book goes on, her strength will increase to a high level. Once she has reached this level, she will either have to use her strength for one final heroic gesture or she will break and give up. It should be interesting to see how it plays out.

Octavia Butler's prologue and first chapter of Kindred left me with the best emotions that I felt throughout the entire novel. I loved how right from the beginning Butler grabbed my attention with a very complex and ambiguous prologue. The excitement of Dana losing her arm inside a wall, or essentially between two time periods, is sufficient enough to reel any reader into the story line. Right from the get-go, I found myself with tons of unanswered questions. I was dying to know more about Kevin and Dana, and especially the "trip" Dana had embarked on that ultimately resulted in a dismembered arm.

Kindred's first chapter, "The River", doesn't exactly present the character descriptions that I was hoping to receive. I can collect that Dana and Kevin are a couple moving into a new home together. Both characters seem very likable, as well as intellectual. As much as I'd like to know a little more about Kevin and Dana, Butler obviously isn't interested in lengthy analyses. By the second page of the "The River," the book's theme of time travel is presented when Dana passes out and finds herself in the antebellum South. This is her first and perhaps one of her most exciting encounters with the Weylins. She enters the past only to find a young boy, better known as Rufus, drowning in a river. After Dana saves his life, she is repaid by having a rifle pointed at her face just before she travels back to the present. In resemblance to the prologue, this scenario was exciting, yet very vague. Now that I've been introduced to Rufus and two other main characters, I can begin to piece together the unanswered questions about the "trips" Dana takes. At the end of the chapter, I find myself very anxious to see where Dana will end up on her next transportation to the past. I'm almost certain that when she travels back again to the 1800s that her encounter will include the same characters from her previous journey. I'm not quite sure if she will return to Rufus in the same year that she has just met him.

On a side note, I found it very interesting that time passes at two completely different speeds when comparing the past and the present in Kindred. Her first encounter in the South takes a few minutes, while in 1976, or the present, she is gone for merely seconds. This differentiation proved to futher help me in keeping a clear contrast between the 19th and 20th century.