Journal Entry: Experience with Memory Project Interview.

May 19th, 2015

Yesterday I finally had my interview with my Uncle. We met up at a Starbucks after class. I was really looking forward to this particular part of the project mostly because I had never had a real in depth conversation with him, as we had only met in January. When I arrived he seemed happy to be meeting with me, which made me feel a lot more comfortable about the interviewing process.

After we ordered our coffees we began our discussion. I pulled out my ipad to record, he looked down at it and made a joke about how the interview would have jazzy background music to it since Starbucks had their radio on pretty loudly. He began by apologizing to me in advance, as he told me he had a bad memory and couldn’t recall most of his childhood. He told me that he believed his bad memory was due to the fact that both his parents and sister had passed so he never got the opportunity to talk to them and recall the good old days.

He said it had been twenty years since they had passed, and every year it just got harder and harder. I told him it was alright, that although he couldn’t remember a lot that this could almost have an interesting spin on the memory project.He agreed and continued by explaining to me some basic facts about his life, such as where he was born, when he was adopted, and when he met his wife. It was really hard getting him to elaborate on any details of his life. I could tell he was really contemplating but really could only remember specific times things happened that were major stepping-stones in his life.

I think my favorite part of the interview was when he went on to explain the moment my grandpa called him for the first time and how unbelievable he found the circumstances could be. How excited he was to have new family and a new opportunity to discover his roots.

Traveling has always been an activity which has run through the veins for many of us. The absolute thrill of adventure and the sensations the undiscovered delivers second by second is a fascinating reward. In particular a recent experience occurred in Wyoming while surveying a Paleo-Indian archaeological site (which with the help from Proust) has radicalized my perceptions of not only myself, but also my heritage and above all, time.
Like Proust, the romance which the past infiltrates is very present in our profession as handlers of material culture. I keep finding myself going back to the Madeleine and also to the early passages of the Journey to Balbec and can’t help but transport myself with those very same emotions to places I’ve been where the expectations exceed the reality of the destination. What was idiosyncratic about this particular experience among the others was the adjacency of our early-entry point site next to the path of the Oregon trail and the wagon ruts they left as well as their names which enculturated my senses as my maternal ancestors were early trail blazers.
I wonder if I walked in the same steps as they, and now as a result I cannot help but think I was as close to living multiple lives through three different periods in time at once. In retrospect (a re-occurring ponder within the last few weeks) something has me perplexed in a multitude of emotions that can only be explained as anomie. An issue with being occupied with the accretion of history is the confusion the present brings to us. This alienation ( and the fear that the future can seem to bring) helps me emphasize with Marcel while also raising some serious questions and concerns.
The romance of time and history is quickly dissipated by the fulfillment that cynism brings by the appropriation the present has on it.

Almost like a reverse Madeleine affect, and just as quickly as I had entered this state of historical equilibrium walking among the spirits of my mothers ancestors, I was transported back out to the familiar artifacts of the worthless we will leave to following excavators. I felt a landslide of sadness that had no home until now. This sadness wasn’t for the litter, or for the assimilation of history (that is the nature of our being after all), but rather for the destruction of what time has brought, and the cruel reality many of us face of living too early, or perhaps too late in its continuum.Proust believes we must separate beauty and happiness apart in order to truly appreciate its meaning as its given to us. I believe romance and adventure applies to the same principle. The combination of the two manifests a depressing recollection of conjured, imaginary memories which are homeless to any part in our mind when they’re evicted by the notions of reality.

Last night I went to the Seattle opera and experienced the German play Ariadne Auf Naxos. Roughly conducted around the same time as the release of Proust’s ideas and novel In Search Of Lost Time at the turn of the 20th century, writers Richard Strauss and Hugo Von Hofmannstahl fashioned a score and opera which transcends normality and tradition much like the few examples of early 20th century expression we have experienced by occupying multiple emotions and plots into a single performance. Tragedy meets comedy, myth meets fact, and the present conjoins with the past. Moreover, what is captivating about the act is the Proustian, self reflective and at times – debilitating mindset that is so well preserved and dictated.
At the very forefront despite all the other aforementioned realms occupied however, are the series of transformations experienced by virtually all characters and furthermore are depicted as the emotional extremes which lay in all of us similar in delivery like Proust’s narrator. Over-emphasized dramatic detail is the pinnacle of this opera and seemingly of the times which proust, Strauss, and Von Hofmannstahl were living in during 1915.
The synopsis is composed predominantly in two parts which is divided into two equal acts; the first being a brief 40 minute opera about a contemporary wealthy man displaying his prestige by presenting an piece about the mythology of the abandonment of Ariadne by Theseus on the Greek island of Naxos and the eventual arrival of Bacchius – proving his godhead. One major stipulation however, is the time constraints the firework show at 9pm sharp holds on the evening therefore the realms of both comedy and tragedy will happen simultaneously together.
One century ago this idea was quite revolutionary to how opera was viewed and presented and at first sparked great controversy but turned into a masterpiece relatively quickly. Its intentions were to convert the preconceptions of the operatic experience into a chaotic, and at times what seems bipolar representation of reality such as the unpredictability of events in our lives which transforms our personalities. Lyrically, transformation is represented literally countless times and the overall perception of it lies with the dangers of stagnancy and that death comes early to those who don’t move on both figuratively and quite physically.
Between the lines of this play are radical challenges to the contemporary society – and to ours. Depictions of drama versus comedy can be seen as the emerging contrast of “high art and “low art” – otherwise known as the contrast between the formal, sophisticated notions of exquisite taste or beauty compared to notions of sophomoric, generic, or otherwise “common” art such as comic strips etc.
By incorporating disruptive clowns . comedic gestures paired with elegance and exaggerated dramatic emotions conjures a disorderly, exhausting performance. As the world was greatly transitioning into what many thought was dangerous, depressing, potentially dull, or confusing, opera and artistic expression refused to remain stagnant with the archaic traditions the world has seemed to leave behind.
Obsession is all too reoccurring like in Proust, and conveys the same feelings of attachment and desire as a force of immobility, and an eventual decay of the soul as we see with M. Swann, the narrator, and others. Although the nature of the play is extremes of both frantic and collective, a feeling of familiarity and reassurance came over me as it reminded me that life is always unfinished, and unpredictable. The expression of self is only as current as we are and can be carried away on a shopping cart full of wine like Bacchius rescuing Ariadne from her captive: herself, transforming her sorrow for Theseus into a rebirth of joy.

“We shall see in due course that, in spite of stupid habits of speech which she had not outgrown, Albertine had developed to an astonishing degree. This was a matter of complete indifference to me, a woman’s intellectual qualities having always interested me so little that if I pointed them out to some woman or other it was solely out of politeness”

When I read this passage on page 12 of The Captive I underlined it and wrote “ASSHOLE” in the margin (God I feel bad for anyone who might end up with my Proust set somewhere down the line. It looks like a crazy person scrawled all over it). The Narrator’s opinion of Albertine is reminiscent of many of the male characters in In Search of Lost Time- even though they spend time being utterly obsessed with the women they desire they nurse these obsessions “despite” their flaws- their “common” ways of speaking, perceived classlessness, etc.

But, whatever. Despite these standards The Narrator apparently doesn’t care about the intellectual qualities of the women in his life. If he mentions anything about a lady being smart he’s just doing it to be polite.

Moving along, The Narrator notes with the other ways Albertine has changed:

“Albertine, even in the discussion of the most trivial political matters, expressed herself very differently from the little girl she had been at Balbec. She would go so far as to declare, in connexion with a political incident of which she disapproved: “I consider that fearsome,”

She “goes so far” as to have an opinion on a political event, stating that she “finds it fearsome”. Pat on the head for you Albertine! You used your woman-brain to make a thought! Though your boyf will still note your awkward choice to use the word “fearsome”.

“…and I am not sure that it was not about this time that she learned to say, when she wanted to indicate that a book badly written: “It’s interesting, but really, it might have been written by a pig“.

Wait a minute! Apparently she can READ too. Whooooa, there, Nelly. Reading and opinions? What’s next, you’re gonna wanna vote or something? I kind of love this use of “learned to say”. I feel like it’s the same vibe as when people are like “I taught my cat how to pee in the toilet!” Albertine LEARNED to have a crude opinion of writing. No way she could’ve done that without his scholarly help.

The cat training is working. She also finally learned not to go into his room without knocking.

Good thing she’s still (kinda) hot though, or how could he put up with her shit all the time? Her eyes got longer (God I hate when that happens. Have they started making a cream for that yet?) but at least their pretty blueness transports the Narrator back to Balbec, where they first met, before he knew her as a human and was able to do some hardcore horny adolescent projecting all over her and friends as they walked around being all hot and jumping over blind people. He’ll think about those eyes forever.

And her hair! Oh God, he’s so bored of every aspect of her existence except her hair. He’s seen it all but every morning it’s like he’s seeing that pretty hair for the first time ever. Eyes are pretty, a smile is hot but nothing like a good head of hair to make the Narrator want to fuck ahem, physically possess you.

“HOW COULD I EVER LOVE SOMEONE SO ANNOYING, RIGHT, YOU GUYS?!”-The Narrator.

“Seriously, it’s like every morning she comes into my room (thank god she KNOCKED) and jumps on my bed and talks about how hot and smart I am and how she’d rather die than leave me. And she’s only doing it because I shaved. She doesn’t even KNOW why she thinks things. She just does! She like, all obsessed with basic hygiene and it’s like SUPER MEANINGFUL because a person who bothers to shave can totally take care of her and the babies I could gift her with. You know, if I felt like it. Which I don’t.”

(Author’s note: as a fellow Hysterical Woman, I also regard shaving as a sacred act. I believe it must stem from a time when I was a young child and my dad, who always had a mustache, was speaking to me early one morning. After some conversation that was likely about cereal he asked me if I noticed anything different. I suddenly did- he had SHAVED HIS MUSTACHE. And I began crying hysterically. I thought I reacted strongly because I felt a mustache suited my father better than a clean-shaven face, but surely I was mistaken. I now know it must have been something else, something Very Meaningful).

Anyway, the Narrator can’t get anything done with all this lady-ness floating around house so he asks her where she’s gonna go to stay out of his hair today. She’s gonna go to a park with her Hot Friend and handler, Andree. Even though he is ALWAYS sick of Albertine he doesn’t trust her. She’s his girlfriend after all, so God forbid she bang someone else. He’s glad to have Andree babysit her.

Funny, this one time he was like, sooooooo sick of being around Albertine so he decided to tell Andree that he’d wished they’d met sooner, cause she’s also a super babe and actually like way better than Albertine and he’d wished they had hooked up instead. But that’s just too darn bad cause he pledged his heart to this drip and like, what can you do? “So let’s just hang out a lot because I haaaaate my relationship and you can make me feel better about all that.” He was lying when he said that, but now he really feels that way but who knows what Andree thinks? (Cause to discern that you’d have to like, care about a woman’s intellect and that’s not our buddy’s game here).

But whatever, cause The Truth is like, relative, maaaaan.

I’d choose dying in a riding accident over this weird relationship too, Albertine.

I didn’t realize we weren’t required to read Kindred in its entirety. If I had I think I would’ve read it all the way through, anyway. I couldn’t put it down after I’d started it.

I’ve heard a lot about Octavia Butler but had never read anything by her before. I’m not a huge sci-fi person (Vonnegut is the only science fiction author I can think of that I truly love). I do love a good historical fiction novel so I was taken with Kindred from the beginning.

I am a white person. Being an ally to people of color is really important to me.  I’ve found that reading about race issues from as many perspectives as possible helps me in my quest to be Not a Terrible Person. I’m bummed it took me so long to read Butler. This book was really good!

I haven’t felt so ragey towards characters in a book since Dolores Umbridge. You know an author is good at characterization when you want to reach into the world of the book and strangle someone. But, while Umbridge is intentionally malicious, the asshole-ishness of people like Rufus and Margaret are coming from a place within and they both completely lack self awareness. Dana and Rufus certainly forged a bond during her ideal but he was comfortable being a total dick to her despite their friendship which is maddening but also illustrative of the dynamic within the power structure before the civil war.

I’m really glad this novel exists to show the day to day realities of the enslaved. Much of it was horrific- seeing your family being split up and sold, being whipped and beaten, being sexually assaulted by gross old white dudes, your body being property. It also showed the fundamental humanity we all share. Despite all the awful things they had to endure there were still so many of the fundamental aspects of being human- community, falling in love, protecting each other, having children, celebrating Christmas. Experiences that transcend the boundaries of race.

Still, the experiencing this novel was incredibly harrowing for me. My ancestors didn’t have to deal with this- being enslaved and marginalized and dealing with the repercussions of that to this day. As a white American I have benefited from atrocities like these and I must acknowledge that. Kindred brought that to the front of my mind yet again, which is important. Those of us that have benefited from such horrors need to be consistently aware of it, thinking about it, being uncomfortable with it. We need to get rid of our crappy ideas like “reverse racism” and “color blindness” if we want to contribute to effort to end oppression.

I cried several times during this book. And then I thought about all the people in my life that need to read it. I passed it on to my mom, she read it almost as quickly as I did. Now it’s on to the next person.

Also, Dana is a BAMF. I would’ve killed Rufus way earlier if I had been in that situation, willing to risk negating my existence. Unlike Dana, I give up easily.

The two apartment complexes were bridged by a vast gulf of green lawn that mirrored the surrounding fields in its vacancy. When you’re that far out of the city, in eminent nature, away from the glittering captivity of towering architecture, the illusion of civilization begins to fade. The roads were deep scars in the hillside and the occasional jutting buildings appeared alien and tumorous. There was a party. I was moving back home in less than a week. I’d gotten up early. I’d just quit my job. Most of the people there had been my coworkers. We crossed the verdant no-man’s land in front of Richard Pain’s apartment (the party’s center-point) to claim a small paved square. There were picnic tables and a little charcoal grill which Pain fired and loaded up with hot dogs and hamburgers–as no good party is complete without a BBQ. I heard someone I didn’t know say, “Feel these plants, it feels like they’re buzzing.” I knelt to touch a leaf on one of the low shrubs bordering the square and felt vibration as I drew my thumb across the surface. “Huh,” I said. Later, inside, while watching Superbad, panic rose in my throat and I went out onto the balcony so I could at least die with fresh air in my lungs. Someone who I had worked with came out and talked to me. I wondered if that was friendship. When it was dark I was out on the square again, where the person who first felt the vibrating shrubs was sitting apart with his head in his hands. He handed me a drink, and when my fingers touched his, I felt them buzzing, just like the plants surrounding us had.

Journal Entry #11

Chad was a man who had nothing left to lose. You were more likely to hear chad then you were to see him. The roar of his twin cylinder 1,600cc engine chopper was enough to turn heads just fast enough to watch a slouching, middle aged man vanish into the glare of the setting sun. Chad had been chasing the setting sun for days. It wasn’t enough that Chad was going through a divorce, but on top of that he lost his job and the bank foreclosed on his home. If Chad had to be cast out onto the streets, he was going to do it his way.

Chad’s dad was a mechanic, and he had been around bikes since he was young. When he was four he knocked his dad’s bike over just trying to climb on. When Chad got older and joined the rank and file of the middle class, he stopped riding altogether and tried to distance himself from anything that in the eyes of society would associate him with his working class roots. But this was different. Determined that the hawkish debt collectors would never be able to pick him dry, after losing his job Chad gathered up all his savings, stuffed some provisions into the behemoth of a motorcycle he had inherited from his father and had been sitting in his garage, and simply took off one day heading west. In defiance of the hand he had been dealt, this was his way of turning back the clock.

As he rode tirelessly, day in and day out, he tried not to let himself think too much. He simply let his thoughts get mixed up in the blender of the whirring machine which he was using to hurl himself through time and space. It amused him to image what might happen when he reached the coast. He planned on getting onto a ship heading west by any means necessary, either as a crew, stowaway, or paying passenger. He would sell or trade his bike without a second thought, if need be. In a sense, by moving as fast as possible towards the setting sun and against the earth’s rotation, he was running directly into the past, but this isn’t how he saw it. He was perpetually buying himself time. The journey gave him something to think about, and to occupy himself, and he just wanted to keep moving. With his Spartan lifestyle and the cash he had stowed away under the gas tank, he could keep this up for a long while. Maybe he could find his place somewhere out there to settle, and start afresh. Who knows? All he wanted to do was run, and in his half helmet and dark sunglasses he kept his eyes trained on the setting sun.

As hard as he tried to forget he just couldn’t get the thought of her out of his mind. It was like the bugs that kept splattering on his sunglasses, blurring his vision. If Chad had documented his journey with the book of world records, it very well might have been the fastest land crossing of North America ever made on a motorcycle. He hadn’t so much as glanced at a map since he took off, and all he knew when he reached the coast was that he could smell the ocean and there was no more road left in front of him. He took his bike so close to the cliff’s edge that onlookers who happened to be passing by cringed at the site of it. Then something came over Chad. He dismounted the bike and took a stuttering step towards the ledge. He quickly took off his leather jacket, because the cloudless sky offered him no cover from the warm rays of the sun. Adjusting from the din of the engine, Chad’s ears were hearing a different tune; the sound of rolling waves crashing against the shore as seagulls called lazily to each other. The beach was blissfully empty except for one couple. They were young and full of life, beaming at each other with broad smiles and laughing and playing as he taught her how to boogie board. After all of that running, suddenly Chad went completely still. The scene struck a chord in his memory. It was exactly like Chad’s honeymoon. Chad had hoped that he could put all that behind him by reaching perpetually westward. Chad heard the sound of their laughter amidst the crashing waves and the calling gulls, and for that one moment the world stopped spinning.

“And once one understands that suffering is the best thing that one can hope to encounter in life, one thinks without terror, and almost as of a deliverance, of death.” –Proust, In Search Of Lost Time

There are few sights that remind me of the toughest challenge of my life more than the view of glaciated peaks along a mountain range. Last weekend I set out with Sweeney, my girlfriend, for an exciting day trip of trail-work near Mount Rainier. We were hoping to build up enough trust with the WTA trail work organization that they would consider us for the much more rugged extended backpacking trips this summer. Those trips include overnight camping and advanced trail work in remote wilderness areas. Sweeney, who is studying to be an environmental engineer, is enthusiastic about any opportunity to be part of a crew and potentially gain leadership experience. She is not just enthusiastic, but also ambitious, and for this weekend’s project she has chosen the particularly daunting task of constructing a stone staircase across a boulder field.

Since we don’t live very close to the work site and went out the night before, we met the group early Saturday morning after a less-than-satisfactory night’s sleep. We made the acquaintance of our group members and project leader, a middle aged man named Doug who is a black belt in Aikido, and then quickly set off down the trail. We all made small talk as we hiked under a pleasantly overcast grey sky. My thoughts wandered as I devoted some of my attention to the chatter around me. I thought about how different the forests look in Washington compared to the east coast, how nice it was not to have the sun beating down on me, and how cute Sweeney looked in her hard hat, like a professional engineer. Then, as we gained altitude, I saw Mount Raineer looming in the distance and at once my thoughts shifted entirely.

I was brought back instantly to that hostile, alien landscape. The white veil of sleet and snow over everything, and the white hot glare of the sun. A part of me died up there on that glacier, in the southernmost reaches of Patagonia. I’m not referring to the tissue of my fingers and toes that has never quite recovered from the ordeal. I thrust myself willingly to the razor’s edge of human endurance to test my limits, and a part of me must have died up there because I did not return the same. I look up from my daydreams just in time to catch Doug’s monotonous safety briefing. My mind drifted back to the leader of my National Outdoor Leadership School mountaineering program, who I confidently trusted with my life on that expedition. They call him KG. James Kagambi. A native of Kenya, he was one of the greatest mountaineers I have had the pleasure of meeting. He used to tell us that because of how he was raised in Kenya, his feet could fit into any sized boot. I saw his feet one time, and his toes were curled inwards and slightly deformed, possibly from wearing shoes that didn’t fit when he was growing up. He used to boast that he didn’t need to treat his water, because his body has its own filtration system. Years later, while travelling abroad I met a colleague of KG’s who told me that actually, he just has diarrhea practically every day of his life. I smirk to myself as Doug finishes his safety briefing.

The work was strenuous, but nothing I wasn’t used to. That particular expedition in Patagonia our packs weighed anywhere from seventy to ninety pounds laden with mountaineering equipment and extra food and fuel for cold weather camping. We carried them over treacherous, steep terrain in all kinds of weather. I had just graduated from high school and decided to take a year off. As a teenage boy, naturally I was convinced that I was invincible, and so had picked the hardest mountaineering course I could find. The NOLS catalog I was looking at also included trips to the Arctic Circle, Himalayan Mountaineering, and extended treks in the Amazon Rainforest. To this day when I meet NOLS alumni or instructors they are impressed that I did the Patagonia mountaineering course. To put it in perspective, of the roughly 15 people who have died on NOLS courses, the last 4 of them were in Patagonia.

We began hauling rocks into place on the trail that were so big that it took four people to move them. We had to use big metal bars to shift the rocks onto large pieces of webbing for group carrying. We worked hard to position and re-position the rocks and fit them like massive puzzle pieces into the trail. There was also the option of taking a sledge hammer to the rocks at various points. As Doug struggled to communicate what he wanted from the crew, another crew member who works in construction, clearly accustomed to taking and giving orders, stepped in to clarify some of the instructions with Doug. I thought back to KG trudging up to our group through deep snow, with his glacier goggles covering half his face. He seemed at home in the near zero temperatures of the snowfield, as if he had been born in an ice cave instead of in the sweltering equatorial heat.

In addition to the difficult loads we were all carrying; KG famously carried with him a big chunk of meat that he would cook a portion of each night. At lower altitudes, he would hang the meat from a tree so that pumas couldn’t get at it. That day he was teaching a class on how to set an anchoring point, or point of protection, in the snow to perform a technical ascent on glacier. He asked some of us to pull on the rope to demonstrate how strong it was. Then he invited more people to tug on it. Finally, with most of the group pulling on this climbing rope the anchor popped out of where it had been buried deep in the snow. It was the remainder of KG’s chunk of meat! I’ll never forget that class.

They have a saying in that region that “Patagonia without wind is like hell without the devil.” Eventually the wind got so bad that even after we built walls of snow around the tents they would crumble down and then we would wake up in the night with the walls of the tent hitting us in the face. By the third day, out of desperation, we began digging snow caves to sleep in. The temperature would fluctuate so wildly that it would rain at times and then quickly dip below freezing. On one of the coldest days KG gathered us together to have a little dance party to keep warm, with each of us taking turns in the center showing off our moves.

I looked up from the work at the majestic outline of Raineer. It looked so enticing from a distance, but I know all too well the icy hell that is waiting at the top for any young explorer looking to conquer it. We all nearly died on that glacier. My warmest layer, a down jacket, became useless when wet. I wasn’t expecting that conditions so cold would also rainy. We slept on the snow three to a cave with barely any food or water, taking shifts throughout the night shoveling the entrance clear of snow to avoid suffocating in our sleep. I would go to sleep shivering, have terrible nightmares, and wake up shivering all the more violently. I lost all feeling in my fingertips and toes and eventually lost the ability to move my toes altogether. The structures we built would not have lasted more than five days. On the fifth day, the weather broke. A part of me died on that glacier. As I sweat and struggled in the dirt to rearrange rocks that overcast Saturday afternoon, I remember the essence of suffering, and I smile.

“It almost seems as though a writer’s work, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his heart.” Proust, In Search Of Lost Time

Today in the program we watched a film titled The Grand Illusion. In French of course but with the title translated into English. This film made me think of the difference officers and the enlisted men go through. In WWI, officers that were taken prisoner or to interment camps were treated in the highest regard and the film only shows that side of the war. The film may not be about the difference between an Officer and an enlisted man but it does bring to question what happened to the enlisted men. The enlisted men were treated with horrible conditions and were the workers of the labor camp. One of my main thoughts through the films was how could the directors only see the officer side, but then I remembered that it was just only a film.

I come from a line of both enlisted and officers. My grandfather was an officer in the Army during WWII and my brother is currently enlisted in the Army, currently serving his 10th year. I give every man and women that were and are currently in the military a huge credit but those on the front line will always stand out to me more than anyone else, and those are usually enlisted. The soliders that go first in a fight and are the first to die or get hurt are the ones that come first in my mind. They are also the ones that when caught by opposing army’s, are the ones to be killed and pulled for information. I believe that officers do fight but they fight in a way that his men always follow. Officers play out the fight and mentally and physically prepair his men for a fight and when the men go out they are ready. I just feel that the film should of shown this. Shown that the officers and the enlisted men work together and that they would not survive of it was not for each other.

I liked the film overall. It gave light onto what it was like for officers in WWI and how even the french can trick the Germans in so many ways. The film also showed how an officer gave his life so his fellow officers could escape and continue to live their lives. The film always the audience to see the sacrifices in the war, but only one point of sacrifice. That of the officers.

After reading Octavia Butlers Kindred, I started to get a new idea of historical and science fiction in literature. I first read the novel when in 2004, I was only in grade school. It was another novel that my father gave me to read because of its importance to soceity and the knowledge it will bring along with it. As I began to read the novel I remember being confused and not fully understanding the plot or being able to keep up with the characters, mostly becuase I was not very interested in it. When I finished the novel, it was a bit of a mile stone, not becuase I had finished a novel but because I had finished a novel my father gave me. Which was always something to be proud of in my father’s eyes. My father used to ask me to explain to him the novel and the details; including the characters, their backgrounds, their current role in the novel and how they weeved into the plot. When starting to explain to my father I found this quite difficult. I knew all of the answers but becuase it had an element of unrealness, I froze. I finally tried my hardest to explain to my father the exact answered to his pressing questions. I had never thought of the novel after. That was until we read Kindred for In Search of Lost Time.

When I realized that the program would be reading Kindred I had mixed feelings, becuase I had not take a liking to the novel before I had not really remembered that much about it, only the main plot and themes. When rereading the novel I told myself to forget everything I remembered, or thought I remembered about the novel. I began reading the novel as if I had read it for the first time. I finally found something in the text. I found a story that I could follow and charcters that cought my attention. I finished the novel within two days and soaked up everything it had to offer. I understood why Rufus was an important character and why Kevin understood why. Age. Age allowed me to devlop an idea and this idea helped me identify the different characters and their stuggles. I now love the novel and have reread it about three times now. Kindred was a novel that was hard to read, not becuase it was long or had difficult diction, but becuase it made you face the reality if what was. Of what society was like and how not everyone was treated equally.