Haters Gonna Hate

           I am getting an overarching idea from our class that almost everyone hates this book. Honestly though despite the actually logic of all the time traveling and rules that go along with such a thing, some parts of the book were not that awful.

For starters this book, for me at least, tries to illustrate to the reader the idea that just because something is history does not mean it is universal fact. What I mean is that yes we hear that slavery is bad from history, but we still cannot begin to imagine what it was actually like. Also we can say Rufus  is an awful person, but you also have to realize that he was brought up in a culture making him believe that what he was doing was right. Even today it is hard for many people to adopt radical ideas. Just imagine how hard it would be if someone claiming to be from the future is introducing these ideas. For the slaves many of them did not know anything other than slavery and did not even begin to think about freedom. If not for the presence of Dana and Alice on the plantation most of Rufus’ slaves might not give it a second thought.

            Another idea that I thought this book portrayed was that you don’t truly know how you will react until put in the situation yourself. Dana caught herself being a hypocrite at times, for example when she was telling Alice it was in her best interest to sleep with Rufus. Also you can say that if in Dana’s position you would have left Rufus to die or even just kill him yourself, but lets be honest we knew as much about the repercussions of this book’s time travel, or time travel in general, as the author does. In the heat of the moment or when placed in a state of fear and uncertainty humans tend to act in unpredictable manners.

             We also have to put in context when this book was published. Race was still a touchy topic in 1979 and this book helps to further illuminate how race should never matter. It tries to bring the reader into the shoes of someone being discriminated against. Also a reader may grab hold of Dana and not want to lose her like Rufus does. She at times embodies the common person who wants to do the right thing, but at the same time is looking out for her own self-interest. For me this made for a very relatable character.

Hey I understand that this book is repetitive at times and can even leave you thinking that something like this could never happen. I could also see how if you read this book in one sitting you could drive yourself nuts with questions, but somehow or another this book was still put on our syllabus and you are still supporting the author who wrote it by purchasing the book. Finally we do not have enjoy the plot of every book we read rather we need to try to find any purpose, whether trivial or profound, that we can conjure up to make the whole process of reading in the first place meaningful. We can hate on the book forever but where will that get us?

-We don’t always read for personal enjoyment.