Kindred

This book is a very well written book by a versatile author who was able to tell a story in a way that I not encountered before. This was not the first Octavia Butler book I read, I just recently read Fledgling) but this was unlike her other books. Butler, who is a well-renowned author who is usually known for her sci-fi novels, was able to effectively use a sci-fi method of writing to narrate the story of these two completely different characters. Even though these two people were miles apart in the way the were raised or who they are as a person, Butler was able to establish a link between them and use her writing in a manner that shows us that every body out there is kinfolk in some way or another, and that people are not really as different as they seem.

When reading this I had to put my thoughts and opinions aside so I can be able to fully grasp the depth of what Octavia Butler is saying. Even though I as a person was adamant in believing that we are all the same, by letting the author paint all these different images in my head and letting her narrate the book without letting my personal feelings interfere, I was able to fully understand the moral of the her story.

The Dictionary describes Kindred as

1. Of the same ancestry or family or

2. Having a similar or related origin, nature, or character

The reason that the author chose to name this book Kindred is because even though at first this book may seem to be a simple novel about a time traveling woman, the book is able to show us how people from different races, backgrounds and beliefs are all related or connected in someway. We see how we are all driven by love, how we all share the same love for our families, and mostly how we see how humans can so cruelly cause mass injustices and human rights violations on others. But after the complex emotional journey that we go through after reading this book and seeing how much we can identify with someone so different from us shows that we all are actually kinfolk.

The setting of this story does not follow a certain creed or path like other novels, instead it is based in different times, 1800's, 1976 and our modern world. Dana and Kevin, the two main characters in this novel travel back and forth through time, between Maryland and California, and the reason for this is to be able to show us vividly how society changes over time, and yet people remain constant.

The story starts off with Dana and Kevin, two up-and-coming authors, sitting together in their house, unpacking their belongings as they get ready to start a new life. But then all of a sudden, Dana starts feeling slightly lightheaded and before we know it she is transported back in time to a place that she is not familiar with. This is where the story starts to get interesting, because she leaves the comfort of her living room to be in a thicket of trees, in an unfamiliar place. While composing herself, she hears the cries of a drowning boy in the distance and immediately goes to help him. After saving the drowning boy from the pond, she is then confronted (and threatened) by the ungrateful parents of the boy. The boy she rescued is named Rufus Weylin ( who turns out to be her distant relative), the son of a plantation owner. The character of Rufus is a very important one in this book because the relationship that he shares with Dana is a subliminal characterization of the relationship between people of different races at the time.

Over time, the relationship between this two characters continues to grow more complex as we see Dana saving him from troublesome situations more than once.

Another compelling aspect that we see in this book is when Dana starts to come to grip to the fact that she is now living in an era in which her and her people are not even recognized as humans. Keep in mind that this is not the USA which we know now, in which a black man is the new leader of the free world, instead it is a time in which black people were considered to be 3/5ths of human beings.

We see Dana start to pity herself more than others because she comes from a time in which she had laws and rights, and therefore I as a reader could help but feel a certain level of compassion towards Dana. But on the other hand, was able to live slightly better off than the other slaves because of the aforementioned complex relationship she had with Rufus. I found that the way the author describes Dana's struggle, as a person who left her home involuntarily to come and serve someone she has no intentions of serving is a well played symbolization of the struggle the African slaves had to go through when they were involuntarily snatched from their lives to come and serve someone against their will.

Another part of this novel that I found to be very symbolical is the strain that we start