Reasons I Could Just Cry Right Now

[create_destiny]

1. The thought of our next president being that Mc guy.

2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

3. Remembering how I used to sing this song to my nephew Curtis when he was a baby:

Comments

[somethinghead.livejournal.com]

I just think it gets far too unbelievable. I wrote my final paper for my "Teaching Literature" on it using deconstruction, which means my whole thesis was "This novel doesn't work, it falls apart under its own logic." I argued that rather than showing a journey of redemption, the redemptive part is so unrealistic that it's really proving the opposite: there's no redemption for your sins.

I think Sohrab having his slingshot was where I just said "No f'ing way." He's being kept as a sex slave but Assef thought it was alright to keep a weapon? That makes no sense. Also the suicide attempt. He gets through the first orphanage, gets through the period as the sex slave, then he finds surviving family that loves him, hears he might have togo to another orphanage, and he slits his wrists? Unrealistic.

And also, I guess I felt like the part before all hell breaks loose and all kinds of BS goes down is just too long. If it were a memoir I'd accept some of it, but some of it seems to just be too much of a digression for a work of fiction - too sprawling and unfocused.

[createdestiny.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are spot-on, with your remarks. Believability is the problem. Hosseini just went over the top. I didn't believe Assef keeping Sohrab as a sex slave, I didn't believe his sudden attack against his oppressor (that's probably where I found it most unbelievable), I didn't believe the suicide attempt (If he was brave enough to attack Assef then he would be brave enough to face the possibility of an orphanage and if he loved and trusted his father so much, he should also love and trust his father's friend/half-brother (whom his father had only said good things about) to stay consistent with his character . Also, it's almost like Hosseini has a fixation with sodomy. I could believe the first incident, but then when Kamal appears as another vacant victim of forced sodomy it gets to be a bit too much.

What I did appreciate from this novel was a glimpse into Afghan culture. This is ultimately what made the book so wildly popular. Flaws this serious in an American novel would not have been tolerated.