I read The Kite Runner in one sitting, really, as I waited for a delayed flight, took the flight, and rode the train up from NYC. After the first 100 pages, I spoke to someone on the phone and said, "You should read this; it's good." At the end, I wanted to find a rewind button on my own life to retract that statement.
It's not good. The attention it has received is staggering, and especially the approval it received from several sources I would have expected better from (I'm looking at you, New York Times).
Its depiction of life in modern day Afghanistan is striking and well drawn. That is a strength of the novel. That said, much of the rest of it is mired in cliche and predictability. The second two thirds of the novel read not unlike The Da Vinci Code, which, yes, I've read, with lots of "twists" and melodramatic descriptions and moral platitudes meant to amaze. Gack.
I wanted to like it, I did, but as I read it, all I could think of was the fact that this book is already being taught at high schools and colleges, and that student readers of this book would think that the sort of purple prose and "powerful" language is literary and acceptable. I wish I had the book next to me to give you some examples, but I don't. Perhaps I'll save that for another post.
Posted by waking slow at July 21, 2006 03:03 PM