Some might question whether Afghanistan counts as South Asia. Geopolitically, it makes sense to see the country more as a hinge between western Asia (i.e., Iran, Iraq, and Turkey), and South Asia, than as decisively belonging to either region. There are certainly strong cultural ties between especially the northwestern (Pashtun-dominated) part of Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. And they listen to Hindi film songs and ghazals, and through Persian, use words like Zindagi, naan, pakora, mard, etc. On the other hand, while there are some good historical connections to the Indian subcontinent (i.e., through the the British Raj), geographically Afghanistan is cut off from it by mountains so… take your pick. There is a discussion of the question here.
Whether or not it’s certifiably ‘Sepia’, The Kite Runner does feel desi — or Watani — and it’s likely to be a book many of the readers of this blog will enjoy. Besides the (primary) story about a pair of friends growing up in idyllic, pre-1973 Afghanistan, there is an interesting consideration of life in the Afghan neighborhood in the Bay Area, “Little Kabul” in Fremont (a town which also has a large Indian population, incidentally).
Fremont is where author Khaled Hosseini grew up after his folks left Afghanistan in 1980. It’s interesting to me that in real life Hosseini is a practicing physician (age 38), while he makes the protagonist in his somewhat autobiographical book a professional writer. That Amir’s father in the novel accepts his son’s unconventional choice of profession without a fight — which no South Asian parent would ever do! — might be the only thing that really doesn’t ring true for me in terms of the immigrant experience reflected in The Kite Runner. It’s hard to say exactly why The Kite Runner has become such a big hit. According to one recent USA Today article, it’s sold more than 1.4 million copies and had 17 printings, which makes it a certifiable phenomenon for a first-time author in today’s anemic book market. (Other tidbits: it’s currently ranked #9 at Amazon, and hit #1 on the New York Times paperback bestseller list this spring.) It’s almost entirely a word-of-mouth phenomenon, which makes it even more impressive. Americans want to read this book — by an unknown Afghan who happens to have a name that’s not so different from “Hussein.” That’s something.
And most people I’ve talked to — including several of my colleagues in the English department — seem to really like the story. It clicks; it strikes a nerve; it does something. There are also doubters, such as this Slate writer, who found the book’s psychological focus on redemption a little too pat — almost programmed to appeal to western readers. (Hm, she may have a point there.)
In my view, though it’s not quite a literary masterpiece, The Kite Runner does do some interesting things narratively, and is a nicely paced and carefully written story.
The most intriguing element for me is the allusion to the 9th century Persian epic the Shahnamah (sometimes spelled Shahnameh or Shahnama), by the Persian writer Firdawsi. The particular chapter of the Shahnamah that is singled out in The Kite Runner (and it has resonance in more than one way in the story, but I won’t give away exactly how) is the story of Rostam and Sohrab. Rostam is a king and a brave fighter who has a rival named Sohrab. After a series of skirmishes, Rostam mortally wounds Sohrab. In the conversation the two of them have after the battle, as Sohrab is dying, it becomes clear that Sohrab is in fact Rostam’s long-lost son. Here’s the paragraph quoted in the novel:
If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinancy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting…
Ah yes, fathers, sons, and a scene of primeval violence. It’s the kind of thing that only really happens in heatbreaking medieval epics and melodramatic Hindi films, but it gets me every time. It’s important in the beginning of the novel — as the protagonist feels neglected by his father — and it becomes important again at the end, in an interesting way. If you don’t stop to notice the connection, you might miss it.
(Incidentally, check out illustrations from different early manuscripts of the Shahnamah at the Shahnama Project at SOAS. Beautiful… And here is a translation of just the Rostam and Sohrab chapter of the Shahnamah).
The other thing I like in The Kite Runner is the way Hosseini goes easy on the ethnography. You don’t hear long lectures on Burqas, or Pashtun marriage rituals, or inter-ethnic rivalries in Afghan society. There is a little on each of the above in the novel — you might learn a couple of things about relations between Pashtuns and Hazaras — and that’s undoubtedly part of its appeal for some people. But Hosseini doesn’t hit the reader over the head with it, the way Asne Seierstad does in The Bookseller of Kabul — the “other” book on Afghanistan everyone is talking about.
(On the other hand, Seierstad’s book is an explicitly feminist account of how Afghani customs are oppressive to women. This is something Hosseini’s book doesn’t really get into much. His next book, he says, will deal with gender issues in Afghan culture much more directly.)
Hosseini avoids excessive explanation and historical context; perhaps he realized while writing it in 2001-2002 that everyone would already know the story of the exile of King Zahir Shah in 1973, of the Soviet invasion and the devastating civil war that followed, and the rise of the Taliban (see Wikipedia for a brief primer on modern Afghani history).
With cultural context and historical explanation at a minimum, Hosseini is free to jump right into the story.
Another great post, Amardeep. However…
I found The Kite Runner extrememly unsatisfying. I thought the first 2/3 (until the protagonist heads back to Afghanistan) exquisite. It was almost emotionally perfect. The last 1/3, though, fell apart completely. The plot was to tidy, emotionally hollow, and completely unbelievable. When I was done, I was felt like throwing the book across the room. (Although I would never really do that.)
Unfortunately, I can’t find anyone who doesn’t like the book. Everyone is raving about a book that I ultimately found quite mediocre.
I do look forward to his next book, though. Like I said the first 2/3 of Kite Runner was amazing, so he’s proven himself as a very capable writer.
Interesting that you say that, Rani — according to one of the interviews I read while writing this Hosseini had help from an editor in writing the last 1/3 of the book (which is quite common for first-time novelists).
But let’s focus on the positive for a moment. What did you like about the first two-thirds of the book?
Amardeep, thanks for so many posts in the literary vein!
Amardeep,
Very interesting. Let’s just say you could really tell there was a break in between the first 2/3 and the last 1/3.
I just really enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book in many ways. I thought that the love (and betrayal) between Amir and Hassan so poignant. I thought the father/son relationships in the book were complex and interestingly drawn. I thought Amir’s relationship with his wife was interesting. I liked the historical and cultural and real world details about Afghanistan. I love the details about the Afghan diaspora in California. And I agree with you that “you might learn a couple of things about relations between Pashtuns and Hazaras… But Hosseini doesn’t hit the reader over the head with it.”
The first 2/3 of the book is subtle, nuanced, and (for me) rings emotionally true.
The last 1/3 and the culmination of the book was too easy. The author didn’t make the reader “work” for the ending. When Amir finds out that Assef is some Taliban sociopath… ugh. That’s when I got so frustrated with the author. Oh, and the reptition of the sling-shot motif totally was too pat and tidy.
The Kite Runner put a human face on events in Afghanistan, which for me, as an Ignorant American, was a real gift. It’s not a perfect novel, but it’s extremely valuable for forging an emotional connection between Western readers and what’s usually presented as simply a Devastated Area.
I thought it was a great book and I think it is an interesting question of whether it had a desi feel. I felt as though it did and could see many similarities in culture. Of course some of this could just be me looking for similarities and some of it could be broader things that people of all cultures could relate to, not just desi culture.
I think the debate about the last 1/3 of the book is interesting – i have a friend who agrees with you Rani about the ending. Perhaps it was a little too tidy but I don’t know – there are still a lot of unresolved things at the end – it is not like the boy is happy or even fitting in. It is not a completely happy ending, plus if it had not neatly ended the way it did it would have been way too depressing. We already got enough of a sense of the atrocities happening there when he goes back to Afghanistan, we don’t also need for there to be a horrible completely unresolved ending. It would have been too much – like that movie Osama, which was pitched as a hopeful tale, it was not hopeful at all and just made me sick to me stomach.
The book is high profile because of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, but it’s a TV movie, The Mighty Ducks or The Bad News Bears. Khaled Hosseini even uses the fortune teller trope. Truly groan-inducing.
Its saving grace is an account of the Afghani community in Fremont, but the rest is like a bad Bollywood script. There are even scenes in there that sound like they’re straight from Kkusum or some other lame desi soap opera script — not written like a novel, literally written like a bad TV script. It telegraphs its intentions well in advance so you already know what’s going to happen 50 pages ahead. No concept of foreshadowing, it gives away the entire tale.
And quit copping out with butt-rape, you people! It’s the third novel I’ve read recently obsessed with involuntary back-door action: The Impressionist, My Name Is Red and now this. It’s an easy and cheap plot point, the new brain tumor ex machina. IÂ’ve really filled my quota of it, thank you very much.
SR, I am not referring to a “happy” ending when I say “neat/tidy/pat”. Like I said in my first post, it was just emotionally hollow and completely unbelievable. A good writer makes the reader work for the ending. In other words, this ending was too Hollywood (or Bollywood) for me.
Nina, a lot of my friends said thinkg simmilar to your comment after they finished Kite Runner. I agree, the book was informational without being didactic about it. That’s great, I think.
Related, from Moorish Girl.
Exactly, Manish.
The book had special meaning for me given that the protagonist and I seem to have shared a few parallel experiences, especially fleeing war and acclimating to new situations.
The last third of the book wasn’t as endearingly heart-bashing as the first two, but it showed that there aren’t happy resolutions in real life. And that anyone’s life can take a left turn at Albuquerque just as one seems to have settled into a pattern.
What I really didn’t like is the bad guy from the past reappearing in the present in a very unlikely coincidence. On second thought, it may be likely, but I just couldn’t appreciate the setup.
Manish, I can see what you mean about the over-reliance on homosexual rape as an easy way to establish a “trauma.” But popular fiction needs a pretty straightforward ‘motivation’ for protagonists to drive the narrative forward, and redemption from shame is one that seems to work for readers…
It’s a convention, yes — and it trades on homophobia in ways that are not admirable — but I think Hosseini keeps it from being a cliche. The key issue is the powerful stigma of shame, not “butt rape.”
And Rani, thanks for the link from Moorish Girl… I hadn’t seen that.
What did folks think about the fact that Assef himself was a product of a mixed-race marriage (I think it was German mother and Afghani father)? I thought for a moment it may have been a dig at the trouble caused by foreigners mixing in Afghanistan’s affairs, but perhaps that is a stretch.
Off on a tangent – but I read the moorish girl’s review – very funny – to add to the generalization – the critiques start off with the “universal theme” – then twist around with “hope triumphs in spite of general buggery and snuff” – and ends with a sting – “makes you feel grateful. Will go home and hug my poopie a little closer tonight”
Hmmm… maybe a little too snarky. Too little sleep 🙂 Need a cuppa adrak chai.
I second this. Keep the books coming, please 🙂
That last Naipaul et al post was fantastic. What do you think of The Storyteller’s Daughter?
Not too snarky at all, dhaavak. Most mid-list ‘surprise’ best-sellers follow this trajectory. It’s the combination of a good emotional gut-wrenchinging (i.e. suckerpunch) combined with possibility of hope and redemption (i.e. Polyanna gloss)…people eat it up like it’s an all-u-can-eat buffet.
Cicatrix,
What do you think of The Storyteller’s Daughter?
I haven’t read the Storyteller’s Daughter, and I’m not sure I’m going to be rushing out to get it. Between The Bookseller of Kabul and The Kite Runner I might be ‘Kabuled out’ for the moment 😉
I did see Saira Shah’s documentary though (“Behind the Veil”), when CNN was running it right after 9/11. Some compelling stuff there…
Amardeep,
I asked because it’s the only one of the three I’ve read 🙂 I’ve stayed away from Kite Runner because I’m contrarian enough to disbelieve the fuss…Chances are moderate to high that I’ll sniffle my way through it and then feel mad about it (my sniffling) a few days later.
It’s been a while since I read the Shah (she writes about recording that documentary, btw)…It was written surprisingly well – clear and direct – and she comes across as a women of amazing willpower, ingenuity and smarts. Sometimes I wondered if it was a little too much about her…but it’s her story, so it’s hard to judge that, you know?
Since she grew up in London, with stories about Afghanistan, she seems to claim warrior-princess as part of her heritage. I don’t mean to mock…she eventually walks the walk, and her descriptions are detailed and observant of nuance. Made me see how the Taliban seemed like the answer to everything at the time.
Addendum to my comment#15:
I’m hardcore in favor of anything that gets people reading. Suckerpunch&gloss is still better than Danielle Steel or Tom Clancy. And those are still better than USweekly.
I will defend Oprah’s book club to the bitter end. Especially since the woman added Faulkner to her summer book club reading list.
There were atleast a coule of references to Hindi moives, right? But the teen aged Amir wanted to meet John Wayne not Amitabh Bacchan ;-).
Tilo,
But don’t forget, he thought John Wayne was Iranian because of the Farsi dubbing.
Yes, the desi content of this is a bit arguable… The strongest connection is probably in the shape of the immigrant community in the U.S. His father’s experience in Fremont sounds like many a Punjabi uncle I know.
Amardeep, the State Dep’t defines South Asia as including Afghanistan, so there’s your link 😉
i just bought this book and I am glad I did. Amardeep, your write ups are GREAT. Especially since you don’t tell much about the plot.
I hope to write a post when I am done reading it.
Manish,
Phew! I was worried I was going to get a call from the official Sepia Mutiny Ombudsman.
Chai,
Thanks for the props. I hope you didn’t read the comments too carefully, as folks did mention some detailed plot points… Anyway, looking forward to your post.
As a resident of Fremont, it’s interesting to see the Afghan-Indian relationships within the city and yes, the fact that there’s a Nas Cinema right in the middle of Little Kabul makes them South Asian enough for me. (Sorry for the run-on sentence)
I really enjoyed the book for what it was, and of course had it not been for the US Invasion this book would not have been as big as it was. I think the public was just interested in the culture. And it sort of reads like a screenplay, with intro, protagonist, climax, and resolution. That’s why the first half was so much better than the second half — we kind of got away from the recipe and just followed Amir’s life, which I actually thought was portrayed extremely well, extremely realistically. And yeah, the whole sling-shot through the rapist’s eye at the end was total “da vinci code.”
So I have recommended this book to people, just to shed light on a fascinating culture that has sort of been lost under all the politics and war.
On another note though, I file this book in the same sort of genre I would put Amy Tan’s fiction under: extremely appealing and enlightening, but highly melodramatic. (You sort of reach a point where you’re tired of hearing about the dead babies in China and how May didn’t really want to learn how to play the piano, etc.)
amardeep – not arguing
the desi content of this AT all, really.
That bad guy with a German grandparent – I have a pakistani friend with that kind of family connection too. Seems like some German women (after both WW I & II) married students who went over from the sepia part of the world and happily settled there.
I read The Kite Runner and The Bookseller of Kabul. I had a reaction similar to that of Rani to TKR . I liked 2/3rd of the book. The book degenerates into a melodrama with fantastic coincidences when the protagonist returns to Kabul. I also disliked the fact that there was one “villian” of the piece – who was evil in all its cliched magnificence – blond, blue-eyed, German, gay paedo, nationalist and fundamentalist. Also, the weak man is a Hazara, a stereotypical oppressed minority. In short, it had all the elements that would appeal to raw emotions rather than to the intellect. And how it worked! I could not put the damn book down.
On the other hand, the Bookseller is written like a commentary on events that take place in that household with a haughty ‘I’m a fly in the wall’ attitude. I found it quite painful. It had shades of the far better and more cliched Princess
I heard on a BBC interview that the Bookseller himself did not like the book and said he was going to come out with his own version of the story.That would be interesting.
To me the almost complete lack of women in the part which was set in Afghanistan was pretty refreshing.
The bookseller (Mohammed Rais Shah) really didn’t like it: he went to Norway and filed suit against Asne Seierstad for slander. According to the Guardian, no one has ever done anything like it before.
There are many things I don’t like about Bookseller of Kabul, but I thought she was at least fair about the flaws and virtues of the Bookseller himself. (You can’t have your second wife and get to eat ‘progressive’ cake…)
Seierstad wrote a book about her experience covering the recent Iraq war that I liked better. It’s called A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal. It also has its flaws, but is worth a read if you can still bear to think about what is happening in Iraq. I did a short review of both of Seierstad’s books here.
From the USA Today story:
Manish, I saw that — not too surprising given that he was also in “Homebody/Kabul” (or was it Kabul/Homebody)?
You can see a reference to it on the American Place Theatre website. But no links to the performance after it happens. (They aren’t updating very much)
Many of the performances they did last year ended up going online as streaming video; I’m writing them to encourage them to do the same for this one.
As far are whether or not Afghanistan is part of South Asia, keep in mind that once upon a time, regardless of geographical distinctions, Afghanistan was once part of the greater “Indian” conglomeration under countries a couple dynasties (Indo-scythian, indo-greek, indo-parthian). The national museum in Delhi has plenty of “desi” artifacts from what they label as Gandahar, the Hindi/Indian term for Kandahar, and also an ancient country in Afghanistan itself. What that implies for today’s classification of Afghanistan, I’m not sure, but there are certainly cultural and ethnic ties that go far back.
Interesting Purwa. I just remembered that in the epic Mahabharata – Duryodhana mother is named Gandhari. Connections from times past. BTW, how about the proposal to call the South Asia – Greater India 😉
It’s not too often I get rope-a-doped into zeitgeisty anything. And actually, I barely read anything new. But I got it as a gift as I was leaving on a flight to the motherland. I devoured it in a few hours as did my mother and cousin did the following days.
Deshi connection? Afgahnistan was part of India under various kingdoms. Considering that the Khyber Pass was the gateway/doormat into Bharat for invaders and migrations is connection enough for me. And the common words in the languages must give students of history pause on our shared history. We have left footprints in each other’s sands that even Spencer Wells and crew will not easily be able to disassociate.
The last time Afghanistan was in the mind’s eye was because the West was mesmerized by a set of haunting eyes That picture and version 2.0 told the story of a proud, ancient people and culture ravaged by warring forces throughout history, while this novel spoke of a cosmopolitan modern society ripped apart by the same forces. Yes, interest in the book was helped by current affairs, but The Kite Runner stands on its own. If you find the moral arc(s) and plot trajectories unsatisfyingly pat and gimmicky, I wonder what you think of the some of Western Victorian canon- Dickens, Austen, Bronte–they freebased that stuff. What others saw as unbelievable scenes, I thought of as cinematic and visceral. The Bookseller of Kabul and The Swallows of Kabul dealt with the same subject matter but didn’t move me and other readers in the same way. I’m anxious to find out to see how the big screen treats this novel in a way that I’ll never feel about other period pieces Hollywood regularly turns out.
Amir takes his place among some of the great anti-heroes. We don’t expect him to save the world but as readers we plead to him to stand up when he can. But he won’t. He is weak, like us. No wonder he becomes a writer! Furthermore, he watches injustice even as he buttressed by an examplar of courage and compassion–his father. His father’s sins and mistakes pale in comparison, I believe. The words, there is a way to be good again haunted me as I meandered around Bombay. A city in a country which my family abandoned for all the reasons Suketu Mehta writes about beautifully. Just as my grandparents left their ancestral village for the big city in another lifetime. No my parents aren’t those ethereal apparitions inhabiting the Fremont fleamarkets, leaving one world behind where they lived wholly to find themselves living partially in some strange world. But i wonder about the faded glory and beauty of past lives, when the scent of jasmine or the sight of jackfruit leads to reverie and a filmi number leaves them in tears.
The novel indicts its protagonist and that I believe is its salient message–not easy redemption but the acknowledgement of moral lapses.
And really, Canada was better under the original name, Kannada 😉
Fortunately most novelists aren’t paid by the word any more.
And Hosseini among the great anti-authors.
The words it’s almost over haunted me as I whizzed through the book.
The House of Sand and Fog (I’ve only seen the movie) did similar themes better.
They sound the same when spoken by punjabis anyways ;-). BTW, the Gandhari and Kandahar connection is for real .
then can someone please explain A Suitable Boy to me…
My sweetie lives 2,500 miles away, so we spend time each night on the phone. Mostly, we read to each other.
This book was one of the first books she read to me, one chapter at a time. It was difficult at first, very difficult. There were times when I considered asking her to stop. By the time we finished the book, I was glad that I hadn’t.
I recommend it highly.
Someone in publishing had a surplus in their COGS budget 😉
Good Lord, Joe K. Your phone bills must’ve been quite memorable…
(that’s really sweet that you kids did that. best wishes:)
Jeez, Manish. That goes into the office dance-party fund, not to the authors…you silly naif 🙂
I suspected as much. Maybe you can straighten my numbers out… and now you have an explanation for why I blog instead 😉
Slightly off-topic but looks like Mangal Pandey, of sepoy mutiny fame I believe, is blogging now.
Sepoy Mutiny
Uh..where did you get those numbers? That’s a pretty grim scenario….ain’t that bad 🙂
and boy is it ever better than any deal musicians can cut! flat out, hands down, no comparison.
From someone in publishing. What’s your take on it?
I just read the essay..that poor man. He makes some valid points, but without knowing more details, it’s hard to say what went wrong there. I dunno much, but send mail and I’ll try to guess.
back to the Kite Runner!
From someone in publishing. What’s your take on it?
Well, the numbers worked out for Suitable Boy because:
It was an easy buy for Harpers–Seth didn’t ask for a massive advance and, don’t quote me, but he was also “wired” into publishing when he pitched the book, which made talks that much easier(he was Assistant Editor of the Humanities at Stanford University Press and if that sounds familiar…)
It just occurs to me that I’m not answering the question and then it dawns on me that I’m not sure what the question is.
I thought that this book was very inspirational and motivated me to have a greater relationship with the friends around me.
This is by far, one of the best books ive read. The kite runner does not go into detail about the history of afghanistan and the wars. In fact it is just something as simple as friendship and rape and everyday life, and that is why i think its become such a big hit. Good books dont always have to be hard to read and analyzed. Sometimes they can be something easy as The Kite Runner, but have the deepest meaning behind it and teaches us life long lessons.
Sorry to disappoint people, but Afghanistan is a Central Asian country, regardless of how the US or the UK or Russia wants to classify us.
Ask any afghan (non-desi movie-worshipping one) and you will have your answer.
I recommend in order to get a clear answer, trying the larger afghan groups on facebook. The afghan forums are frequented by too many pakistanis who have pashtun ancestry somewhere down the line (and aren’t a true representation of afghans or our (pashtun, tajik, hazara, uzbek, turkmen, Kirgz, nuristani, farsiwan, plus all of our mixes) opinions.