The Kite Runner by Khalded Hosseini starts out beautifully:
I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.
The description Amir tells of his childhood in Afghanistan is mesmerizing. Wanting to please his father, playing (and taunting) his friend/servant Hassan, dealing with the neighborhood boys. The first half of the book is very, very strong. However, the last third of the book I felt was too contrived, too formulaic, and too coincidental. I still became very emotional at times, but the ‘wow’ factor for me was gone. There were just too many coincidences in the end to make it a believable story. Overall, though, I did enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation. I’ll also be reading A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2008.
2003, 371 pp.
Rating: 4
The Wreath is Book 1 in Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian Nobel laureate. I had this book down as one I wanted to read in 2007 since last January! The size of it (all 3 books together are 1100+ pages) intimidated me so much that I’m just now getting to Book 1.
In The Wreath, we learn of Kristin’s childhood and her relationship to her family and her community. She grows up in a home where her father adores her, and while her mother loves her very much, she is also sad much of the time due to multiple miscarriages. The descriptions of the farm life and scenes of 14th century Norway are simply fantastic. The book really has a sense of place and time.
The next two books are The Wife (which I’m halfway through) and The Cross. I really wish now that I had started earlier so that I could have completed the entire book in 2007. I’m anxious to see what will happen in Kristin’s life.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones has not only won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the NBCC Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Jones really knows how to write his characters. Each one was very clearly defined. I won’t give away too much of the story here but will write a brief overview.
Henry and Caldonia Townsend are slave owners who are black themselves. Henry’s father had freed himself and his wife, and then later Henry. While Henry was still a slave under William Robbins, he became somewhat of a favorite, and was later instructed by Robbins on how to be a proper slave owner. Henry builds up quite a plantation but then dies unexpectedly. How Caldonia, along with her overseer Moses, runs the plantation afterward forms the rest of the novel.
Several issues are presented in the book. Whites’ attitudes towards blacks, both slave and free; the function of “the law;” men’s attitudes towards women (and vice versa); and the question of how and why blacks could own slaves themselves.
This is a very well-written book, and I struggled on whether to rate it a 4 or 4.5. There is some content in the book that downgrades it slightly for me. Consider it a very high 4.
"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)
The Wreath is Book 1 in Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian Nobel laureate. I had this book down as one I wanted to read in 2007 since last January! The size of it (all 3 books together are 1100+ pages) intimidated me so much that I’m just now getting to Book 1.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones has not only won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the NBCC Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
