Kite Runner

Kite Runner is being made into a movie.

Don't know if it will be shown in America. I'm sure they will gloss over the nasty parts and make it a true happy ever after movie, but I hope not.

Ahh.. Ok, now I know why the title you are talking about doesnt seem to be the one I want to read next.
The author is Sue Monk Kidd... the book - The Secret life of bees..

>sigh< Too many bee titles going around here.

Im not sure that Gail Anderson HAS made the book list on Oprah's show yet? Not that Oprah is the end all say all of what is a good book..
I just tend to hear about the list from her show faster then anything else.
The Giller Prize- What is that? Is that a prize that is given for content? Writting ability ?





I had thought about that before.. and I believe there would be only one of two combinations possible ; both would not have lead to such a great story.
One combination-
They knew they were brothers, yet still lived seperatly .
1-Slave
1- main house..
In that, there would have, could have, and should have been-- jealousy, hatred, anger, and manipulation from everyone.

The father of the boys, manipulating each boy to believe they were both equal even though , one lived in slaves quarters , one did not.

Each boy manipulating the other, either with the typical " Daddy loves me more" speech, or trying to get the other in trouble to win the favor of their father in order to 'appear' more trustworthy,honest, or worthy of more love.
IF the slave man would have stayed ( forgive me, i have already forgotten his name... ) he could have been a source of manipulation as well.
Though I belileve his would have been very subtle, but probally the most powerful .
And - that also depends on if he was to know that he was not his father to begin with.

I dont believe the boys would have had such a close relationship in this scenerio. It would have set the stage for 'ranks' in a family . With that hot point, I belive there could have been a good story written.. but no where near as good as it is right now.

The other scenerio -

The boys know they are brothers, live together in the same home, and are treated equally.
With this setting, you get a pretty typical version of everyones life.
Not too much to take from that.
The writter could have thrown in , or really focused on
-The fathers embarassment of having a child out of wedlock-
- One brother hating another brother for being born to a slave woman-
Or, having the father show complete favoritisim to one of the two boys.

These are all good spring boards for a story, but for some reason, only the original story sets well with me. ..

I think,if the boys knew they were related, and lived together in the home, that they would have had a strained relationship at best.
In the society the writter presents, I believe that there would have been a 'holier then thou' attitude taken with someone born of a slave woman.
Maybe the boys would have hated each other?
Maybe they would have tried to forge a good relationship even in the rules of their society?

I dont know..

AH! Let me show you:



More here, but you have the gist

Wow.. I like the idea behind that prize..

I am such a book hound.. I think I will make books that have won the Giller Prize , my new -must read- list...

I just finished "The Kite Runner" for my book club. I was about to open a new thread on it and figured there probably was one already, found this.

I'm the snob in my book club so I wanted to vent a bit before going. There were a lot of things I liked about it, but the plot contrivances were just eek. And there were a lot of weird prejudices that kept popping up. Homosexuality was one (you could just tell that the author thinks it's generally disgusting and horrible, yes I know it was presented as rape or abuse so of course that's bad but it went beyond that), and the treatment of the Hazaras was one of those typical privileged-person-guilty-about-oppressed-minority hagiographies. Hassan was just way TOO good. Ali too. (So Baba had sex with his wife and he just accepted it and stayed all sweet and good?) And the whole thing with Sohrab was just so tone-deaf in so many ways.

The author comes across as someone who thinks he's a rather good and enlightened fellow, a bit too back-patty. That part's a bit hard to describe.

I knew as soon as someone specific was mentioned as being the guy who took Sohrab that it would be Assef. That whole thing was just, geez. Amateurish. (Sohrab makes him "one-eyed Assef" after all, a circle is closed, yadda yadda.) That's the other problem -- Hassan and Ali were just goodgoodgood, and Assef was just a plain sociopath. I think it would be much more interesting to show someone more normal be seduced by the Taliban.

The parts I liked most were actual descriptions of Afghanistan, before and after. That seemed the most finely observed and the most true. Definitely fleshes out one's image of the place, if you didn't know much about it beforehand. (I didn't, this is the first book by an Afghani I've read I think.) I certainly knew the broad outlines -- Russians, rebels, Taliban, etc. -- but the book gives me a much more solid image than I'd had.

Overall I'm glad I read it but it was a bit disappointing.