And just because.

[blissfish]

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns a month or so ago, and while it was well-written, and poignant, and certainly moving, I felt it was a little flat in character development.

Last night I stayed up and read The Kite Runner, Hosseini's first novel, and I'm still searching my room for the bits of my heart to put them back in place.

I think the difference between the two, what made one a good novel and one a great novel (in my opinion only, of course) is the difficulty in writing a truly intimate first-person narrative in the voice of a gender not your own. Hosseini's narrative in The Kite Runner is intricate and full of the nuance of a boy raised in Afghan culture, things that really only a man from that culture could know - it's in the description of facial expressions, the speech patterns, the food, and the knowledge of class and privilege. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, he does a good job, but doesn't make the internal narrative of the main character truly real.

Comments

[pixiesunshine.livejournal.com]

can we start a book club? I heart books and love to discuss.

[blissfish.livejournal.com]

I think that's an awesome idea!

[psylent1.livejournal.com]

An author who did an excellent job at writing in the voice of another gender: Wally Lamb, in She's Come Undone.

[blissfish.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I'll look for that one, writers portraying another gender has always fascinated me, just because of the hundreds of little tiny differences that need to be covered to make it real.

[psylent1.livejournal.com]

I still have the book - let me know when you want to read it.