Books I've read this year
Listed more or less in the order in which I've read them. Well, as far as I can remember it, anyway, and as many books as I can remember too, for that matter. I only started keeping a written list about a third of the way through 2007, so I may well have missed out a few from the beginning of the year. God knows, reading lists weren't the most
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I appreciated, too, the fact that the narrator and central protagonist wasn't wholly likeable. It's always a risky thing for a writer to try to pull off, and when they do, it's usually with the sort of so-called sexy, 'bad boy' type characteristics that people don't mind admitting they're drawn to despite themselves, rather than the sort of cowardice and naked self-concern that this novel's main man displays. They're despicable rather than admirable, but I felt that Hosseini totally succeeded in retaining our sympathy for him despite this, and in 'redeeming' his character both through his later actions and through an effective and believable portrayal of the circumstances (family dynamics and tensions) that had motivated his less honourable decisions and choices. No mean feat. I was also impressed by his refusal to give the book a conclusive, happy-ever-after resolution.
On the other hand, I had some problems with the book that really spoilt it for me. Irritatingly, I can't remember what all of them were, and I don't have it to hand (it was one of a number of my books that my Mum dumped on me, having forgotten whether they'd been given or lent to her, and if it had been the latter, who she was supposed to give 'em back to! So passing them onto me to read seemed more prudent than charity shopping 'em. In the same spirit, I've since passed it on to my sister), so this'll be a bit sketchy, but...
Structurally, I found the book just too predictable, and - in one case in particular - utterly Hollywood corny. I'm referring to the unpleasant contemporary from Amir's childhood who - surprise, surprise! - turns up in his maturity for a one on one 'meeting his nemesis' showdown. It was soooooo obviously going to happen, and so overdone, and it really pissed me off. Similarly the revelation of shared blood between certain characters, and the events/character-developments that this sets in motion. Also the 'search for the lost child' aspect, the incorporation of that child into the protaganist's family as the means of his redemption.
I know that there are only so many stories in the world, and that 'stock characters' and sets of circumstances are only reflective of real life (history is repetitive, human nature is pretty predictable, and people always make the same choices and mistakes), but I felt that they could be handled a lot better than this. If there'd been only one or two totally 'predictable' elements like these in the plot, or if they HADN'T been used as the main 'revelatory' events, or points of insight, or aspivotal moments for plot progression, that sort of thing, they wouldn't have irritated me so much. But there were just too many, and it made things feel too formulaic for me.
Not unrelated to that is my peeve about the way book itself is actually written - again I'm wishing I had it to hand so I could quote/gripe accurately about it now. Anyway, the point is, you know when you notice that someone frequently uses a particular pattern of speech, or formulaic way of expressing themselves, and then you can't unnotice it, and it seems to crop up again and again and again, twice as loudly as anything else they say? There were one or two things that narked me in that way with The Kite Runner, chiefly the method of moving between scenes/passages by doing this:
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