Achebe, Rushdie, Satrapi and Hosseini

[kouredios]

I found this community by way of the RaceFail posts, and I'm inordinately happy to be able to contribute something positive other than listening, which I've been doing since January

Comments

[eudore]

We are reading Things Fall Apart in my English class. One of my classmates commented yesterday that she only realized halfway through the book that the characters weren't white. She just assumed they were. It would be funny if it weren't so scary.

[kouredios]

I haven't. Thanks for the rec! We've been doing a fair amount of work in film, too, so I'll definitely check it out.

[sanguinity]

Welcome!

May I ask for a stylistic edit, please? Could you please repeat the information in the cut-tag titles first thing inside the cut-tag, especially when you're using multiple cut-tags? Once I click through on any of the cut-tags, I no longer can tell where a review starts or finishes, nor what book came next. Thanks. :-)

[kouredios]

Absolutely! Sorry!

[color_blue]

ahhh. I really don't think The Kite Runner illuminates very much about Afghanistan or Islamic fundamentalism? I have some strong opinions about this book, actually, because I feel like it was used as a sort of propaganda. I wrote a semi-review of this book and why I thought this for some friends a while back; if you're more interested in where I'm coming from you can read it here (though I will be locking that post in a day or two).

[kouredios]

Oh, I'd be interested in reading that. I've only read it once, so my critical reading of it isn't as developed yet, and I'd love to read some more critical analysis.

For my particular cadre of students and their demographic, just reading from another perspective is illuminating, but I've also been teaching them about different schools of literary criticism, and how deeper readings work, so...yeah. I'll check that out. Thanks!

[b_writes]

I am saddened that the post is locked-- is there any chance you'll be re-posting it anywhere? I've heard a lot about the book but haven't had a chance to 'dig in' to the criticism.

[color_blue]

The jist of my post was that I believed The Kite Runner was a new orientalist narrative and presented a deceptive view of both Afghanistan and fundamentalism, in some of the same ways that 'reading lolita in tehran' presented a deceptive view of Iran and fundamentalism, and that the reason it had become so popular was because it reinforced the existing hierarchies and prejudices of our culture, and that neoconservatives were and are using it as propaganda.

It was the way that Hosseini alternately demonized and idealized everyone but the narrator, how all uncomfortable complexities (like the fact that the Americans had funded Taliban leaders and they really couldn't be explained away as being sadistic half-Germans) had been ironed out, how the ending was a haven in the west, etcetc. I don't have this up unlocked anywhere right now, for various reasons, but I will PM it to you.

Also, I should've said this when you first posted - I really liked the review of The Corpse Walker you made, and the book's now on my reading list.

[quasiradiant]

i read Things Fall Apart twice in high school and Haroun & the Sea of Stories once. i don't think i understood either at the time (not that i understood them then) but i remember finding the end of Things Fall Apart tragic and painful to read, both times.

one thing i always found strange about that one was that reading The Secong Coming didn't help illuminate much about the book. perhaps i should go back and reread it and the poem and see if anything makes more sense the third time.

i think Haroun may be one of the best and most underrated books ever written. that's just me, though.

[b_writes]

I'd recommend Persepolis 2 as well, though it's not as focused.

Once, during a talk he gave at UMass, where I am a grad student, he made a smart remark concerning Victoria Secret models when asked about the goddesses about whom the Satanic Verses were written.

Was this before or after he divorced Padma Lakshmi, I wonder?

[kouredios]

I've read Persepolis 2 myself--actually, I read them both in an omnibus. The class is just reading the first half, in the interest of time, but I have the whole omnibus in my classroom for them to borrow if they want to continue. We're a month away from reading it, and one of them has already borrowed it.

Was this before or after he divorced Padma Lakshmi, I wonder?

Before, though if I remember correctly I believe she divorced him. :D

[b_writes]

I suppose that's one of the explanations why, then.