A thousand deadly clichés
I finally got around to perusing Khaled Hosseini’s sophomore effort A Thousand Splendid Suns when it hit the library shelves, having been underwhelmed by the melodramatic The Kite Runner. I needn’t have bothered. The book manages to be even worse than the first, which was at least a serious effort. Hosseini confused his debut novel’s sales success with intrinsic merit (the Afghanistan war surely had much to do with it) and somehow managed to draw the following conclusions:
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The book was too well-written
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It wasn’t weepy enough
So the new one is written at the level of children’s books, with simplistic thoughts encoded in short sentences:
‘When will he be back?’
‘He didn’t say.’
Mariam said she would wait.
He closed the gates…
Mariam crossed her arms.
Ah, memories of kindergarten. At least it passes quickly. When Suns occasionally reaches for flourish, it embarrasses itself: ‘it was as though a rainbow had melted into her eyes.’ And Suns is even more predictably weepy than Kite Runner. The author has his oppressed female protagonist’s father reject her, and her mother commit suicide, within the first 34 pages. So when he grants her a pregnancy, I knew he’d kill it off because it’s that kind of crap story. Sure enough, the fetus didn’t survive five pages, poor saala.
The book is also written in colonialist style with Farsi words italicized and English definitions unnaturally shoehorned into dialogue. Nobody speaks that way, saying things twice, once in their own bhasha and once in English. These are awkward, retro conventions which yank you out of the story.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is the Afghan equivalent of Five Point Someone or Shakalaka Boom Boom. You already know what’s going to happen in this rag. You’ve read it a Thousand times before. And you can’t even take pride in it, because it’s like outwitting a toddler.
For lack of anything other reading material nearby, I read 50 more pages of this Chetan Bhagatian tosh than I had planned. A chewing gum label would’ve been more enlightening. But one thing did come through even more loudly than in the debut — the enormous food and culture overlap with India and lexical commonalities with Hindi. The character speaks Farsi:
She saw musicians blowing the shahnai flute and banging on dohol drums…
Nana taught her to… cook… shalqam stew with turnip, spinach sabzi, cauliflower with ginger.
There you are. The only reason to spend time with this swill is the insight that Afghanistan does indeed fall under the ‘South Asia’ rubric. Now please don’t do anything so rash as to buy the book. You might encourage the good doctor to make this his day job.
on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008, 10:46 pm in Literature › 
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my best friend gave me two books to read -one was kabul beauty school and the other kite runner…my friend is an american so she thought kite runner was very good and so I decided instead of reading the book, I rented the movie and saw it. It was ok ok for me…nothing special..
I liked the movies osama and khandahaar, osama was very realistic and even khandahaar very touching realistic documentary sort of movie based on afghan culture…
I heard people talk about this second book a lot..thanks to your review I dont think I will read this book..I dont know if my best friend is planning to read that book. I will tell her not to read it..
I found kabul beauty school pretty entertaining atleast the first 50 pages I read..But the book didnot capture my interest more than that, Iam yet to finish it..My best friend who heard a lot about arranged marriages from me thought kabul beauty school afghan culture is somewhat similar to Indian culture..
I know a number of writers who might find this phrase a tad insulting.
Ah, the Poojster stole my line.
While I agree with you, Manish Dada (that better?), about the “translation clauses” and predictable plot, I stand by short sentences. Not that these were brilliant, but they can be exquisitely rendered.
I remember the Kite Runner clearly, yet can barely piece together the sequel and I only read it recently.
Easily readable, just not memorable.
Love your boldness when you tear stuff to shreds, just don’t get tetchy when the velvet boot is on the other foot someday.
PS: Might hurt sales and therefore my promised diamonds…
Eh? Are there 300-page literary novels of complexity written for the pre-teen set I’m missing…
Hosseini’s no Hemingway.
If I ever write this kind of stuff I’ll pull the trigger myself :)
so manish, did you read it closely or just skim it?
If you’d read the post closely, you’d see that I abandoned it :)
Yes, quite a number. I’d be happy to send you an extensive list to prevent such unfounded, patronizing comments ;).
Pooj, no insult intended. The Pet Goat isn’t YA, and sadly, neither is Suns ;)
Truce, my dear ;).
But my offer to provide you with an extensive list of “300-page literary novels of complexity” written for young readers still stands.
Nice bit on Slate about Anne of Green Gables….just saying.
Manish, I love reading your thousand deadly reviews. Slay ‘em!
I once dumped a girl because she made me read The Kite Runner (after proclaiming it to be the greatest novel of all time). Years later I still feel this was the best decision I’ve ever made.
This is pretty much what I do when someone I am dating insults Rushdie.
Its always a good idea to judge people by which writers they hate than the ones they like, because the reviews always tell people the right writers to love, but never the right writers to dislike. I respect Manish more for disliking Marquez than liking Rushdie ;).
Sorry if this sounded snobbish: I am a jerk that way ;).
phew. that’s a relief. i always had a tooting good time with walter but was afraid I’d be judged loudly on that. dont sniff at me y’all. i am wiping that old jam can clean.
khoofia…that was an offhand remark. I don’t pride myself on my impeccable taste: my taste is v v peccable. I meant that test as more a poseur alert than anything else. I just hate poseurs, but how do you tell them from the real deals.
I liked Cholera, though not Solitude…
I never understood Solitude…but yeah, I liked Cholera as well. Also liked Chronicle. But his reputation rests largely on Solitude, doesn’t it?
“Its always a good idea to judge people by which writers they hate than the ones they like”
I am totally opposite
I judge people based on writers they like rather than writers they dislike
I can fall in love with a guy who likes Atlas Shrugged or Aynrand than like a guy who dislikes chitradivakaruni or books like suitable boy
And I like short sentences in conversation if they have a depth to it…definetely not childish short sentences.
Speaking from the depths of Latin America, his reputation rests on a lot more than just Solitude.
Love and Other Demons and Solitude are my GG-M favorites. (I know, I know none of you are going to ask me out now.)
Magaly (my Colombian room-mate in college) and I would have loved to have you over for a cup of Colombian coffee. Although Jaudui & Ninochka (our other former roomates) would have started an arguement about Colombian vs Costa Rican vs Nicaraguan coffees.
In the process, the only thing we would have all agreed upon was our discomfort with Romancing the Stone and our love for Marquez.