Literary Merit

I could not even think of a fun title that incorporates an aspect of the novel. I was just instructed to write about The Kite Runner's literary merit and in lieu of some great pun all I could think of was "Literary Merit". Well now that the titles out of the way, I am going to continue with the rest of the blog.

Before I get into analyzing the literary merit of The Kite Runner I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the book. It was perfect for this activity. It had a great plot and complex characters and was a complete page turner. It was a little bit shorter than some other books we had read, which meant I could read at a gentle pace. This was especially helpful with the fact that our blog posts were during our midterms. I loved reading the book, but I do not believe that it was of literary merit for an AP level.

The first thing about The Kite Runner is how all the important information was near the surface. I did not have to interpret the book and go deeper than just the literal words to understand the meaning and the theme. At times Khaled Hosseini was so blunt with his motifs that it felt like I was being beat over the head. A great example of this is when Amir is in the hospital after getting beat up by Assef. The doctor is telling him about his injuries and says, "The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle." (297). At this point Hosseini has created a great similarity between Amir and Hassan because of the symbology between their likeness of their lips. For a book at an AP English level that would be all that would be needed to be said in order for the reader to understand the reference. But Hosseini ruins the moment and takes the complexity down a notch with the next sentence, "Like a harelip." (297). Now, one would have to have been half asleep when reading the book to not get that reference. It is so obvious. And this happens repeatably throughout the book. When Amir goes to save Sohrab from the Taliban he encounters none other than Assef. Now, the villain could have been someone who looks or has any of his traits, but the author had to make it Assef to complete the parallel between Hassan fighting Assef and Amir fighting Assef. Not only is it improbable, but the reference is just too blunt for an AP reader. After reading Song of Solomon my understanding of an AP level piece of literature is one that hides meaning and motifs in details that would not be expected and had to be looked for, like when Milkman is in the forest and he is tripping over the roots. In seems like a minor plot detail, but the author used it to help convey his meaning of Milkman changing as a man after that journey. The Kite Runner just is not at that level. Do I believe that it is a good book to read and one that numerous people may find enjoyable. I absolutely do, but I believe it should not be taught in an AP curriculum. For what the project I was doing involving blogging it is great, especially with the fact that after reading it I have to answer the question of its literary merit. But overall too blunt, too obvious, too expected and literal.

Finally, I would like to say that as this is my last blog post that I have very much enjoyed this project. It beats writing a long paper on one topic. I get to widen my range of topics and add more of my personal voice to the writing.

Thank you to anyone who has spent the time to read my blog, even if you are just one of my classmates. Hopefully, you have appreciated what I had to say and might even have been convinced to pick up The Kite Runner and try it for yourself.