I finally finished The Kite Runner
I hate it when I don't finish the book in time for book group. This time, there was really no good excuse -- The Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini), while 400 pages, was an incredibly fast read. Ann objected to his telegraphing his intention to use hackneyed literary conventions. There were a lot of coincidences in the second half that strained credibility.
I was surprised this paragraph, and several like it that followed, survived the editor's pen:
"A creative writing teacher at San Jose State used to say about cliches: 'Avoid them like the plague.' Then he'd laugh at his own joke. The class laughed along with him, but I always thought cliches got a bum rap. Because, often, they're dead on. But the aptness of the cliched saying is overshadowed by the nature of the saying as a cliche. For example, 'the elephant in the room' saying. Nothing could more correctly describe the intial moments of my reunion with Rahim Khan."
I was surprised this paragraph, and several like it that followed, survived the editor's pen:
"A creative writing teacher at San Jose State used to say about cliches: 'Avoid them like the plague.' Then he'd laugh at his own joke. The class laughed along with him, but I always thought cliches got a bum rap. Because, often, they're dead on. But the aptness of the cliched saying is overshadowed by the nature of the saying as a cliche. For example, 'the elephant in the room' saying. Nothing could more correctly describe the intial moments of my reunion with Rahim Khan."
posted by Excellent Walker at 5:54 PM
2 Comments:
It took me years to finally come to terms with the cliche issue. It mainly has to do with the recognition factor distracting in various ways from the content of what is being expressed. The various ways include contempt for cliche users, the means of expression taking too much attention, and making the reader think that he already knows what is being said.
I heard this was a good book.
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