The Happy Ending Blog Project

Now that you've purged yourselves of the semester by reading The Da Vinci Code, People Magazine, Cosmo & Spin (o.k., that was me), you might be ready for some more serious suggestions. I already praised Toni Morrison's Beloved in class (indeed, it was just named the best American book of the last 25 years) and highly recommend it. Might be fun to think, as you read it, if it is a "postcolonial Victorian" novel -- hey, feel free to post on it: the Happy Ending Blog will live on indefinitely.

If you liked Howard's End, then you'll love: Forster's A Passage to India and A Room with a View, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, A. S. Byatt's Possession.

If you liked A House for Mr. Biswas, then you'll love: Naipaul's Mimic Men, J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, Timothy Mo's Sour Sweet, Ben Okri's The Famished Road.

If you liked Midnight's Children, then you'll love: Rushdie's Satanic Verses, Coetzee's Foe (a rewrite, sort of, of Robinson Crusoe) as well as many postmodern american novels out there (Pynchon, Roth) or classics such as Joyce's Ulysses, to which Midnight's Children responds.

If you liked Remains of the Day, then you 'll love: The God of Small Things and The English Patient.

If you liked On Beauty, then you'll love: Zadie Smith, White Teeth, David Lodge's novels (all hilarious).

If you liked The Kite Runner, stay tuned for Hosseini's next novel coming out soon.

others: Monica Ali's Brick Lane (female author, female protagonist), Margaret Drabble's trilogy: Radiant Way, A Natural Curiosity, and The Gates of Ivory (that was actually on the syllabus, but was out of print), Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (described as an Indian Jane Austen), Annie Proux's The Shipping News (highly indebted to the Victorian novel).

Feel free to add suggestions, comments as you read on. I'll add books as I think of them. I loved having you all in class. It was a great way for me to wrap things up at SLU. Good luck!

Hosseini is very cognizant of the fact that the success of his novel relies on the ending. He seems self-conscious about this when he asserts, "In America, you don’t reveal the ending of the movie, and if you do, you will be scorned and made to apologize profusely for having committed the sin of Spoiling the End" (Hosseini 357). He knows what readers are looking for and provides this in a very real way using suspense and creating twists throughout the novel. In a novel that contains such horrific events, the ending provides the reader closure as Sohrab and Amir fly kites in the park. The question of whether or not this is a happy ending can be debated in this novel just as in every other novel throughout the semester. In this case, the ending is not necessarily happy, but given the events that take place prior to the novel’s ending, it is the most hopeful that Hosseini can realistically present to readers. It is pragmatic and makes implications about the characters’ futures.

The ending of The Kite Runner clearly indicates Sohrab’s depression upon being displaced. He wants nothing more than to go back to the life that he is familiar with in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, even if he was in Afghanistan, the life he once knew does not exist anymore. Amir says, "our old life is gone, Sohrab, and everyone in it is either dead or dying" (Hosseini 354-5). Perhaps this novel plays on human emotions a bit and might be considered cheesy, but no one can read that line and not feel the power of those words. Even though this is fiction, it is based on real events, the real situation in Afghanistan. If Hosseini uses these characters to make the Western world see the reality of situations abroad and care more deeply about what our country is doing to help these people, more power to him. Sohrab’s identity confusion, lamentations of his old way of life, and heart-wrenching actions to destroy himself because he is "tired of everything," is telling the story of all Afghani people and all those countries that have been ravaged by power-hungry groups like the Taliban.

Knowing that this is how Sohrab feels and what he has been through makes the smile at the end so important. Amir says, "it didn’t make everything alright. It didn’t make anything alright (Hosseini 371)." He still has a long way to go on his emotional journey to move forward and live the rest of his life to the fullest, but it is hopeful. Amir sees this as a step towards the larger goal of making Sohrab feel like a normal child. He says, "when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting" (Hosseini 371). He sees a chance for Sohrab to open up to him and Soraya, establish a connection with them, and foster a relationship that is life-giving. This smile represents a window of opportunity for Amir to save his nephew and make up for the past wrongdoings he committed against his half brother, Hassan.

This novel’s ending is powerful because it is all about being able to overcome adversity. It shows that it is often not easy to do this, but it can be achieved over time. Sohrab will never live the life he formerly knew, but he can create a new, meaningful one for himself through letting go of his past and focusing on his future with Amir and Soraya. These two can remind him of his past, his father and old neighborhood, and can also provide a better tomorrow for him that is free of the hardships of his former life.

Now that the semester is coming to an end and approximately 2448 pages of postcolonial literature are pumping through our veins (give or take Midnight’s Children), I am glad that we conclude the semester with this enticing, disturbing and educational novel, The Kite Runner. Although Hosseini engages the heroes and villains in a guaranteed page-turner Dickensian style, I would disagree that he cheapens the global issues he brings to light.

In The Kite Runner, Hosseini informs the audience of issues like the ethnicity and religious conflicts in Afghanistan, the violence of Taliban occupation, the degree of the oppression of Afghani people, even mental health, all with or without intention. I would argue that each reader learns something about an issue that he/she did not know before. The novel educates the audience about the tensions between Shi'a Muslims and Sunni Muslims, and the consequential hostility. In the first pages of the novel, Hosseini delivers the first history lesson to the reader by noting that Hassan's history "book said part of the reason Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras was that Pashtuns were Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras were Shi'a" (9). Although intensified for fictional purposes, the reader cannot ignore the evil and sickening presence of Assef in the novel and the Taliban in Afghanistan. While the audience must always be aware that they are reading a piece of fiction and not a nonfiction account, they cannot dismiss the reality of the violence the Taliban afflicts on Afghanistan in reality. It is likely that the Taliban murder(ed) defenseless Afghani families in front of their homes like this piece of fiction suggests it happens to Hassan and his wife (218). In these instances, the reader learns about issues specific to Afghanistan, but relevant internationally.

Although the issue of mental health is less central to The Kite Runner, it also appears within the novel’s “riveting” plot. Leaving the suspense high like a Dickensian novelist would, Hosseini follows the happy news of Sohrab admittance into America with Sohrab’s tragic suicide attempt in the same paragraph (343). After all the hardship Sohrab has experienced in young life, Sohrab’s mental situation is apparent, severely distressed with the possibility of having to return to an orphanage. In detail Hosseini describes the unfortunate but realistic way Sohrab deals with his bleak circumstances, “the bloody bathwater; the left arm dangling over the side of the tub, the blood-soaked razor sitting on the toilet tank… and his eyes, still half open but lightless” (348). This chilling description notes the desperate reality of a troubled mind. Often modern society pawns depression and suicidal thoughts off as weaknesses, but Hosseini shows that people suffering from these mental conditions are legitimately sad and are in need of help and understanding.

Whether this novel leaves you with good or bad feelings, Hosseini should not be criticized for sharing important issue that are personal to him with his accessible populace. Spreading awareness in a way parallel to your talents is an honorable, not cheapening, action. I, personally, do not see it as problematic that Hosseini was successful in writing a best-selling piece of fiction. He enabled, at the least, an American audience to learn about global injustices in a meaningful and effective way. Being aware of global happenings is critical, and Hosseini merely accommodates people that prefer the form of the novel to other sources like media and newspapers. Being the optimist I am, I found the ending of The Kite Runner to be a happy one. Although the ending might have been somewhat cheesy and slightly unrealistic, it generates hope that wrongs can be righted.


To conclude my post about educating audiences about personal and burning issues, I encourage each responder to take this opportunity, at the end of your comment, to post a link to information about a charity, cause, or issue dear to you. Seize this chance to "tell the rest of the world," well, at least class, about your cause.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE KITE RUNNER PROMPT! FOR THAT, LOOK BELOW AT THE POST TITLED "THE KITE RUNNER."
Given that none of you confessed to knowing anything about the Six Million Dollar Man, I have little faith that you will get this SNL reference. Regardless, I thought it might be helpful and fun as you prepare for the final exam to talk generally about the novels. Did you like them? Which ones? Were they frustrating? awful? corny? breathtaking? Who was your favorite character? Least favorite? If you could have made one change to any of the novels (in terms of what happened in them) what would it be? Anything (related to our six novels) goes!

This is neither a mandatory nor graded part of the blog: comment if you want, or remain silent. In other words, you can dance if you want to!

As we have been discussing in class, The Kite Runner seems more than an little Victorian in its use of improbable coincidences and its galloping desire to wrap things up. But it also aims, in the words of Wahid (Amir's host on his first nights back in Afghanistan) to "tell the rest of the world what the Taliban are doing to our country" (236). Having now read six novels that locate themselves somewhere at the crossroads of the Victorian Novel and postcolonialism, how does The Kite Runner balance its needs to tell about specific geo-political realities (such as the Taliban) while also telling a good old-fashioned Oliver Twist page turner? Does doing the latter compromise the commitment to the former? Of course, you may also write about whether or not you find the ending of the novel a happy one! Make sure to use details and to post by Sunday and/or comment by Wednesday. The blog will close on Wednesday evening.

“There is such a shelter in each other.” This is what Carlene tells Kiki in one of their first conversations, and this is also what she includes as a postscript to the note in the painting she leaves her. When we meet Kiki at the beginning of On Beauty, she has already begun to feel she is losing her shelter, Howard, because he has cheated on her. As she questions her marriage, she begins to question herself as well. “Right now I’m trying to understand what my life’s been for- I feel I’m at that point - and what it will be for” (176). While she disagrees with Carlene Kipps on some things (“I don’t ask myself what did I live for... I ask whom did I live for” 176), Kiki finds real shelter in Carlene, someone who she feels actually sees her and who provides genuine friendship.

The turning point in the novel, and Kiki’s life, comes from Mrs. Kipps after she has passed away. When Kiki finds the note in the Maitresse Erzulie painting that Levi had stolen from Monty, she leaves Howard, something we as readers have been waiting for since we found out about his infidelity. “Kiki- please enjoy this painting. It needs to be loved by someone like you. Your friend, Carlene” (430). This note, with the postscript mentioned above, seems to remind Kiki of how Carlene saw her, and she finally leaves Howard.

Howard is an easy character to villainize; he cheats on his wife twice, seems to think only of himself and even the ideas he has that once seemed revolutionary are now “almost automatic” (118). As the publishing date for his book is repeatedly pushed back, and he fails his wife twice, Howard begins to see his life as a fraud. It is the Maitresse Erzulie painting and accompanying note that gives Kiki the final strength to leave Howard, but it is another painting that begins to redeem Howard in the reader’s eyes at the very end.

It’s telling that Smith chooses to end the book at what is supposed to be the most important lecture of Howard’s career. Howard screws up here, yet again, when he leaves his notes in the car. But it is at this moment that Howard realizes what really matters to him (as Carlene would say, “whom” he lived for, not “what”) when he sees Kiki’s face in the crowd. It is through a Rembrandt painting, Hendrickje Bathing, that Howard makes this realization. In the painting, the woman “seemed to be considering whether to wade deeper.” Howard then looks into the audience and sees Kiki- “her face, his life” (442). At the last moment, Howard is redeemed as we realize that he is truly seeing Kiki for what she is once again.

The Haitian Maitresse Erzulie painting provided a backbone for the life-changing friendship with Carlene that Kiki needed, a friendship that continues to impact Kiki even after Carlene’s death, through the painting. The Rembrandt painting, on the other hand, provides an eye-opener for Howard, the least sympathetic character, and thus a last-minute redemption. The colors of the paint also provides a hopeful ending , like the hay in Howard’s End, “the ever present human hint of yellow, intimation of what is to come” (443).

Feel free to talk about any aspect of the ending of On Beauty that interests you or to compare/contrast Smith's ending with those of our previous novels. The only requirement is that you use quotes and specific details to make your case. If you need a prompt to get started, here are two to choose from.
You might consider our Big Question in class: What is beauty OR who or what is beautiful by the end of the novel? One way of looking at this would be to check out images of the two paintings central to the close of the novel's action, Rembrandt's "Hendrickje bathing" (the painting about which Howard is to give his tenure lecture) and Hippolyte's "Maitresse Erzulie" (the painting Carlene leaves Kiki). You can find images of both these paintings (as well as others mentioned in the novel) here: http://www.authortrek.com/on_beauty_page.html.
We have discussed the parallels between Margaret Schlegel and Kiki Belsey. But those veterans of Middlemarch might want to consider an earlier literary ancestor for Kiki: Dorothea Brooke. Go back and look at Kiki's reflections of her life on p. 424 of the novel, when she thinks "she had not become Malcolm X's private secretary...". Then look at Eliot's final description of Dorothea's life: "Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion" (514). Is Kiki Belsey best understood as a Victorian heroine?

As they are parting, perhaps for the last time, Stevens tells Mrs. Benn (Miss Kenton) that the latter part of a married couple's life is supposed to be the best part. A few pages later the stranger sitting next to Stevens tells him that the latter part of the day is often considered the best part. Given that this book is titled Remains of the Day, it seems extra important to reflect on the "remains" of this book. Where are we left at the ending of this novel? Is Stevens looking at the "best part" or continuing to struggle with reality? Feel free to talk just about Ishiguro's novel or compare/contrast with an earlier book we've read. And make sure to provide specific quotes from the novel to back up your position.