Background

As I got off the train this past Tuesday saw a lady standing outside the station reading my favorite author, Khaled Hosseini.

The book she was reading is “A Thousand Splendid Suns”.

She was welling up as she described the area of the book she just read.

I comforted her by sharing how much I love Khaled’s writing.

Arundhati Roy

I am not deep enough to read Arundhati Roy’s book.

The closest I come to having a read of her is through her interviews.

Here is one :-

1. Kyoto Journal
   • Like Sculpting Smoke: Arundhati Roy on Fame, Writing and India
     November 5, 2011 / INSIGHTS FROM ASIA ( Link )
     • 1 – Question
       • You said that you would probably never write another book unless there was another book inside you to write. Is the writing a process to unleash the inner self?
     • 1 – Answer
       • I don’t know. I am a bit suspicious of this kind of personal therapeutic approach to writing. I think it is fine, but then you just have to understand that it is therapy, and literature is something else. Literature is about art and craft and not just about your feelings and your coming out of yourself. No one cares about you except you, whether you come out of yourself or help yourself or don’t help yourself is entirely your business. But literature is about art, about creating something. I’ve always said that amongst great writers there are selfish writers and generous writers; selfish writers leave you with the memory of their brilliance whereas generous writers leave you with the memory of the world that they have evoked. And to me, writing must be an act of generosity, not an act of self-indulgence or therapy. I’m not going to burden the world with what it did for me or didn’t do for me.
     • 2 – Question
       • Literature, you once said, is not divided according to language but according to stories, and as a writer you govern language. What is this governing of language?
     •  2 – Answer
       • The context in which I said that was a program on which I appeared with Salman Rushdie. He said in the introduction to his book of the best Indian writers that the only good writing coming out of India was in English and that the writing in regional languages was not worth anything.
       • And a lot of people including me were very upset with that. This is again that claim to represent India and no one language can claim to represent it, no one person, no one culture, no one caste, no one religion, because everything is true about India.
       • I tried to explain to him that there are so many writers in regional languages who are closer to him in many ways than I am.
       • So, you divide literature according to the ways in which you tell stories, not according to the language you use.
     • 3 – Question
     • 3 – Answer
       • Then there is this big colonial debate about writing in English. They ask me “Why do you write in English?” And they say, “But your writing is not like any American or British writers.” And I reply, “Naturally I am not American or British. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because I use English, my thoughts are British.”
       • I govern language; the language is mine to express my thought in. As a writer, it is my medium. You use that medium to do what you want it to do.

Khaled Hosseini

Words

1. Truth
   • And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
   • When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
   • But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.
   • Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.
     ― Khaled Hosseini
2. Humanity
   • Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
   • A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
3. Womanhood
   • I know you’re still young but I want you to understand and learn this now. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You’re a very very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated Laila. No chance.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
   • Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.
     ― Khaled Hosseini
4. Childhood
   • There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
   • Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
     
5. Guilt
   • And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father’s remorse. Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
6. Living
   • It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they don’t want.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
7. Life
   • It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
   • I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.
   • I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
     
   • You’ve always been a tourist here. You just didn’t know it.
     ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

 

Choosing

When looking for books to read, please consider the following, as well:-

1. Person
   • Consider the personhood of the author
   • Learning
     • Some people are just not worth reading or for that matter learning from
   • Patronizing
     • Someone may see you reading the book and be drawn in
     • And, here they go and patronize the author, as you just did
     • People are dim and possibilities and mileage to and towards hardening vary

 

Humanize

I pray humanity on you and through that same lenses examine those in your inner circle and outsiders, as well.

 

Ironies

1. Life
   • Learning more about life through a man from a war ravished country
2. Christianity
   • Learning more about Christianity from a man’s whose birth religion is Islam
3. Writing
   • Learning more about writing from a man who studied medicine

God

When God has work for you, please do not waste it listening to selfish people.

In spite of you, he can still use it.

But, you wasting it on selfish people, will only make it harder.

People have different motives these days; let humanity as a whole be yours; it is his.

 

Scripture

1. The Rich Young Man
   • …When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” “Look,” Peter replied, “we have left everything to follow You. What then will there be for us?”…
     ( Matthew 19:25-27 ) [ Link ]
2. Saving
   • One cliff stood to the north toward Michmash, and the other to the south toward Geba.
   • Perhaps the LORD will work on our behalf.
   • Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few. 
   • His armor-bearer replied, “Do all that is in your heart. Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.”…
     ( 1st Samuel 14:5-7 ) [ Link ]
3. Mary & Elizabeth
   • Gabriel Foretells Jesus’ Birth
     • ..Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.…
       ( Luke 1:37 ) [ Link ]

In Closing

I really like that part.

I mean the part where the Angel says Look.