These two authors, Cormac McCarthy
and Khaled Hosseini share many differences, but have the same mission and that
is to leave the reader breathless and thinking about what they just read for
many days after. McCarthy and Hosseini both write about struggle in their books The Road and The Kite Runner in two styles that come across as very polarizing,
but when analyzing the main message of these two books, their styles are like
peanut butter and jelly- they have very different tastes but when put together
they mesh perfectly.
McCarthy’s signature is shown all throughout
his writing which is his unique grammar and symbolism that separates him from
many other modern day authors. In a way his style is similar to poetry; the
structure of his sentences have its own meaning just like the words do. This
style makes the reader hone in just not to the words McCarthy uses, but the way he uses them and why. It’s hard not
to wonder why this type of style used in his book, The Road but at the same time The
Road couldn’t have been written in any other way. The Road’s lack of grammar has a strong message showing that a book
doesn’t particularly need things like quotation marks in order to be understood
or well liked. Instead, McCarthy focuses on what he thinks makes a book well
written which is the usage of powerful sayings and images that will make the
reader stumped and dumbfounded. For example, McCarthy uses vivid imagery: “How
would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said. I don’t guess you
would know it. You’d just be it. It wouldn’t make any difference. When you die
it’s the same as if everybody else died too.” The Road (168). This saying just like several other notable sayings
from The Road really makes one think.
The bluntness to McCarthy’s writing is like a slap in the face. The political incorrectness
of quotes like on page 168 melding with the lack of structure is exactly like
reading a long, brutal poem. The Road
symbolizes all of the corruption in the world through character like the roadagents
and how survival of the fittest is in every aspect of life, not just through
man vs. man, but in man vs. himself.
The
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini had the same aspect of man vs. man and man
vs. himself just like The Road did.
Throughout The Kite Runner, the
reader was introduced to how much corruption there was in Afghanistan and how
that filtered its why into the mind of its civilians. Although The Kite Runner didn’t use lack of
grammar and structure like The Road did,
there were some similarities in style of McCarthy and Hosseini through sentence
structure to make Hosseini’s point even more visible. For example on pages 294
and 295 Hosseini uses repetition to leave the reader with a mood tinged with
seriousness. The phrase “I fade out” used five times had the same power that
McCarthy did with his imagery. The Kite
Runner had its own way of showing the struggle of survival through real
life situations that people like Amir had to go through. Amir struggled with
shame and physical injuries throughout the book just like the man struggled
with the abyss unknown in the apocalyptic world as well as physical injuries.
Although Cormac McCarthy and Khaled Hosseini wrote two books about totally
different situations, they share the same sense of style when it comes to
showing struggle. McCarthy didn’t have chapters and structure to separate thought
like Hosseini did, but that didn’t stop the imagery and symbolism pour into
their writing.
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