Teacake & Tariq

I just finished the second novel by Khaled Hosseini, which I can say is as riveting and a quick a read as his first (The Kite Runner, for all those rock dwellers). I find Hosseini's sense of timing/his pacing exceptional. There have been many books in my adult life that have moved me, many books whose language, whose voices resonate against the strains of my own life. But there have been few books that I can say I could literally not put down; I can say that of both of Hosseini's novels. I zoomed through the book's 400 pages in a couple days and felt absolutely satiated (even though I have some issues with the ending...but that's neither here nor there for now).

I also have a new lit-crush.

A lit crush, as I know it, is an affection you develop for a fictional character. An affection deep enough that you will compare real people to this character, and often find the real people lacking. An affection that begs the character to leap off the pages and transform you the way he/she transforms the story.

A lit-crush can last a lifetime.

My first and foremost lit-crush has been (and prob always will be) Teacake from Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Upon every re-read I see his flaws all the more clearly, his gambling, his recklessness, his violence, his flirtatiousness that would drive me up the wall if he were ever my man. But despite all of that, I find myself comparing the men I meet to Teacake. I realized that it isn't because Teacake was such an admirable man...rather, he strikes such a deep chord with me because I feel such a connection to Janie. Upon meeting some new (or old) fellow, and asking myself "is this my Teacake?" (which, err...I *have* done before) it's not because I want a 3D incarnation of the character. No.

I want to feel the things Janie felt through Teacake. I want a man who makes me feel the way Teacake made Janie feel. Budding and alive like that.

With A Thousand Splendid Suns, I have a new lit-crush in Tariq. Again, here is an honorable, completely likeable and appealing character that stands on his own. But what I really love about him is all the things he meant to Laila. In some ways, he reminds me of some of my best relationships. It's a strange mix of nostalgia and longing that he arouses.

Like all crushes, that trace of pain, that ever present yearning, is what makes the feeling so memorable and so delicious.