This afternoon if finished “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, his debut novel.
From Amazon.Com, here is part of Gisele Toueg’s description:
The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir’s father’s servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule.
At times this book is a coming of age story. But on the darker side. Realizing that you have to sleep in the bed you made. With Amir, he continues to progress through his demons. Yet there always is something to remind him of what he did. And one of them is his father, unknowingly but through a secret he kept from Amir, and takes to his grave. It was part of the reason he was asked to come back to Afghanistan.
I hate giving away some things that happen, but another part of what Amir goes back for is Sohrab, Hassan’s son, though he doesn’t know it at the time. And when you learn of Sohrab’s life, you clearly see innocence lost with some unspeakable acts he has endured. Then as they get closer to bringing him out of that war-torn area, the disappointment of roadblocks for such a young kid, he takes his tragedy even farther, and compounds the feeling. It is also brought around when the ending of the book seemed to be headed for too tidy and happy an ending. Though the ending is hopeful, it is far from wonderful.
One of the blurbs on the back cover says that it is a haunting tale, and I totally agree. Though the books seems to offer a lot to the reader. Or at least I took much from it. I found so much I had a hard time putting it down. Even after I was done reading it.
September 20th, 2005 at 7:45 am
About the ending–I thought it was a bit tidy, especially what the ‘bad guy’ gets in the end (poetic justice going on so that Amir can avenge Hassan in a way through the son’s current crisis). But, that being said, I am glad the final scene isn’t so unbelievably happy and resolved: Amir has work to do to ‘earn’ Sohrab’s love, and love is something which Hassan gave to Amir freely and gladly. I love the central image of the kite flying/running itself– especially with the glass string– that this liberating experience is not totally devoid of pain and consequence. Not a bad novel from a doctor-turned-author, hunh?
September 20th, 2005 at 8:08 am
I’d say it was a very good debut.
I can understand what you mean that it was tidy, where I thought it wasn’t too much. I had no clue that the Talib was going to be Assef. And yes, it was a bit predictable that it would end that way. But after Soraya’s call that there INS family member could sew everything up, I thought that that was too tidy. But when Amir walks into the bathroom, the tidy ending I thought I saw coming was blow off track.
And you make a good point about how Amir will have to earn Sohrab’s love. And I thought it was fitting that he turned the tides by telling Sohrab “For you a thousand times over” as he goes to run down the kite at the end. It puts Amir in Hassan’s position, and like Hassan, it appears that Amir truly means it and will do anything for Sohrab.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:24 am
[…] a week ago Marcia and I watched “The Kite Runner”, a movie based on the BOOK by Khaled Hosseini. The movie stars Khalid Abdalla, Homayoun Ershadi, Shaun Toub, Atossa Leoni, […]