Review: 'The Kite Runner'

I just finished a book called The Kite Runner which left a deep impression on me, so I had to make mention of it. It is about a man named Amir who is your average immigrant residing in America with a lovely wife and a stable job as a writer. His father, a wealthy Pashtun*, made the move to America after Afghanistan had fallen into the hands of war. The catch to Amir’s perfect life, however, is the one dark incident he has sent to the backwaters of his past. At the age of 12, Amir witnessed a horrific crime committed against his Hazara** servent and best friend, Hassan, back in his native Afghanistan; a crime so terrible it would plague him day and night with regret that he had not the heart or nerve to help his friend. Nearly thirty years later, Amir is forced to atone for the damage he has inflicted by returning to Afghanistan to seek out the one thing that would relieve him of his burden, and right the wrongs committed against the one person who brought light to his life.

This novel is the first written by Khaled Hosseini who without actually experiencing the personal heartbreak of his protagonist, masterfully details Afghan life before and after the emergence of the Taliban using his experiences as a child there. As a reader with very little tangible knowledge about Afghanistan besides the slew of bad impressions imposed on me by the newspapers and television, it was an awe-inspiring experience to read about handful of characters I could so easily bump into on the street, yet placed in a country so clouded from my view. It is pleasing to see authors such as Hosseini introduce Afghanistan to us in a new light because within whichever country you may name, only a few individuals make the rules while the rest suffer for it, and the Middle East is no exception. I was also impressed by the upbeat pace of the novel, and Hosseini’s ability not to dwell on the details and in colloquial terms “get on with the story.” (I place this as a comparative example against Ian McEwan’s ‘Saturday’ – a novel which took 5 chapters to explain five minutes of a man’s life.) It isn’t an overly lengthy read, so I suggest you give it a try. It is a wonderful ‘time filler’ (meant in the best sense of the word!) in between finishing a monumental read, and looking for something else that will blow you off your feet. Hope you enjoy it!

*The Pashtuns are considered to be the group of people that rightfully belong in Afghanistan.
**The Hazaras are a group of Afghans that face discrimination because of their Mongol heritage.