Hey guys, after reading the two-part review of a fellow blogger's review of the Kite Runner, I thought of sharing with you the review of the book which got me my first official job!! Written over 2 years earlier, I hope you still enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it then!
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner is one of the finest books I've ever read. It is the first novel to be written in English by an Afghan. The novel derives its name from the Afghan custom of doing battle with kites. The following paragraphs give a brief sketch of how the book is written.
As a boy, Amir cravenly betrays his servant and best friend, the Hazara boy Hassan. When the Russians come, Amir and his father move to America, where Amir becomes a successful writer. He embraces America because it "had no ghosts, no memories, and no sins." But when Amir learns that a childhood mentor is ailing back home, he returns to discover that his relationship to Hassan had been deeper than he realized. This leads him on a hazardous journey to rescue and adopt Hassan's son, whose father the Taliban had executed.
The book can be read as a three-part novel. In the first part, Hosseini engages in nostalgic childhood recreation of a lost Afghanistan during the last days of the monarchy of the then-ruler and the regime that overthrew him. The second part explores emigration during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the tragedies of a displaced and tired people living in cultural bubbles of the past; it describes the process of migration and character of the expatriate community. The last part explores the Taliban's Afghanistan. It deals with the horror humans can inflict on other humans and stresses the underlying tone of standing up to repression.
All in all the novel portrays the various human emotions ranging from envy to betrayal and finally to a sense of duty and redemption of Amir's pride and honour. Although Hosseini claims that this is only fiction and a product of his imagination I felt a sense of deja-vu all throughout the book. But despite all that I feel that the book packs quite a punch and it is a must read.
As a boy, Amir cravenly betrays his servant and best friend, the Hazara boy Hassan. When the Russians come, Amir and his father move to America, where Amir becomes a successful writer. He embraces America because it "had no ghosts, no memories, and no sins." But when Amir learns that a childhood mentor is ailing back home, he returns to discover that his relationship to Hassan had been deeper than he realized. This leads him on a hazardous journey to rescue and adopt Hassan's son, whose father the Taliban had executed.
The book can be read as a three-part novel. In the first part, Hosseini engages in nostalgic childhood recreation of a lost Afghanistan during the last days of the monarchy of the then-ruler and the regime that overthrew him. The second part explores emigration during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the tragedies of a displaced and tired people living in cultural bubbles of the past; it describes the process of migration and character of the expatriate community. The last part explores the Taliban's Afghanistan. It deals with the horror humans can inflict on other humans and stresses the underlying tone of standing up to repression.
All in all the novel portrays the various human emotions ranging from envy to betrayal and finally to a sense of duty and redemption of Amir's pride and honour. Although Hosseini claims that this is only fiction and a product of his imagination I felt a sense of deja-vu all throughout the book. But despite all that I feel that the book packs quite a punch and it is a must read.
2 comments:
Very true about the sense of Deja vu. Felt exactly the same throughout the book. wonder why though... guess everyone has something that they regret having done in immaturity..
The way Khaled Hosseini has structured the book made me go back to the Alchemist by paulo Coelho -- Both books deal with common human emotion and in a weird way, I feel something very common among them .. I am planning to write something on Paulo Coelho's work .. But well, that has to wait for some time now..
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