Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner

After reading Rohinton Mistry's book "A Fine Balance" I swore I would never read another book like it. I was afraid Kite Runner would be as equally sad and haunting (it took me months to recover from A Fine Balance) and I wanted to feel hopeful at the end. Against my better judgement I opened it up and jumped in and it only took me two or three pages to get caught up in the lives of the characters and the beautiful words that described an even more beautiful place.

Set in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, the story opens with the lives of two little boys. One, an upper-class Afghani, Amir, and his little servant friend, Hassan. Told through the eyes of Amir it is a story about trust, friendship and courage. Amir is given many chances to do the right and honorable thing and he never does. Eventually he betrays his friend so viciously that neither he or his friend Hassan ever really recover.

The characters are well-developed if a little unbelievable and you really feel for Amir, even as you are forced to watch him do the unthinkable to an almost implausibly kind little Hassan. At times I felt physically uncomfortable and wanted to scream through the pages "Do the right thing Amir!" Tell the truth!"...but Amir would have ignored me anyway. He does redeem himself although true to real-life, it's a little too late.

I didn't feel hopeless at the end of the book and I felt proud of Amir but I still had an overwhelming sense of sadness and felt discouraged about humanity in general. I appreciated the insight I gained into the history of Afghanistan and the cultural heritage of that ravaged country but I also felt dirty at the end...like I had accidentally stumbled into someones most vulnerable moment and was forced to carry that around with me. Which I suppose means the author did his job.

All in all The Kite Runner was a good book. It relied a little too heavily on foreshadowing and what I always call the "Duhn Duhn Duuh" effect. The dangling sentence so obviously meant to draw you further into the plot...like, "That was the last time I saw Hassan smile." It was a bit much but other than that I found the prose to be well-crafted and descriptive. I could see the dusty roads of Afghanistan, the stricken face of a little boy and the rage in Amir's father's eyes. I felt like I had been somewhere...I just feel fortunate that I was able to leave it behind.