Book review: The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

Reader# 83 wrote: Khalid Hosseini was born in Afghanistan and today lives in California as a physician and now a novelist. In fact, THE KITE RUNNER (ISBN-13 978-1-594-48000-3, ISBN-10 1-594-48000-1) is his first novel, it was adapted into a popular film, and he has now written a second novel, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS which itself is in the early stages of production as a film.

THE KITE RUNNER begins as the story of the relationship of two boys. Amir is a boy of Kabul whose father, a wealthy merchant, owns a nice mansion with servants. Hassan is the son of Amir's servant. The two boys are inseparable. They seem apart only when Amir goes to school and Hassan returns home to for the household chores of a servant.

For sport Amir flies kites competitively and is becoming very good at the
sport, attracting local attention. His servant Hassan is his kite runner.
That means Hassan chases after the rival kites that Amir has decapitated.
Hassan dotes on Amir, which bother Amir a little. Amir also tells stories
that enchant Hassan. Together they face the local bullies who terrify them
both.

The day of a great kite competition comes and Amir has a great victory.
Hassan runs to get the loser's lost kite. Eventually Amir runs after
Hassan and sees him being confronted by the bullies. Amir watches on as
his friend is raped. He wants to defend his friend and knows he should,
but is terrorized and instead sulks off.

After that nothing is the same between the boys. Amir comes to hate
himself for his cowardice and disloyalty. Hassan does not admit to knowing
of his friend's betrayal of him, but he almost certainly does. Amir turns
his shame into rejection of Hassan.

This is all just the set-up of the story. We will follow Amir through
tumultuous years of history for Afghanistan and his father's and his own
perilous escape to the United States. His shame at the one action will
bring him back to a Kabul under the Taliban in an effort to redeem his
life and to recover his self- respect.

There are some minor faults to the book. The character of Hassan is just a
little too perfect and it adds a melodramatic feel to the book. Amir did
so much worse than betray a friend, he betrayed the wonderful, loyal,
faithful Hassan. He denied, if you will, a Christ-figure. This weakens the
story. If Hassan had not been so perfect would the betrayal be any more
forgivable? Do we need to be just only to the faultless?

Much of the thrust of the book is the contrast of life in Kabul before and
after the coming of the Soviet invasion and later of Taliban. The old
Kabul under the monarchy is a place of contentment (at least for the
wealthy Amir and his family) whose similarities to the West are more
apparent than the differences. Kabul under the heel of the Taliban is a
place of constant fear, of public executions, of corruption, and of
systematized child rape under the guise of religious orthodoxy. It is the
place that Amir must go to redeem himself and his self-respect.

As bad as the Taliban is for the men in THE KITE RUNNER, it is far worse
for women as we see in the haunting A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. These are
purported to be the first novels written in English by an Afghan. If so
they are an enthralling start.

I read in sequence THREE CUPS OF TEA (by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver
Relin), THE KITE-RUNNER, and A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. The three make a
very good combination. The Mortenson book is non-fiction and tells of his
efforts building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. At least to
Mortenson this work is a powerful weapon against the Taliban and other
Islamic extremists. His schools give education to the young and with
education they can resist the extremists. His book also describes what a
virulent evil the Taliban has been for Afghanistan. It also sees that part
of the world through the eyes of an American. This has a downside and an
upside. The downside is that Mortenson cannot understand the area as
thoroughly as someone who was born and raised there. The upside is that he
knows how an American would see that part of the world. To Mortenson the
area is very alien to his and our expectations. On the other hand in
Hosseini's writing Kabul sounds not too unlike the town I grew up in. Each
book in the succession expresses more rage and frustration at what the
Taliban did to Afghanistan. Together they make a strong case for anything
anyone can do to defeat this terrible movement. Grade A.