The Kite Runner

Kite Runner – By Khaled Hosseini Look up at the sky, hundreds of kites, and kids running after them. Some trying to fly their kites higher; others running after lost kites to grab their share of the fun. That colorful sky was the inspiration of Khaled Hosseini’s best-seller book, ‘The Kite Runner’. Starting with the setting of a rich Pashtun boy in an affluent...more

Kite Runner – By Khaled Hosseini Look up at the sky, hundreds of kites, and kids running after them. Some trying to fly their kites higher; others running after lost kites to grab their share of the fun. That colorful sky was the inspiration of Khaled Hosseini’s best-seller book, ‘The Kite Runner’. Starting with the setting of a rich Pashtun boy in an affluent family in Kabul mid-century, living with a widowed father in a rich estate house surrounded by fields and trees and riches. At a distance lived the servants family, from a different race (Hazara, a Shi’it sect originally from Afghanistan and extending into Iran), Ali the disabled father of Hassan the obedient follower and protector of the hero. The story describes the tough childhood of a boy trying to connect to his father who can only see success from his own eyes (tradesmen success) while failing to do so behind deep interest in books and writing. His friend becomes the center of his ego fulfillment when he listens to his stories and books and praises him with a lot of honesty. Time has it they separate – the servant family moving out of the house to avoid disgrace, and the affluent family moving out of Kabul escaping the Russian invasion, and reaching the US in their final destination. There, the redemption starts, and the souls start re-learning to live with the past. A call brings the hero back to Afghanistan, drawing a closer picture of the devastated destituted country under the rule of Taliban who force the regulations by the sword, claiming to represent the sound of true Islam. Khaled Hosseini manages to bring together the culture, history and individuals of Afghanistan into one plot where the heroes play a significant role in each others’ lives, while historical events float around them like ghosts moving the pieces of the chess. They interact with history like observers, trying to move on, while learning on the way about their past, and accepting it in the end. Khaled Hosseini describes pain and happiness very briefly, allowing the reader to explore their own imagination of what life under the described circumstances would mean. He does not spend time explaining how his heroes feel because any reader can put themselves in the shoe. Read this if you’re looking for a beautiful plot, entwining history of a country that made the news for the past 4 years, together with its deep culture and customs rarely described and recorded in modern literature. Don’t read if you think it’s too big, or if you find Afghanistan to be responsible for Sept 11th bombing in the USA; you’ll know clearly that it’s not!    hide

A hauntingly sad story that's very beautifully told. It's an incredible tale of how we love and the things we do for and because of it. An interesting read due to the narrator's self-loathing and brutal, honest self-assessment through-out his story of his childhood and the traumatising event that shapes his life thereafter. The guilt and the struggle that he goes through with the man he is,...more

A hauntingly sad story that's very beautifully told. It's an incredible tale of how we love and the things we do for and because of it. An interesting read due to the narrator's self-loathing and brutal, honest self-assessment through-out his story of his childhood and the traumatising event that shapes his life thereafter. The guilt and the struggle that he goes through with the man he is, the man he wants to be, the man he thinks he should be colours the story he's telling you. It's uncomfortable to be in the head of a man dissecting his shortcomings, his deep shame at his choices and his belief that he cannot and doesn't deserve to be redeemed. Who ends up trying anyway, to make things right. It's a good device though for the story he's telling- you feel his feelings while you observe the events and it's hard to judge Amir off-hand because you know the internal struggle he's in. You feel the conflict of judging Amir in that moment, because he is just a child himself and yet you want him to be stronger, to speak out, do something, and you're disgusted when he doesn't, but there's no satisfaction in that- his thoughts are still the vessel you have to travel in for the rest of the story. So you will his redemption, want it to happen and therein lies the beauty of the storyteller's device- you become involved in the story on so many levels and the emotional journey is a taxing and worthwile one. The story is a sad one, but it is ultimately about hope and optimism and the beauty and tenacity of the human spirit. The connection that we have with other people, our capacity to love even though we're subjected to horrible things in life and that there really is always hope to be good again. That whatever happens we can always choose who we want to be.    hide

The plot is compelling, the characters are authentic, and the background context of Afghanistan before and after the coming of the brutal Taliban regime is both fascinating and horrifying. ovel divide the story into two major parts -- one dealing with two young boys in Kabul as boys and the other dealing with the surviving boy as a young man with a troubled soul in America and back in...more

The plot is compelling, the characters are authentic, and the background context of Afghanistan before and after the coming of the brutal Taliban regime is both fascinating and horrifying. ovel divide the story into two major parts -- one dealing with two young boys in Kabul as boys and the other dealing with the surviving boy as a young man with a troubled soul in America and back in Afghanistan.he plot comes down to this: Two boys grow up in Afghanistan in a shared household. One, Amir, is the son of a wealthy and somewhat westernized businessman. The other boy, Hassan, is the son of the businessman's servant. Though clearly unequal in status, the boys are close. The boys are also talented at the Afghan game of kite running, involving boys chasing kites cut down by another kite in duels. Hassan has a great gift for knowing just where the kite will land.The drama ensues when Amir betrays Hassan and Hassan falls victim to a gang of violent older boys who sexually assault him. Shortly thereafter, Amir and his father are forced to flee to America as the Taliban regime takes over the country. If anything, the novel will serve to convince any fair-minded person of the awful brutality and terror of the Taliban.The story turns on unfolding events as, several years later, Amir receives a phone call in California from an old family friend, revealing a stunning family secret and the fact that Hassan (now executed by the Taliban) has a son who is being kept as a sex slave by Taliban forces near Kabul.The family friend, knowing of Amir's betrayal of Hassan, urges him to come and rescue the boy, romising, "There is a way to be good again." The remainder deals with Amir's return to Afghanistan, his rescue of the boy, Sohrab, and his adoption of the boy in the US.   hide

after my appendectomy, i was hospitalized for only two days and spent the next three on bedrest at home. three incisions were made in my stomach area, so i have been prudent with my recovery. the downtime gave me an opportunity to complete two books. the first i found fairly touching - mitch album's for one more day. i cried at the end and reflected throughout and would rant more if i hadn't...more

after my appendectomy, i was hospitalized for only two days and spent the next three on bedrest at home. three incisions were made in my stomach area, so i have been prudent with my recovery. the downtime gave me an opportunity to complete two books. the first i found fairly touching - mitch album's for one more day. i cried at the end and reflected throughout and would rant more if i hadn't followed that book with khaled hosseni's the kite runner. goodness, i feel like i've been to afghanistan - kabul, to be exact - peshawar, pakistan, then san jose and fremont and hayward, cities i've been familiar with during my childhood yet have never been made aware of its afghan population. or again, maybe i just hadn't been paying attention. the book is so honest about human flaws, honest mistakes, one's conscience, values, virtues, the joy of living, what we take for granted, family, but he doesn't tell it in an in-your-face or matter-of-fact way. everything is in anecdotes, beautifully described, making me realize how much of my own environment could be rich if i just paid attention every once in a while. each character was so fully developed. i wondered how long it took him to write that manuscript or if there is really a person so talented that the words would just flow. i was exposed - if just a little bit - to a culture and country that i knew practically nothing about before. i feel like i tasted the kabobs, smelled the naan baking in the tandoor, i smiled at the endearing description of hassan's face, put the book down in disgust at assef's first real attack on hassan, i imagined hayward and fremont and the sunday swap meets and how i always just pictured everyone there as mexican. and then the sixteen-year-old in the hospital in peshawar with amir also had appendicitis. i read to learn the ending - the part that mattered in afghan culture, but when i read the last paragraph and had my final reflection with the book in my hand, i almost didn't know what to do with myself afterwards. the book inspires nothing but good.   hide