I am sure I must be one of the last people on the planet who hadn’t read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Considering it has been made into a movie already! But now I can join the ranks and be one who has officially read it.
What an absolutely heartbreaking novel. I have to admit that I had to leave it halfway for a while, it was just a bit too much to deal with all in one sitting (in between I read The Angina Monologues and Sapho’s Leap – review to be up soon) but last night I finished it.
And if you are also one of the last to not have read it, or not even have an inkling as to what it is about, read on:
The story is about friendship. Courage. Guilt. War. Compassion. Lies. It has a heady mix of realism and if you are anything like me, it will be hard reading at times. Set in Afghanistan it relates the time both pre and post-soviet invasion and how the lives of individuals carry on. How the country has changed and the violence that pervades but still there is goodness hidden under the shadows. The story is about familial ties. Inhumanity. Love. Forgiveness. The characters in this novel are bound together in cultural identity, spanning from the 70’s to the 90’s and how the weaving of family and of blood is never truly gone.
Amir is an upper class Pashtun and his constant play mate is Hassan, the son of his fathers long time Hazara servant. The story tells us of how decisions made in a morally testing friendship can have repercussions a longer way down the line than one thinks. That personal character can always be challenged and that it is up to the individual to make a change.
It depicts with honesty the feelings of Amir as we follow him through his life, the pervading sense of guilt and internal struggle but then the justice which inevitably takes place.
It is a sad, breathtaking, heartbreaking yet heartwarming novel. That in amidst the violence and unease, there can exist kindness and joy.
A joy as simple as kite flying.