Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Well, I avoided reading this one for a long time. Despite its constant presence on the best-seller lists, I knew it would be depressing, and I don’t like depressing. But then it came up as the pick for a bookclub I wanted to join, so I dove in. Bottom line: Yes, it is sad, but not as sad as I expected. It is also enlightening and very well written. The story is that of Amir, a privileged boy in Afghanistan who emigrates to America in the late 1970s as war overtakes his country. The story focuses on Amir’s guilt over an incident in his childhood. It is not this “great theme” of the book, however, that engaged me. It was the simple, everyday activities of boys playing and growing up that struck me. There are tremendous parallels to childhood life in the U.S. at the time – the boys grab snacks before going out to climb trees, for instance, but there are also subtle differences. The snacks aren’t poptarts and the game isn’t tag football. The boys eat pistachio nuts and the play is with slingshots and kite cutting contests (which was completely alien to me). I think the book succeeds in its ability to shake our preconceptions of what “is” in that part of the world. I was struck by the fact that Amir’s Muslim father is not very religious, often condemning the leaders of their faith for what he sees as hypocrisy. So much for the stereotype of all Muslims as deeply devout and religious – what an interesting surprise to see that they are as varied in their spiritual commitments as Americans are. In the picture painted here, the people of Kabul also hold many of the same ethnic biases as we struggle with. Although they are of one faith, the people in this tale draw strong divisions based on heritage. All people of their city are not equal. Where the book failed for me somewhat was the intense “handling” by the author. He clearly had a point to make and worked his plot around that point by forcing some literary elements (making all action cyclical, for instance). This created some improbabilities that kept me at an emotional distance from some of the action. The more aware I was of the author’s hands in controlling events, the less I believed them. Khaled Hosseini has written a terrific first novel, with a crystal clear vision in it. If he learns to let his stories tell themselves, his future work will likely be quite brilliant.