The Kite Runner - A review

The Kite Runner, the debut novel of Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini is a cultural fiction and is about betrayal and its redemption. The book is often listed in the “to reads” across the web pages. This made me go for it and it sure did justify all the hype. Although being slow-paced initially, it is a “one-go read” kind of a book. The novel is set at the times of the Russian annexation of Afghan, and captures the war and the consequence it brings with it.

At the outset, Amir and Hassan, two young boys of their early teen are the closest of friends and experts in kite flying. Hassan, a pure-hearted nervy boy, is the servant-cum-friend of Amir and would go to any level of sacrifice in pleasing his best friend. In contrary, Amir, though fond of Hassan also envies him for him being the kind of boy Amir’s father always wanted him to be. In the winter of 1975, the boys decide to try harder than ever to win the local annual kite-flying festival. Amir’s endless struggle in winning his father’s love, forces him to commit an act of betrayal to his dearest friend. As the war intensifies, Amir and his father flee to California. After many years Amir’s haunting guilt makes him return to Afghan in pursuit of redemption. Unknown truths and hard disclosures wait in his way.

The book subtly sheds light on life amid warfare and Hosseini has managed well to bring the Afghan society in the early 1970s to the reader’s eyes. The story traces two parts, one being the life of Amir at Afghan as a child and later his life at the States where he establishes a life of his own and gets the love he yearned from his father. When life seems to be too good with all that he needed, comes the low tide that connects him back to the betrayal that he did to his friend years back. The technique that the author has taken to design the characters is really wise in my opinion. While Hassan is this perfect boy being right in every way like the one that exists in parables, Amir is a naturally flawed kid, and the economic and social differences between them makes Amir never be able to reciprocate the love and loyalty Hassan has for him. For readers like me who look for characters with natural flaws, Hassan is a beautiful exception. Hassan’s remarkable loyalty towards Amir will make every reader long for a Hassan in their life. As the book proceeds, it gives us a feeling of remorse, unjust and nostalgia as though we have lost a piece of our childhood. The later part when Amir goes to rescue Hassan’s son from the colonialized Afghan and the relationship that Hassan’s son holds with Amir will be an emotional ride with enough drama. Amir’s final encounter with Taliban leader, however, seems to be too dramatized and deviated from the pragmatic touch it carried all along.

To put it simply it is all that happens between Hassan’s words for Amir “for you a thousand times over” and Amir’s way of paying it back in the end. On what seems like a simple parable kind of story line, underlies a deeply rooted pack of emotions well-knit by Hosseini’s vivid narration. Take back from the book would be that there is no sin that never finds redemption, and we are never too late to be a better person. All we need is a will to be one.

So anyone looking to time travel to the late ’70s of Afghan and dive into a deeply moving story that pulls your heartstrings, The Kite Runner has got it all.