MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 2010
I have wanted to read this book for a while now; after reading Khaled Hosseini's second novel 'A Thousand Splendid Suns', which I didn't enjoy, I was a bit sceptical about 'The Kite Runner'. But, I have to say, 'The Kite Runner' is simply astounding. Many thanks to Emmanuel Sigauke who was kind enough to send me this book, along with a Spring 2010 copy of the Consumes River Journal, of which he is an editor. Thanks Emmanuel! 'The Kite Runner' is simply one of those books that carries its own originality, a book that very simply stands out in a way that 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' did not for me. 'The Kite Runner' tells the story of a friendship between two boys, Amir, a privileged Pashtun boy from a wealthy family, and Hassan, his Hazara servant. Hassan is the son of Ali, who is the servant of Amir's father, Baba. The first part of the story takes us through the friendship between Amir and Hassan, their days spent playing and exploring as boys would in the streets of Kabul. Hassan is a loyal friend to Amir, inspite of the fact that Amir is ashamed to openly acknowledge him as his friend among his peers, because of his Hazara lineage. As pointed out by Assef, a neighbourhood bully whom Amir labels a 'sociopath', 'Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.' The book is riddled throughout with such ethnic stigmas and portrays a time in Afghanistan of a strong societal order based on stark ethnic divisions. Amir struggles to gain the affections of Baba, who is disturbed that his son 'is always buried in books or shuffling around the house like he's lost in some dream' and is worried because he, Baba, 'wasn't like that'. Amir gains comfort from Baba's close friend, Rahim Khan, who seems to understand him more than Baba does and grants him the attention which Baba fails to give him. It is only after Amir wins a Kite Fighting tournament, with the help of Hassan, that he and Baba share a momentray closeness. But it is also during this event that something happens which changes Amir in profound ways, the turning moment which he alludes to in the first lines of the opening chapter of the book:
'I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it.'
This turning point in the lives of both Amir and Hassan also becomes a turning point in the tone of the book, a turning point in their friendship. To divulge what this turning point is would, of course, spoil it for those who have not read the book. So dare I not.
In March 1981, Baba and Amir flee to Pakistan and then California, after the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. They build a life in Fermont, California, in a world far flung from their privileged existence in Kabul. Amir becomes a successful writer, marries and lives what appears to be a serene life. However, the past, as he says in the opening chapter, cannot be buried, and he eventually finds himself back in his homeland, now a bombed landscape of craters and a society of ailing scars carved by the iron rule of the Taliban, to confront shocking and painful family secrets and, as Baba's friend Rahim Khan puts it, to find 'a way to be good again'.
The Kite Runner is a story of twists and turns, a clever and compact plot, a beautiful and touching tale to the very end, beautifully written and well executed. It leaves imprints on the memory, and a satisfied sigh at the turn of the last page. It is an astounding first book, and I think here, Khaled Hosseini was at his very best.