The kite runner written by Khaled Hosseini is absolutely a wonderful book and a must read for various reasons.I always believe that fanciest words don’t always enhance the quality of the story or narrative. The way a thought is put into words matters . It could be in the form of simile, metaphor, pun or a sentence itself. In this book, one can encounter plenty of such metaphors and the writing style is just phenomenal. I simply fell in love with the narration.
The entire story is about Amir, a sunni muslim and Hassan, a Shia muslim. The first half of the story is set in Afghanistan and one can see how badly the Hazra community is treated by the other community. Meanwhile you’ll also get to see the lifestyle of Afghanistans, the legacy of the country, the culture and beliefs of the people. Slowly the story shifts to the other part of the world and the later half is set in America.
A war forces people of Afghanistan to leave their motherland. Meanwhile, circumstances also separate Hassan and Amir. Amir, a teenage boy with a truckload of guilt, experiences a lot of chaos and the turmoil he’s going through is a significant part of this story. I don’t know if I should call this particular thing the brilliance of the author because instead of describing the physical battle, the conflict between guilt and necessity that’s taking place inside a human mind is spectacularly pictured. Nonetheless, you’ll get to see the post-war scenes and actual fighting in the second half of the story ( a bit of it in the first half too).
One can come across various historical events, religious issues, casteism, a bit of racism, communal riots, poverty, hunger, post war effects, sexual abuse, battle, harmony, disharmony, stringent rules imposed on Muslim women in this particular book. Also the human qualities that we always talk about – honesty, loyalty, bravery everything is pictured in the best possible way. Similarly the so called negative qualities like dishonesty, betrayal, cheating, taking advantage of opponents weakness are also included. Also emotional turmoil such as – guilt, trauma, insecurity is vividly described.
Now talking about the missing points or things that should have been included, I felt that the author could have elaborated on the issue between Hazra and sunni Muslims. Also the author could have mentioned the reason for the Russian attack and the Taliban attack. All these things are briefly mentioned and one will have to go through history for better understanding.
Nevertheless it’s a marvelous book, a book that will change your perspectives of life, a book that will churn your mind and of course leave you with a brilliant message – evil is temporary and it’s the good that always wins!!
anubhavalahari 