The Kite Runner: once again a compelling and powerful read
Title: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Pages: 393
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Who will like it? Trigger warning, there are some distressing scenes that really pull at your heartstrings. This book is the perfect standalone — it has depth, layers, internal conflict, motifs, symbols, character development, and literary merit worthy of long book club discussions. Hosseini uses digestible language and reading this book doesn’t generate friction. If you liked The Book Thief, you will like The Kite Runner.
I first read this book when I was 14. I remember freezing in shock while reading some descriptions, and quietly reading under my desk in the middle of French class, almost yelping out loud as Amir cannot stop screaming when he witnessed a twisted tragedy. I finished it in tears. Reading it again is like growing up with Amir. The guilt grows inside of him, and inside of me, about to rupture through his skin like a stubborn poison tree. When Amir is a child, he is entitled, spoiled and egocentric in how he views his place in the world. I can’t blame him; that’s how people make him feel. He is demanding and sometimes he overstepps the boundaries of conscience, but he is a child. As Amir grows up, I start empathizing with him more. He grows to be milder and gentler as he blends into American society, maybe because as a foreigner, the meekness is necessary, or maybe because the world and its people and their perspectives have soaked into him. His conscience is clearer and he becomes more accepted by mainstream society, and he only longs for America to swallow his past.
This book is about a conflict between your past and future. How we are split down the middle, at odds with ourselves. It’s when the cognitive dissonance is so strong that we wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat with nightmares on replay in our minds. We are human, and after all, we make mistakes. “A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.” (p315, Rahim Khan) But there is a way to be good again. Mistakes can be reconciled, if we have the courage for redemption, the world has heart for forgiveness. The world goes forward, and guilt can lead to good.
This book is about the struggle between generations and between cultures, which really is a reflection of the struggle in our values. Amir's Baba contrasts with Amir so strikingly, as he unhesitatingly stands up for a woman in a rickety overloaded truck at gun-point, preferring death over dishonour. Baba is selfless and proud, in the most admirable and heroic way, and Amir is selfish and logical, but that selfishness isn’t reproachable. It’s just human in how he suggests chemo in futile efforts to treat his father’s cancer, out of fearing to be alone in the world. Even as Amir fights and his flesh and blood body is pounded again and again, it is a moment of joy and peace because he only wishes the guilt to stop haunting him. It is selfish because being punched like a ragged doll doesn’t help Sohrab escape the Taliban or save Soraya from worrying, the embracing and welcoming of pain are only for the ceasing of Amir’s internal turmoil.
If you look closely with the magnifying glass of a literature enthusiast, metaphors, motifs, symbols and juxtaposition are sandwiched everywhere between the two covers of the book. Just an example, as Baba is lowered into the gravesite in the Muslim section of a Californian cemetary, the mullah and another man argue over the correct Koran ayat to recite, almost turning into an ugly fight. This tiny detail parallels the tension between Sunni and Shia sects and how it originates from a bitter dispute over the interpretation of the Qur’an. Although the violence today in the Middle East is more about power and politics, the Sunni-Shia divide paved the way for the politicization of Islam.
Hassan is one of the purest, most lovable characters I’ve ever had the privilege of encountering in literature. He is too good for the world and all of us in it. The world isn’t fair, and we need more of Hassan’s unconditional love and forgiveness to make the world a better place. And even if we are an Amir instead of a Hassan, there is still room for goodness.
