This novel is by far the best book I have read this year, and I have read several already. This could also be one of the best books I have read in the last decade. No book has touched on our modern years as this one has; it is an instant classic that my children may one day be required to read in high school. This book does what not many others have been able to do, and that is use irony on the level that Hosseini has done. This book has opened up worlds of thought to its reader, and makes you look deeper into the specific events that lead towards the realistic resolution. As this book puts it, what is a happy ending anyway? Is not suffering a way of life? Is it not seen throughout the years?
The lead character Amir is the focus of this novel, and he is also the narrator. His life journey with his dearest friend Hassan is what starts off the novel's epic storyline. Amir and Hassan participate in a contest that happens every winter when school is closed which involves kites. The object is to cut the kites using string with sharp glass, and be the last kite in the sky. Every year tey look forward to this event, but only in 1975 does Amir wiin this contest. When the last kite, a big blue one, tries to take down Amir's, he usses a tactic, and brings it down, then the "kite runner" who in this case, is Hassan, runs out to catch the kite that has just been defeated. He is very good at this, and says the lines that become the loss of innocence of Amir's childhood: "For you, a thousand times over."
After an hour or so, Amir starts to worry, because he knows that Hassan can run a kite better than anyone, and should have returned, so he hunts him down to see that he has found the kite, but he also ran into trouble. Assef, the bully of the town, who due to a prior confrontation with Hassan was furious due to a slingshot shot to the head, beats up Hassan, and rapes him in front of Amir; who stands too frightened to help his most beloved friend.
After this horrific act we are forwarded to America where Amir, and Baba have been forced to go, due to uprising in Afghanistan, and thus the story unfolds, with the greatest elements of tragedy in human nature: fear, regret, revenge, and the inevitable cycle of karma that can brandish someone with mental and physcical pain.
Picture from:http://www.onebooktwovillages.org/images/KiteRunner.jpg
This book will move you, it has to move you in some way; but no matter what, you will have a reaction to the power of this great novel. I know I cut a lot of slack for books (excluding Hemingway, of course.) but this book turly deserves all the awrds it has won, and deserves the respect of every proclaimed reader to be bought, and put on the shelf. This book has made me want to learn more about this culture that few do know about. I want to understand what made the Afghans take up Hazzaras slaves, I want to know how Afghanistan has become ruled by tyranny, when they were once peaceful and plentiful with common freedoms. This book will make you want to leran more, if not yearn for understanding of these people, and how this country has came to be how it is today.
Do yourself a huge favor, if you want to read a great book, something better than everything out now, and you have not read this book, then pick it up, sink your teeth into the pages, and devor every last letter printed on that page.
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