Book Review of ‘ The Kite Runner ’ by Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner was the first book written by Khaled Hosseini. It is an unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy Amir and the son of his father’s servant Hassan. The Kite Runner is a beautiful book set in Afghanistan, a country that is being destroyed. A powerful story of family, love, friendship and betrayal, the kite runner has become one of the classics.
The story set in Kabul revolves around Amir, the son of an influential Afghan businessman, and Hassan, the son of their disabled servant Ali. Amir and Hassan are the closest of friends, as good as brothers, and also experts in the art of kite flying. However, Amir is often looked down on by his father for being a bookish person, who cannot stand for himself. Although Hassan is Amir’s servant and of lower social status, he is the braver and physically stronger of the two boys. In addition, Amir feels that Baba (his father) prefers Hassan to himself and certainly approves of Hassan’s toughness and more traditionally male interests.
Amir commits an act of betrayal and cowardice towards his best friend Hassan, which will haunt him for the rest of his life. As things start getting more upset in Afghanistan, Amir and his father are forced to flee Afghanistan for America. The Kite Runner becomes the story of Amir’s quest for redemption — righting the wrongs he committed all those years ago as a boy in Kabul.
“I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t. I just watched. Paralysed.”
It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
The narrator Amir is not perfect or likeable, he is vulnerable and suffers for his shortcomings. We realise for some mistakes, there are no reparations, only forgiveness. At the end of the novel, I felt that life and its situations are complicated, unlike the movies and the endings are perfect neither.
It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right. It didn’t make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight. But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. — Amir
The works The Kite Runner and The Thousand Splendid Suns of Khaled Hosseini are highly affecting, often a sentimental portrayal of truths. However, I like the latter one more, but neither of them is something to miss for sure.
