Book Review: The Kite Runner
Title : The Kite Runner
Author : Khalled Hosseini
Publisher : Riverhead Books (2004)
Language : English
Pages : 371
Two days, I’ve been weeping all night, alone in my room, as I finally reached the climax of the novel I’ve been trying to read for the whole month. The whole month I spent reading halfway of the book, but it only took me TWO DAYS to finish the rest. I guess since it was already the end of my 2nd semester, and that I didn’t have other businesses to finish, and the fact that the story just got even more interesting and I can’t keep myself off the book, that I finally managed to finish the book just in time before the holidays. Those two days finishing the book somehow had given me a lot of impact, psychologically, and emotionally. The characters, the plots, the tragedies, had dragged me in so deep, as if I was involved as a third party, witnessing everything that happened, all thanks to Hosseini’s beautifully written words. Even after I finished the book, I have been contemplating a lot about the events in this book, the messages that this book is trying to carry, which is why I decided to give an appreciation to this book by writing a review about it.
“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 catchphrase of the book that I believe pictures what the book is all about: Redemption. The tale of two Afghanistan boys, though from different races and different social level, being raised together under one household, shares a complicated brother-like bond, growing up together side by side. Everything was at place, until one fateful day, Amir’s cowardice had cause a great wound in between their relationship, and drives the two boys continent apart. The turn of events also marks the changes inside the country, when the invasion of the Russians started that had begun the collapse of the once prosperous and liberal country Afghanistan ever was. For years, Amir was haunted by his act of betrayal. No matter how hard he tried to burry all his memories, that guilt never left him, and one day he was given the chance to fix everything.
“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… Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”
The book opens in Afghanistan during the 1970’s, at a time when the country was still in prosperity; at a time when the streets and the people of Kabul lived their life peacefully; at a time where you can hear the laughter of the children in Kabul, you can see them running around in the neighborhood, celebrating the winter festival, flying kites; at a time where war hasn’t enraged and religious extremism hasn’t ravaged the country. Believe it or not, those times existed. Growing up during these years was our narrator, Amir, whose mother had died giving birth to him, thus becoming the only child of his father, Toghfan Aga, a wealthy and a respected public figure in Kabul. With them were their faithful Hazara servants, Ali and his son Hassan.
WARNING: The following paragraphs may contain spoilers
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