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و انسان چه آسان در خون خود می‌غلتد...


آرامش پیچاندن پیچ زندگی در پایین ترین حد است
سکوت خاموش کردن آن پیچ است. بستن آن است، بستن تمام آن

تمام ستارگان آسمان برای کتاب هایی مثل بادبادک باز ، همسایه ها و ... که از واقعیات زندگی مردم و دردهایشان می گویند کم است و توهین آمیز
این پنج ستاره هم به سرنوشت من دچار شده اند و از پس تعریف بادبادک باز بر نمی آیند

اولین بار در این کتاب بود که اسم هزاره رو از سربازی افغانی شنیدم و اول فکر کردم حتما ناسزا یا فحشی خیلی زشتی است که او با تمسخر حسن را با این اسم صدا میزند
با خودم می گفتم اگر این واقعیت داشته باشد هزاره ها چطور تونستن در چنین فضای تحقیرآمیزی زندگی کنن
جایی که حتی کودکان را هم بخاطر نژادشان تمسخر می کنند

میراث افغانستان

بیا فرض کنیم که پدر و مادر بچه زنده نمانده اند.حتی در این حال اداره -
مهاجرت فکر می کند بهتر است بچه را به کسی بدهد که مقیم کشور زادگاه اوست.تا میراثش پامال نشود



کدام میراث؟ طالبان هر میراثی را که افغانستان داشته از -
بین برده.دیدید که با مجسمه عظیم بودا در بامیان چه کردند؟



از این عکس وحشتناک تر جمله زیر بود

مین.آیا راه بهتری از این برای مرگ افغان ها هست؟


اما چیزایی که فکرم را مشغول کردند

:شیعه بودن هزاره ها و سنی بودن پشتو ها

یادمه تو ویکی پدیا و خود کتاب خواندم که پشتوها سنی و هزاره ها شیعه هستند و حتی طالبان در شهر مزار شریف، هزاره ها را به جرم مذهبشون قتل عام کردند
اما در کتاب "امیر" که پشتو بود از گذاشتن مهر در نماز می گفت و "حسن" که هزاره بود نمی گذاشت پنج نمازش قضا شود

حسن هيچوقت پنج وعده نمازش قضا نمي شد،حتي وقتي بازي مي كرديم،عذرخواهي ميكرد،از چاه حياط آب مي كشيد،وضو مي گرفت و توي كلبه ناپديد ميشد

امیر هم با خود می گوید:در حقیقت یادم نمی آمد که آخرین بار کی سر به مُهر گذاشته ام

همانطور که می دانید سنی ها مهر نمی گذارد و شیعیان هم فقط سه نماز را بصورت حاضره می خوانند
نمیدانم نویسنده از این تضاد میخواست نکته ای بگوید یا فقط اشتباهی مرتکب شده بود

:چشمان سبز هزاره ها

دوستی می گفت چشمان سبز یکی از مشخصات ظاهری بیشتر آریایی ها بوده




خالد حسینی علاقه زیادی به گفتن درباره چشمان سبز هزاره ها داشت
...از مادر حسن گرفته تا زن حسن و
می گویند هزاره ها بخاطر چشمان بادامی شاید از نسل مغول ها باشند
اما شاید همین چشمان سبز دلیل بر رد این نظریه باشد و نشان بدهد که این مردمان جزو کهن ترین مردمان سرزمین افغانستان باشند
حالا اصلا حساب کنیم قدمتشان به 100 سال هم نرسد و مذهبشان هم متفاوت با دیگران باشد

آیا به این دلایل مسخره، باید نسل آنها را نابود کرد!؟
چون مانند ما نماز نمی خوانند و خون ملتی بیگانه در رگ هایشان در گردش است؟

“There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.”

I’ve read books before with an unreliable narrator and also read accounts of cowardice and shame. Amir, the first-person protagonist and narrator from Hosseini’s 2003 novel, filled me with such disgust and loathing that I almost put the book down at 25%.

My doctor would say that Amir suffered from AWDD – Ass whooping deficiency disorder and I would enthusiastically second that diagnosis.

That said, I invite everyone to read the book and see how it all plays out.

“There is a way to be good again...”

The poet Galway Kinnell once wrote that there are some regrets we can never be rid of. He was right in so many ways. An inability to forgive ourselves for past moments of cowardice, shame and inaction are the most troubling and relentless sorrows we can face as humans wandering around on this poor earth. We can forgive others, even those who have harmed us greatly, but looking ourselves in the eye and offering absolution can be an act beyond so many of us.

I took my time getting to this book for a great many reasons and now that I have finally read it, I am so glad. This book moved me. Hosseini was able to pluck heart strings of emotion that I had thought silent and stolid. The themes of loyalty, friendship, devotion countered with betrayal, animosity and selfishness were plaintive notes played out in a literary orchestra of human sentiment.

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

We follow a distorted tale of mistakes and timidity towards an ultimate chance at redemption. Amir’s is an understood but still contemptuous plight of lost opportunity. Shielded by cultural, social and religious privilege, his regrettable acts of pusillanimity are displayed against the heroic and admirable examples of his steadfast friend Hassan and his intrepid father. Hosseini paints us a picture of an evolving and destabilizing Afghanistan, tortured for years with Soviet occupation and then granted only the briefest of reprieves before falling to the theocratic and brutal rule of the Taliban. Amir’s journey is one of deliverance and redemption.

Hosseini’s skill and adept description of a modern day caste system where an invisible division existed between the favored Pashtun and the disadvantaged Hazara may be a tale of Afghanistan, but this abstract and superficial distinction can also be a universal cautionary story about racism, intolerance and bigotry.

Beautifully written and told with compassion, empathy and with a skilled writer’s eye for detail and expression, this can also be a painful book to read. Not for everyone, but for those who can endure what is at times heartbreaking the reward is as magnificent as is this work.

“For you, a thousand times over” 

This is the sort of book White America reads to feel worldly. Just like the spate of Native American pop fiction in the late eighties, this is overwhelmingly colonized literature, in that it pretends to reveal some aspect of the 'other' culture, but on closer inspection (aside from the occasional tidbit) it is a thoroughly western story, firmly ensconced in the western tradition.

Even those tidbits Hosseini gives are of such a vague degree that to be impressed by them, one would have to have almost no knowledge of the history of Afghanistan, nor the cultural conflicts raging there between the Shia and Sunni Muslims, or how it formed a surrogate battleground for Russia and the United States in the Cold War, or for Colonial conflicts in the centuries before. Sadly, for all the daily news reports about Afghanistan, most people know very little of its history.

Hosseini's story is thickly foreshadowed and wraps up so neatly in the end that the reader will never have to worry about being surprised. Every convenient coincidence that could happen, does happen. He does attempt to bring some excitement to the story with dramatized violence, but that's hardly a replacement for a well-constructed plot. He is also fond of forcing tension by creating a small conflict between two characters and then having them agonize over it for years, despite the fact that it would be easy to fix and the characters have no reason to maintain the conflict. And since the conflict does not grow or change over time, everything is quickly reduced to petty and repetitive reactions.

He even creates a cliched 'white devil' character, a literal sociopath (and pedophile) as the symbol for the 'evils' of the Taliban. This creates an odd conflict in the narrative, since one of the main themes is that simple inequalities and pointless conflicts stem from Afghan tradition, itself. His indelicate inclusion of wealthy, beautiful, white power as the source of religious turmoil in the mid-east negates his assertion that the conflicts are caused by small-mindedness.

The fact that this character seems to have the depth of motivation of a Disney villain also means that he does not work as a representation of the fundamental causes of colonial inequality, which tend to be economic, not personal. The various mixed messages about the contributors to the ongoing Afghan conflict suggest that Hosseini does not have anything insightful to say about it.

Perhaps the worst part about this book is how much it caters to the ignorance of White America. It will allow naive readers to feel better about themselves for feeling sympathy with the larger mid-east conflict, but is also lets them retain a sense of superiority over the Muslims for their 'backwards, classicist, warlike' ways. In short, it supports the condescending, parental view that many Americans already have about the rest of the world. And it does all this without revealing any understanding of the vast and vital economic concerns which make the greater mid-east so vitally important to the future of the world.

It is unfortunate that nowhere amongst this book's artfully dramatized violence and alternative praising and demonizing of the West is there the underlying sense of why this conflict is happening, of what put it all into place, and of why it will continue to drag us all down. The point where it could turn sympathy into indignation or realization is simply absent.

There is a bad joke on the internet showing a map of the world with the mid-east replaced by a sea-filled crater with the comment 'problem solved'. What this map fails to represent is that there is a reason the West keeps meddling in the affairs of the mid-east, and that every time we do, it creates another conflict--because almost every group who we decry as terrorists now were originally trained and armed by the US and Western powers to serve our economic interests.

As long as we see extremists as faceless sociopaths, we can do nothing against them. We must recognize that normal people fall down these paths, and that everyone sees himself as being 'in the right'. Who is more right: the Westerner whose careless bomb kills a child, or the Muslim's that does?

The point shouldn't be to separate the 'good Muslims' from the 'bad Muslims', because people aren't fundamentally good or bad. They are fundamentally people. Almost without exception, they are looking out for their future, their children, and their communities. Calling someone 'evil' merely means you have ceased to try understanding their point of view, and decided instead to merely hate because it's easier to remain ignorant than to try to understand.

This book isn't particularly insightful or well-written, but that is in no way unusual in bestsellers. The problem is that Americans are going to use this book to justify their ignorance about the problems in the east. This book will make people feel better about themselves, instead of helping them to think better about the world.

For an actually insightful, touching view of the Afghan conflict, I would suggest avoiding this bit of naive melodrama and looking up Emmanuel Guibert's 'The Photographer'.

Guilt
The Kite Runner is emotional and immersive, a story that is amplified with its spotlight on society and culture within Afganistan - both past and present. The story relates to the lives of two boys, Amir and Hassan, growing up in Kabul and narrated through the eyes of Amir. There are major societal and lifestyle differences between them but it is the character and principles of the two boys that defines this literary classic. Amir is the son of a rich man, he is educated, refined, and most importantly for social standing, part of the Sunni ruling class. Hassan is the son of the household servant and is illiterate, physically robust, but unfortunately for him, part of the Shia lower class. At a young age, the two boys probably saw each other as play friends, rather than the additional baggage or benefits their class positions bestow on them. However, as children grow up they inherently know where power resides and it doesn't take long for Amir to recognise his family's dominance and Hassan's family servitude.

Following an incident where Hassan suffers physically and psychologically in protecting Amir, it leaves Amir with an unshakeable sense of guilt and culpability that manifests itself in a resentful disposition towards Hassan. Hassan suffers twice for being a better friend. The class system plays its part but the cowardice of Amir clings to his memories and will haunt him throughout his life. The writing flows wonderfully and the story is so imperceptibly built to capture emotions and our sentiments of injustice.

Years after Amir immigrated to the United States he returns with the hope of righting some of these wrongs and seeking redemption with Hassan. Since Amir was last in Afghanistan the Taliban are now in control of the state - including government and religion. The country Amir knew now feels alien as he experiences the emotional horrors and fear of life under the Taliban. They are also dangerous times where the outward display of appearance and loyalty are crucial not to fall foul of the authorities.

This is a really superb book on so many levels – the history, location, religion, social culture, character interaction and it’s ultimately dealing with human emotions of friendship and guilt. I would highly recommend reading this book. In fact, it's a must-read!

Amir, a little boy growing up in the early 1970's in Kabul the capital of Afghanistan, has the idyllic life a wealthy father Baba, a widower the mother died giving birth to Amir he believes the father hates him for that, in the most beautiful house some say in the city, a great friend Hassan the son of Ali, a servant and loyal to the family. Baba and Ali had been friends too in childhood strange since Hassan's father is just a Hazara (Mongol), Hassan's promiscuous mother had left them to join a group of dancers , a detested minority in the country hated and persecuted by the dominant Pashtuns, they call themselves the real Afghans...But the world never stays the same always moving forward for better or worse and it gets much much worse, King Zahir Shah, peaceful, forty year reign is ended overthrown, by his disloyal cousin Daoud Khan, making himself the President of the Republic whatever that is ...The communist kill the usurper the Russians invade and forty bloody years later the wars continue... Amir and Hassan are inseparable constantly playing together , walking to the top of the nearby hill as Baba's son reads to Hassan an illiterate, making up stories also to trick his friend, he does that often to the always amiable boy, flying kites in the blue skies their great passion together. Hassan saves the cowardly Amir from the local bully Assef, half - German with blond hair and evil eyes , brass knuckles in his pocket a crazed sadist, he enjoys inflicting major damage to his victims yet will not challenge the Hazaras powerful slingshot. Pahim Khan is Baba's, wise best friend and business partner, frequent visitor and knows all the dark secrets that even Amir doesn't. Kind to the lonely boy, while the disappointed cold father, at six foot five, strong as an ox too brave sometimes during bad situations, he wrestled a bear once and lived to boast about his victory sees his child, a weak boy a bookworm can he really be his son ? In the neighborhood kite contest Amir with the help of Hassan wins, defeats dozens of opponents the proud father looks glowingly from above on his rooftop , with Pahim Khan this is his son at last. But while the incomparable kite runner Hassan, follows the last blue kite slowly falling (a symbol of an era soon gone) , that was downed by Amir to insure victory and get the souvenir, a horrible event occurs in a dirty alley witnessed by timid Amir , it will ensure a lifetime of pain remorse and unforeseen consequences. A terrific tale of redemption, a child's view of the world turned sideways shattered into many pieces that will never be the same, but still life must go on people are complicated and reality is hidden from most of us .

”When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing.”

I’m going to be honest with you. To read this book was a constant struggle, not because I didn’t like the writing style, not because it was bad and not because it was boring. No, if anything “The Kite Runner” was so hard to read because it was so exceptionally painful.

This book made me so sad! I felt helpless and angry and there were times I actually was more than just tempted to stop reading. Some of the chapters were just too hard to bear and the book touched me in a way I can’t even describe. It did something with me… and I’m still not sure whether this was good or bad.

All I know is that the injustice in this book made me furious and that I just have to think about it and already feel sick to my stomach again. There were so many serious topics in this book but I think what really got to me was the central theme of violence, injustice and abuse. To read “The Kite Runner” was so devastating and nerve-racking I actually couldn’t read more than two chapters a day. It was so upsetting that I found it difficult to motivate myself to read it and even though this was such a painful read, I still wanted to know what would happen next.

Amir’s and Hassan’s story was so horrible, appalling, powerful and beautiful at the same time. It left me completely broken and raw and I think my emotions are still all over the place. So if my review sounds a little incoherent and illogical you can blame it on the book hangover I'm currently suffering from. XD

”But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that either.

The plot:

Amir and Hassan are best friends who grew up together and live in Kabul. They do almost everything together and one of their favourite hobbies is kite running. One day there is a local kite-fighting tournament Amir is determined to win and with the help of Hassan he is even able to achieve his goal. The victory of the tournament comes with a high price though and in the end their moment of happiness isn’t only short lived but also comes to an abrupt end. What happens after the competition destroys their lifelong friendship and shakes the foundations of their trust, the course of their lives changing as they try to deal with the repercussions of a single day.

”It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime, Amir," he said.

The characters:

n  Beware there are plenty of spoilers lying ahead of you!!!n

Amir:

”I pretended I was reading from the book, flipping pages regularly, but I had abandoned the text altogether, taken over the story, and made up my own. Hassan, of course, was oblivious to this. To him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, indecipherable, mysterious. Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys.”

Puh, what to say about him? I think I never disliked a protagonist as much as I disliked the narrator of this story. I just couldn’t stand his younger self and I thought he wasn’t just egoistic but also spoiled and more than just unethical. The way Amir treated Hassan made me sick and his betrayal towards his best friend hurt so much! I mean how could he let this happen? How could he stand aside without intervening? How could he even think that Hassan is “just a Hazara”?! I don’t understand it and if I’m entirely honest I really think that it was good he felt bad throughout the entire book! His past haunted him and in the end it actually made him a better person. A person that stood up to bad people and a person I was finally able to forgive. It was a long journey for Amir but he eventually did the right thing and when I read the finial sentences of this book I was even proud of him. XD

”It’s all right.” I turned to the general. “You see, General Sahib, my father slept with his servant’s wife. She bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead now. That boy sleeping on the couch is Hassan’s son. He’s my nephew. That’s what you tell people when they ask.”
They were all staring at me.
“And one more thing, General Sahib,” I said. “You will never again refer to him as a ‘Hazara boy’ in my presence. He has a name and it’s Sohrab.”

I waited 331 pages for that to happen!!! XD

Hassan:

”Then Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked toward me. He opened it and crushed it against his own forehead. ‘There,’ he croaked, red dipping down his face like blood. ‘Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?’ He turned around and started down the hill.”

God bless his kind and innocent soul!!! This boy was an angel and I don’t even know how he was able to forgive Amir. As it seems he managed to do it though and my deep respect and love for his character will never cease. I loved Hassan with all my heart and I think his only flaw was that he was just too good to live in this sick and violent world. He would have deserved so much more than life gave him and when I found out about Sohrab’s ordeal I was more than just heartbroken. n  I was devastated!!!n I know Hassan must have turned over in his grave and I felt so, so, so damn sorry for what happened to both of them.

Baba:

”The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

Baba definitely was a very flawed character but I still couldn’t help but had to love him for it. There was so much good in him, yet he also had his bad sides. For a person that was described as seeing the world in black and white he actually was all different kinds of grey and in some way that made him extremely likeable and disagreeable at the same time. *lol* I think he was a very contradictory person and after finding out about his secret I was finally able to understand why. Still, I loved that despite everything he tried to be a righteous man and when it comes down to it he certainly had his heart in the right place.

”Ask him where his shame is.”
They spoke. “He says this is war. There is no shame in war.”
“Tell him he’s wrong. War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.”

”And now, fifteen years after I’d buried him, I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst kind, because the things he’d stolen had been sacred: from me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan his identity, and from Ali his honor. His nang. His namoos.”

Sohrab:

This boy n  B.R.O.K.En my heart and I don’t even know how I’m supposed to pick up the pieces. He was just ten!! Damn it!! I don’t understand how people can hurt children and I can’t even… *argharghsdfjklmno* I hate what Assef did to him and I’m so glad Sohrab got away from his clutches! Chapter 22 was so horrible to read… It made me sick to my stomach and I swear I was tempted to throw the book against a wall… Urgh… just to think about his hands on Sohrab… My heart aches so much for that little boy!!! He deserved a better childhood than that! Damn no!! He actually deserved a childhood to begin with!!!!

”I miss Father, and Mother too,” he croaked. “And I miss Sasa and Rahim Khan sahib. But sometimes I’m glad they’re not … they’re not here anymore.”
“Why?” I touched his arm. He drew back.
“Because –“ he said, gasping and hitching between sobs, “because I don’t want them to see me… I’m so dirty.” He sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, wheezy cry. “I’m so dirty and full of sin.”

And OMG that beautiful ending! That hopeful, amazing and beautiful ending! It killed me, it was the death of me, it was the final nail in my coffin!!! That sweet and gentle and shy boy!!!! XD I already get emotional just thinking about it! *blinking away tears*

The bottom line:
I hated the book! I loved the book!

I hated the injustice, the pain Ali, Hassan and Sohrab had to go through, I hated the way the Taliban treated everyone they considered to be wrong and different, I hated to read about the destruction of Amir’s hometown, I hated the violence, I hated the war, I hated to read about the many orphans, the hungry children on the street. I hated the way Amir acted when he was younger!!!

”She had a large purple bruise on her leg for days but what could I do except stand and watch my wife get beaten? If I fought, that dog would have surely put a bullet in me, and gladly! Then what would have happened to my Sohrab?”

But I loved the details about Afghan culture, I admired the bravery of Hassan and Baba, my heart sang whenever they tried to be righteous and good. In a world that had gone to hell they still tried to be decent, they still tried everything possible to stand up for their people, to do the right thing. They still had values and they didn’t just believe in them, they also acted according to them!!!

So yes, for me “The Kite Runner” was a very powerful book. It pushed my boundaries and forced me to fight through it! It made me think about unpleasant things, it forced me to see the bad and ugly things our world is made of, but it also showed me the good in people and their kindness!

If you can live with a broken heart and are able to deal with the pain, this book his highly recommended. If you’re one of the faint-hearted you better give it a wide berth.

As for me, I definitely will never re-read this book ever again! I’m kind of proud that I accomplished to read it though! XD

”For you, a thousand times over.”

خلال قراءتي للرواية، لفت انتباهي المراجعات التي وجهت انتقادات لها وللكاتب خالد حسيني بشأن الرؤية "الغير منصفة" لجماعة طالبان. في الوقت الذي غض فيه الكاتب الطرف تماما عن الجرائم التي ارتكبتها الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية في حق شعبه. وهى بالمناسبة نفس الانتقادات التي وجهت لكتابيه الأخرين "ألف شمس مشرقة" و"ورددت الجبال الصدى".

تزامنت قراءتي للرواية مع قراءة كتاب آخر عن تاريخ جماعة طالبان. مما أعطاني نظرة أكثر تبصراً لتاريخ تلك البلد. ومما فهمته أنه من الواضح أن خالد حسيني لم يأتي بظلم كبير على جماعة طالبان فيما أتى على ذكره من أحداث في رواياته الثلاث. فالجماعة أخرجت أفغانستان من جحيم الحرب الأهلية التي دامت لأكثر من ثلاث سنوات، فقط لكي توقعها في خندق الظلام والفقر والجهل.

ولكن في الوقت الذي ملأ فيه الحسيني صفحات رواياته بجرائم طالبان الدموية بحق الشعب الأفغانستاني، أُصيبت ذاكرته بنسيان تام لحقيقة أن تلك الجماعة هى صناعة أميركية أصيلة. وأن الإدانة الغربية لجرائم طالبان ما هى إلا مسرحية سخيفة صدقتها شعوبهم.

لا أظن أننا يمكن أن ننكر موهبة خالد حسيني الرائعة في الحكي. فمنذ بداية الرواية إلى الثلث الأخير منها، كنت أردد مبهورة "مافيهاش غلطة". تكمن استثنائية خالد حسيني أيضا في تطرقه لعلاقات إنسانية لا نراها ممثلة بشكل كبير في الروايات الأخرى. مثل علاقة الصداقة والأبوة (عداء الطائرة الورقية) وعلاقة الأخ وأخته (ورددت الجبال الصدى) وحتى علاقة "الضرائر" في ألف شمس مشرقة.

ولكن في الثلث الأخير واجهتني نفس مشكلتي معه في رواياته الأخرى. ألا وهى جو "الأفلام الهندي". والاحداث التي لا معنى لها سوى في إطالة صفحات الرواية واستدرار الكثير من الدموع لمحبي البكاء-وانا من محبي البكاء بالمناسبة-ولكنني لم أجد في العقدة الأخيرة من الرواية سوى إطالة مستفزة لا معنى لها.

وأخيرا..عندما فكرت في نقطة "نفاق"-مشيها نفاق-خالد حسيني لأمريكا، سألت نفسي، هل لو أنني تعرضت لنفس الظروف وعشت نفس القهر والظلم والرعب وطردت من وطني، ووجدت وطنا أخر يحميني ويقدم لي دعما كاملا، هل كانت لتواتيني الجرأة على أنتقد هذا البلد؟
لا أظن أنني استطيع الاجابة بشكل منصف على هذا السؤال

before: the lady at the bookstore was like "this book is gonna break your heart, darling" and I was thinking "lady, don't threaten me with a good time

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ( Berliani M. Nugrahani, Translator) is a 2004 Riverhead Books publication.

Earlier this year I read Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, another book, like this one, written back in 2004. It seemed I was the only person in the world who had not read the book, and once I’d finished reading it, I wondered why it had taken me so long to read it. This got me to thinking about all the books that I’d intended to read, but never got around to. So, despite my strong feelings about making reading resolutions, I vowed to read more books ‘the entire world has read but me’. Other than Moloka’I, I have also read ‘The Handmaid’s Tale”, and now- “The Kite Runner”.

The Kite Runner has over 68,000 reviews on Goodreads, so I’m not going to recap the synopsis, nor am I going to break down all the various ways in which this book touched me in one way or another, or analyze all the important messages in the story, as I don’t think I can add anything more to what has already been said.

However, I couldn’t simply leave a rating and felt compelled to add a few personal remarks about my experience with this novel- but I’ll keep it brief.

First of all- why on earth did I wait so long to read this book?

This story is an incredible gut-punching- heart-wrenching, powerful and very thought-provoking family saga.

The juxtaposition between the two boys and the separate paths on which they embark is tragic, but eventually leads to long overdue penance and justice, as well as redemption and forgiveness. This riveting drama is very reflective, and handled with crisp precision, evoking a myriad of emotions. While the story is deeply depressing and so very sad, it is also an uplifting, inspirational story of a personal reckoning and redemption, which is the part of the story I’ll always carry with me.

I’m so very glad I took the time to finally sit down and read this book! Although the book is fifteen years old now, it still has the same profound resonance it did when first published. I’m still hugging my box of tissues!

Amazing storytelling, amazing book- One I will never forget!

After pondering long and hard, I'm going to try now to articulate just what it was about this book that sucked so much, why it has offended me so greatly, and why its popularity has enraged me even more. This book blew so much that I've been inspired to start my own website of book reviews for non-morons. So let us explore why.

First, let's deal with the writer himself. Hosseini's father worked for Western companies while in Afghasnistan. While daddy (who I am guessing, from Hosseini's tragic account of the "fictional" father, never accepts his son) worked and got wealthy, normal Afghans lived their lives. When war broke out, Hosseini's father was offered a safe position in Iran. Just before the revolution in Iran, his father was offered another job in Paris, before finally taking the family to the USA.

That's fine ... some of us are lucky in life. Others are not. What bothers me, though, is that The Kite Runner is so obviously what Hosseini WISHES had happened.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Hassan character really did exist in some form or another. Surely Hosseini had a friend/sometimes playmate/servant who was left behind while Hosseini's powerful family escaped. Surely, Hosseini feels guilty for leaving his homeland by simple privilege while the less fortunate were left behind to fight the Soviets, the Mujahideen, and then the Taliban. And surely, Hosseini wishes he were some flawed hero that didn't simply get lucky. He wishes he'd majored in English, as the protagonist does, and published fiction books instead of becoming a run-of-the-mill doctor; he wishes his father had depended upon him in the USA as happens in the book, instead of getting by just fine as a rich exile with a daddy-doesn't-love-me complex; he wishes he could go back to Afghanistan, risking his life to make ammends for his shitty and cowardly past, instead of remaining a wealthy outsider living happily in the USA.

Hosseini is simply some guy who feels guilty about having escaped what so many of his fellow countrymen couldn't, and he makes up for it in fantasy in a million ways: accepting his fallen father, marrying an "unsuitable" woman, listening to a voice from the past, saving the son of his friend he watched being raped decades before (when he was too selfish to intervene), stomaching the live stoning of a burka-clad woman and her adulterous lover, taking a beating from an old enemy/Taliban child molestor, giving $2000 to a poor smuggler who tries to feed his kids on $3 a week, and saving a 12 year-old from suicide. If Hosseini REALLY did all this, what a hero he would be. Instead, he just makes it up and calles it a novel ... and people devour this shit with tears, labeling it as "inspirational" and "moving."

What really bothers me? Besides all of the contrived and predictable plot twists?? What really disturbs me is that people not only eat this shit up, but they also call it "literature," award it, and give this guy money and license to write another book.

For lack of better words ... WTF?!!!??! Has everyone just gone STUPID?!!?!?

I could go on about how the writing sucks, especially when the author admits to using cliches (elephant in the room, dark as night, thin as a rake, et fucking c) but I won't.

Why? A couple of reasons:

1) If you liked this book, a part of you is sick, and a larger part of you is an idiot

2) I could write a 100-page thesis about how much this book blew monkey chunks, but it's not worth my time

3) This shit sells, and Hosseini, between his stupid book and movie deals, is an even richer man than he was before ... which in the end, makes him smarter than you, me, and everyone else .... He understands the market and fed it back to us. We probably deserve it.

i really wanted to like this novel. judging from its thousands of 'five-star reviews' hailing it as the one of the 'best books ever written,' i'm in the minority when i state that this novel, while well-intentioned, just left a little bit of sour taste in my mouth.

my problems with the novel are as follows: first of all the writing itself is so ham-fistened, heavy-handed, distracting and otherwise puzzling that by the midway point, i seriously considered chucking the book against the wall. each page of the novel has at least 5-10 incomplete sentences. i'm all for experimental and fractered prose--but it's important for authors to use it judiciously. hosseini, unfortunately, beats it to death. a lot of his language is cliched, too, which is funny considering there's a passage in the book about a writing teacher who warns the narrator, amir, about using cliches. i don't know if that was supposed to be funny or not, but it made me laugh (and what was worse was the san francisco's chronicle's glowing review on the book's cover and the san francisco chronicle's glowing review of amir's novel--coincidence?).

the author's use of farsi--especially in the dialogue--was equally distracting. my point is that no one speaks the way his characters speak. people don't switch back and forth between languages while speaking, and if they do, they certainly don't speak 1/2 the sentence in english, say one word in farsi, then traslate the farsi word to english, then finish the sentence in english, when they're presumably speaking farsi to begin with. i didn't pick up this book for a crash course in colloquial farsi. after 370 pages, i was frustrated--and annoyed.

hosseini's plot often borders on the ridiculous. the'twists' are just TOO coincidental--and not surprising at all (except in how contrived they are). for example, in a devasted kabul, amir sees a homeless man in the street. the homeless man, of course, was a former university professor who just happened to teach with amir's long deceased mother. what a coincidence! what makes it worse, is that the narrator, amir then explains that while that may, in fact, seem like a coincidence, it happens in afghanistan happens all the time. of course it does. in another example, amir's former nemesis, assaf (now a taliban crony), beats up amir and amir ends up with a scar above his lip, just like his dear friend hassan, who was born with cleft-pallet. oh, the coincidence! (and the fact that amir even runs into assef again is ridiculous). another example: amir and his wife aren't able to have children, and of course they find an orphan boy who happens to be extended family and they adopt him. what a coincidence! and after amir returns to afghanistan he doesn't call home to his dutiful wife for over a month. i kept wondering 'when's he gonna call home?' and any plot advanced by a series of 'tragedies,' (and in this book they are legion) shows little more than the writer's inability to craft a meaningful and interesting plot. not only is it pretty poor form, it's also highly manipulative and condescending. i found myself continually frustrated by hosseini's apparent distrust of the reader. we don't have to be told how and when to interpret metaphors. and if i read one more book where the protagonist is a writer or professor, i'm gonna ram my head into a metal post.

i don't want to sound like a misanthrope or jaded literature reader because i'm certainly not. this novel just left me wanting so much more in terms of plot and characterization. having said that, however, the novel could be important in that shows the cruelty of the taliban. much of what hosseini writes about is important, especially for us westerners unfamiliar with the breadth and scope of the afghani tragedy.

in the end, it was worth the $2.00 i paid for it.

4.5 stars!

Oh, my heart. This was heartbreaking and beautifully written!