The
Kite Runner is a book that I had heard so much about before I read it this year
for the first time. Khaled Hosseini’s
Kite Runner is simple to read, yet it evokes as much emotion as a lengthy drama. His ability to convey the inner thoughts of
Amir and draw the personal conflicts out of him help to create a novel that
almost anyone can connect with on an emotional level. The story is relatively fast paced, and can
be read in single day with some motivation.
This was a huge bonus compared to reading Atlas Shrugged, which seemed
to drag on for weeks with no clear end in sight. This story sends every reader on an emotional
roller coaster as we follow Amir from his finest moments, to his worst, and
then watch him slowly recover from his mistakes.
Khaled
Hosseini’s choice for a main character in this novel surprised me, and I think
lots of others as well. Rather than pick
a character that has a few redeeming qualities to focus on, he chose Amir. Amir is a selfish, self-loathing kid who can’t
stand up for himself, or his friends. At
times I found it hard to sympathize with Amir, because I found his actions
either too selfish, or cowardly. When
Amir watches Hassan getting raped, I understood his decision to not go in and
fight. Assef was clearly stronger, and
most likely would have either raped, or severely hurt Amir for standing up to
him. But his later decision to ignore
his injured friend, and his attempt to get Hassan fired bothered me. Hassan knew that Amir had seen him, and was
still able to forgive him. Hassan just
wanted his friend back, and Amir was unable to provide a wounded friend with
kindness. Throughout the novel I found
myself cringing or upset with Amir’s personal choices, but he is only just a
character in a novel.
By
choosing a loserly type of main character, Khaled had to provide some sort of
reasoning for Amir to act the way he did, and have Amir redeem himself in some
sort of way. Amir’s backstory for being
selfish worked. Having a father who can’t
connect with you seems horrible, but not having a mother to fill the void of
love is much worse. Amir doesn’t get the
love he needs from his father, all the while watching his father shower Hassan
with praise. The internal conflict about
his lack of love helps to explain the reasoning behind many of Amir’s
decisions. I also felt that Amir’s
redemption in the end was satisfying. By
taking in Hassan’s child, Amir reestablishes his friendship with Hassam (sort
of) and proves to himself that he is not a coward. He goes into a war torn Afghanistan and
rescues his brother’s child. This
selfless act helps to show the reader that he is sorry for not sticking up for
Hassan, and wishes to undo his wrongs.
The
ending of the novel was the fastest and craziest part of the entire novel. He chooses to reveal the biggest secrets near
the end of the novel, which kept me gripped on the push towards the
finish. In doing this, he helps to
instill the raw feeling of bewilderment into the character, which is the same
feeling that Amir experiences while the secrets are being revealed to him. I think that drawing the same emotion out of
the reader that the character is experiencing at a particular moment is a nice
style approach for this novel. This
story’s foundation is built upon human emotions, and neat little writing tricks
like that make this story all that more exciting. Overall I felt that Khaled Hosseini was
trying to show that self-loathing and a refusal to act is harmful not only to
yourself, but to those directly around you.
Rather than refuse to act, and spend your entire life regretting not
doing something, make a move and go with it and apologize later. His themes of forgiveness are also a huge
part of the story. The ability to
forgive others as well as yourself is a huge theme in this novel. It took Amir the entire length of the book to
learn to forgive himself, and actually act upon a huge idea.
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