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CO-FOUNDER & SENIOR EDITOR |
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Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:55 pm Posts: 3570 Location: 13,750 feet above sea level
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Let’s hear it from the Net:
"The Kite Runner" is Khaled Hosseini’s first novel and the number three best seller for 2005 in the United States, staying on the list for over two years. It has been published in 42 different languages and adapted into a film of the same name with a release date in November 2007.
"The Kite Runner" is an epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, and of the price of loyalty. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present, "The Kite Runner" is the unforgettable, beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan nonetheless grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara, member of a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When the Soviets invade and Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him.
"The Kite Runner" describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed. But with the devastation, Khaled Hosseini also gives us hope: through the novel's faith in the power of reading and storytelling, and in the possibilities he shows for redemption.â€Â
Since last year, my writer-friends in Manila have been blogging about how "The Kite Runner" (TKR) made them cry. Then two weeks ago, Maritess Patrimonio-Luna asked me if I had read TKR because her batchmate, who’s now in Canada and who shall remain unnamed, was sending her the book.
I read TKR over the weekend, and until now---as I write this---my eyes are still red and sore from all that crying. Okay, I’m exaggerating.
Tetes gave me the book Saturday night and I didn’t flip the pages until Sunday morning when I woke up. I would have finished the book in one go but I had to hear mass. At the church I couldn’t concentrate; I wanted to go home and finish the book.
By lunch time, I was crying my eyes out. And I’m not exaggerating this time. In fact I cried so many pearls, that if strung, could fly a kite high enough to reach the sky. The last one---the use of pearls---you have to read the novel to understand!
I spent the entire Sunday afternoon reading and crying. My hands couldn’t keep pace with the speed by which my eyes snapped the words. I turned the pages forth, then back to reread and savor the beautiful words that the author kept throwing at me, page after beautiful page.
I covet the author’s gift for description. He showed me the devastation of war through telling images that it felt as though I was really in Kabul, seeing death and destruction. And with a turn of phrases as poignant as “the war had made fathers a rare commodity in Afghanistan†and “there are many children in Afghanistan but few childhood,†there was no relief but to cry. But there was this description that the author attributed to Amir as he drove around Kabul after 25 years: “we drove past the burned village, and the dogs didn’t move.â€Â
That said it all to me!
The author is also a master of foreshadowing. And so when Sohrab hit Assef's left eye with a metal ball using a slingshot, I had no doubt about Sohrab blinding the man who first sodomized his father when he was his age and then himself, after Assef took him from the orphanage to be his sex-slave.
I like the way the author used kite fighting and kite running (to know how these are done, you have to read the book) as theme. The social segration brought by a caste system in Afghanistan was eloquently displayed by the author through this thematic image. Amir, the master, was a kite fighter (was up there) and Hassan, the kite runner (was down there). But one doesn't miss the sense of irony because it was actually Hassan who did all the fighting, and Amir, all the running.
Early in Amir and Hassan's friendship, they often visited a pomegranate tree where they spent hours reading and playing. One summer day, using a kitchen knife, Amir carved on the tree these words: “Amir and Hassan, the Sultans of Kabul.†Amir then told Hassan that those words made it formal, that the tree was theirs.
In a letter to Amir later in the story, Hassan mentioned that "the tree hasn't borne fruit in years." When Amir returned to Kabul, he went to the pomegranate tree to look for the words he had carved 25 years ago. They were still etched on a tree that now had gone barren, with its bark chipping. For one last time, Amir sat there, desolate and alone, for even the wind was silent. The loneliness was so gut wrenching I had to run for water.
And the scene when Amir set-up Hassan of stealing his watch, and Amir’s father, Baba, crying and pleading for Hassan and his father to stay, I simply had to let go or I'd burst!
It is of particular note that the author framed his story with kite flying. At the beginning of the story, it represented Amir’s descent to his own personal hell, and at the the end, his redemption.
I like the way Amir said at novel's end, when Sohrab, Hassan's son whom he had adopted, faintly smiled after almost a year of clamming up on him and his wife: "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.â€Â
Beautiful!
I’m a sucker for tales of friendship that go from sweet, to sour, then back to sweet. "The Kite Runner" is one such book. Only that in this book, the friendship didn't have the chance to get sweet again. Oppps!
(I remember going to Tetes's house at 10:00 PM Sunday because I was hesitant to continue reading the book as I didn't want to know if Hassan died before Amir could ask for forgiveness and atone for his sins! Ha-ha!)
I encourage you to read the book. It’s cathartic. And when you’re done, please let us know if you want to join our clique: The Kite Runner’s Crying Club of Tago! We’ll be glad to have you, A THOUSAND TIMES OVER! That phrase, too, you have to read the book to understand and cry.
(Note: Khaled Hosseini’s second novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns “ is a national bestseller and touted to be even better than "The Kite Runner." It has also been optioned to Columbia Pictures.)
_________________ "Most claims of originality are testimony to ignorance and most claims of magic are testimony to hubris." -James March-
Last edited by kampanaryo_spy on Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:23 am, edited 8 times in total.
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