Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a simple story of love, loyalty, honesty, betrayal, sacrifice, the loss of innocence, the agonies of a troubled conscience and finally, ultimately, a chance at redemption.
Amir and Hassan have grown up together for 12 years, spending most of their short lives in each other’s company. But, there the similarity ends. For Amir is a privileged Afghani child and Hassan is the son of the family servant Ali. Amir and Hassan’s relationship abruptly and tragically changes in the afermath of the events of the local kite flying competition. The breach between the two is never healed even when Amir and his Baba escape the politically changing Afghanistan of the time to the US. Now, two decades later, Amir still tormented by thoughts of his betrayal of Hassan, suddenly gets a phone call from Pakistan. The caller Rahim Khan, a business partner of his Baba, informs him of the existence of Hassan’s son Sohrab. As Amir hastens back to Pakistan and then to Taliban controlled Afghanistan, will he finally be able to arrange a peace between himself and Hassan?
When it comes to writing fiction, there is a subtle distinction between spinning a good yarn and being able to weave words together so that the words create the story for you. As a writer, Hosseini has the gift of the former, while the magic of the latter manages to elude him. With the result that the writing of the Kite Runner is simple - sometimes poignant, sometimes evocative but lacking the true insight which truly good writing carries. The simplicity works very well for the first half when Amir and Hassan are children. I was spellbound through a lot of the sensory details - the smell of food, the games they played, even descriptions of roads, cities and people. But, when Amir has grown up the observational style of the writing works against the story. I was left looking for more depth to the story and the characters and was mildly disappointed.
What also works slightly against the story is the very selfish and weak protagonist, Amir. While Hosseini’s story leads him to his redemption at the end, I didnt get the feeling that Amir had grown a spine at all. Writers who deal with unlikeable protagonists have to present them with valid reasons to be that way. Amir’s act of betrayal when he was younger was the act of a child, how does the adult justify his actions? In a telling scene, Amir reflects that atleast he has never lied to himself about being a coward, but then goes on to commit the biggest act of self-deception. When Amir learns of Sohrab, what logical alternative does he have? Why then go though the rigmarole of finding the Americans in Pakistan, and why let Rahim Khan make the decision for him? The act of redemption, when Amir has literally been forced to go through with it, feels hollow and undeserving.
Perhaps the biggest letdown for me was the way the story ends. Hosseini sprinkles his book with some memorable instances and lines. When the words’For you a thousand times over’, make their first appearance, they’re unforgettable in the context. When Amir finally says the lines, the scene makes them contrived and unspontaneous, almost as if to assuage his guilt Amir needs to say these lines to Sohrab and blurts them out at the first opportunity available. If a bit more thought had gone into the scene, with Sohrab asking Amir for the kite and Amir saying the lines in return, we would have had an ending with a beautiful symmetry and contrast between this scene and the earlier one.
The characters in the story are very often directly and sometimes indirectly affected by the changing political face of Afghanistan in the latter half of the 20th century. However, the amount of historical information gleaned is pretty paltry. I would gain more from reading Wikipedia. I was left wanting more, no, not the atrocities of the Taliban but a deeper insight into how the events affected the people in the story. I was amused to read the Muslim Amir start a sentence with the words’Well Jesus, .’, he’s almost American in his speech and thoughts and while this might present a suitable buffer against knowing what went on in Afghanistan, what about the events of Sept 11? Even Indians in the US were affected, how could the Afghans not be? It’s almost like a huge chunk, the meat, is missing from the story leaving a whole lot of ghasphoos behind.
The Kite Runner is Khalid Hosseini’s first novel and as a debut novel it works well. From the book jacket of the edition I have, I see that Hosseini is a physician, in addition to being a best-selling author and I find that admirable. A large number of my quibbles with the book have to do with the writing. Dont get me wrong, I wouldnt be able to string 2 words together into a story even if I was at the receiving end of Aseef’s brass knuckles, so I dont have much authority to say this. I’m just saddened at the loss of potential here. In Hosseini’s hands, the Kite Runner is a good story, in the hands of a better writer it could have been a *powerful *one.