Book Review: The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

-Akshay Ranganath

Last week, I'd been to Jayanagar and there was some sort of a basement book exhibition. In there I saw this book, "The Kite Runner". For some reason, I had this vague feeling that I'd heard about it before and picked it up... and it turned out to be one of the best books that I've read.

The Kite Runner is more like an episodic story - it shows the childhood of an innocent boy, the brutal face of reality in a war torn religiously oppressive regime while contrasting it with the daily life of some real people eking out a living.. and miraculously still praying and having faith in God.

The book is a depiction of how the geo-political realities of the world shatter the simple life of people who simply are on the wrong place at the wrong time. It is a testimony to the fact that cold war may not have been a real war between the giants of USA and USSR but, it did take the sacrifice of powerless countries who just happened to be at a strategic point.

Starting with the innocent life of a boy born in a well-to-do family, the book chronicles the story of the boy turning into a youth and an adult while fleeing from war-ravaged Afghanistan to returning back to a hate-filled, depraved and violent place ruled by religious fanatics. It also talks about tender emotions like inexplicable relationship between the boy and his servant's son - a relationship that's not exactly friendship, nor is it of a master and slave. Yet, this is the relationship that forms the bedrock of the entire book, and of the author's confusion and his journey from Afghanistan to USA and back.

It is a beautifully written book with many harsh realities sprinkled in. There is unbelievable violence coupled with such tender love that it makes you cry. The book is also about relationships, defined within the strict masculine culture of Afghanistan - a culture where emotions are not shown and yet, the author makes you feel every bit of it all along. This book is not for the faint-hearted. It has violence, it has rape and cruelty. At the same time, it has hope and a message that somehow with a firm belief good always wins.

Best line from the book - '..lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of certainty'. I can't write the context - or I'll break the plot! :-)

Hope you too enjoy the book…