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| hageltoast |
Post subject: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini |
Control Freak
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 76
Location: East midlands UK
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This is apparently Hosseini's fist novel. Set mostly in Afghanistan and a little in America the book follows the life of Amir born in Afghanistan before Taliban control and then follows him growing up, the overthrowing of the King and Amir's move to America. It's a sad story with a lot grim aspects and events, but avoids the excessive sentimentality that can ruin a book like this.
Here is the amazon synopsis:
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The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.
Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.
The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
I will post more on this book i just need to think about it. |
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What can be imagined, need never be lost
Clive Barker - Weaveworld
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| hageltoast |
Post subject: |
Control Freak
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 76
Location: East midlands UK
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Ok a bit more on my thoughts on the kite runner.
I thought it was well written and interesting but although I liked the style the story and the subject matter didn't excite me. That's not such a bad thing or a surprise this book is well out of my usual reading range. Still I found it thought provoking and I found myself empaphising (sp?) with the story teller even when he behaved appallingly towards his friend. I found the explanations of the class and religious differences fascinating and al told I thought it was well worth the reading. Although it's sometimes an uncomfortable reading (exposing a very human cowardice and selfishness) it wasn't a hard read and i'd recommend it. |
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What can be imagined, need never be lost
Clive Barker - Weaveworld
http://hageltoast.typepad.com/seeking_xanadu/
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| Huggy |
Post subject: |
Bookworm
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 14
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I really enjoyed this book.
I was interested in the cultural aspect of this book
and
I thought ending was lovely.
Life is not full of happy families and friends do betray each other
and I thought this was very well protrayed in the book.
This is the kind of fiction I normally read, and have read his second novel
A thousand splendid suns. |
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| hageltoast |
Post subject: |
Control Freak
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 76
Location: East midlands UK
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| I agree the ending was excellent, it could so easily have been too sentimental and happy ever afterish and the cultural issues and religious issues were fascinating. Not my usual sort of thing, but good enough i'd consider reading him again. |
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_________________
What can be imagined, need never be lost
Clive Barker - Weaveworld
http://hageltoast.typepad.com/seeking_xanadu/
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| Huggy |
Post subject: |
Bookworm
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 14
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A thousand splendid suns was really good.
The kite Runner is being made into a movie
and should be released in Nov 07  |
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| PiscesMermie |
Post subject: |
Light Reader
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 5
Location: San Diego, Ca
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I have been looking at it and not buying for a bit.
I like that I can come here and get different views. |
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| Huggy |
Post subject: |
Bookworm
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 14
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| PiscesMermie |
Post subject: |
Light Reader
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 5
Location: San Diego, Ca
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I saw this again and did not buy. 
Bought Eat Pray Love.
I have Water For Elephants someone gave me for a after surgery pressie.
I REALLY need to get The Kite Runner.  |
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| Huggy |
Post subject: |
Bookworm
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 14
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The Kite Runner is out here now
and I am off to see it today
Soooooooooo looking forward to seeing it. |
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