Well I'll be damned -- it really IS that good

The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini

For quite awhile now, the name Khaled Hosseini has been on the lips of readers everywhere; even non-readers have fallen prey to the siren that is The Kite Runner. I thought I had escaped unscathed, but now that his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, has been released (again to much acclaim), it seems Hosseini is a force that cannot be ignored. Tired of being one of the few remaining people who hasn’t read The Kite Runner, I decided to rectify the problem, duly dubious that something so celebrated could be any good.

With such doubt firmly entrenched in my mind, I began this book fully expecting to hate it. In fact, I wanted to hate it, wanting instead to separate myself from the masses clamoring Khaled Hosseini’s greatness to anyone and everyone who would listen. I thought, I am better than the mewling hoards. I am educated. I read "quality literature." I am not a sheep. I will not like The Kite Runner.

baa, baa

I could immediately see why The Kite Runner has attracted both readers and non-readers alike; Hosseini spins a complex, intelligent tale while keeping his prose simple and readable, and I was able to read half the book in a single sitting without becoming bored and resorting to procrastinating on the Internet. Furthermore, his story involves several elements that resonate well on a subconscious level: archetypal figures, a comforting parallelism that nicely rounds out the second half of the novel, and even a little hero quest worthy of Campbell. It's difficult not to like something that combines intelligence and simplicity, modernity and tradition.

For those who don’t yet know the story, The Kite Runner is the story of Amir, who, as a boy growing up in Afghanistan, commits a shameful deed out of a desperate need to gain his father's love and attention. What follows is, of sorts, a tale of heroic redemption: after war breaks out, father and son leave their country and eventually arrive in America, where Amir grows as an individual and improves his relationship with his father. And yet, despite America's bringing father and son closer together, Amir still has not reconciled himself with his past; it is only upon returning to Afghanistan that he can possibly redeem both himself and those he loves.

To this tale of the modern hero, a hero flawed and craven, a character who almost doesn't even want to be redeemed, is added the most important character of them all: Afghanistan. I don’t enjoy books that rely on great amounts of description, but I never felt The Kite Runner’s description to be overbearing. And yet, after reading the book, I feel as though there must have been a lot of it, for Hosseini's Afghanistan remains clearly etched in my mind. Like most Americans, I only know of the Middle East what I see on tv, a pastiche of desolate streets, decimated buildings, and bedraggled children, but Hosseini shows us an Afghanistan beautiful and full of promise before it was destroyed by fighting.

To be fair, The Kite Runner isn't entirely perfect. There is a tendency toward the sentence fragment which seemed a little overused after awhile. Then again, perhaps I am being pedantic. It's been known to happen. Also, a few scenes were slightly predictable, but I do point out foreshadowing for a living. These things pale in comparison to the power of the work as a whole, and I really can't quibble over such minor flaws.

In a nutshell: If you haven't read it yet, allow me to echo the multitude of people who have already said to me, "You haven't read The Kite Runner yet?? Ohmygod, you SO have to read it! It is SO AMAZING. I like totally cried."

I, for one, did NOT cry. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Bibliolatry Scale: 5 out of 6 stars