The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
#79 in my book challenge for the year, Hosseini’s book The Kite Runner is a darling of women’s book clubs. Women’s book clubs are often derided as being earnest but not erudite; I felt similarly about this book. I am meanly tempted to do a one-word review: overdetermined. But that would both be unkind and unfair. Hosseini’s book has merit. It is the story of two boys in pre-war Afghanistan. One boy is rich, entitled and longing for his father’s love, the other boy is a persecuted minority, but honest, noble, and the deserving recipient of admiration from both his own father and that of the other boy. (See what I mean about overdetermined? And that’s just the set up.) The rich boy does a Bad Thing, and the relationships are severed, just as war begins to divide the country. The rich boy eventually gets the chance to atone for the Bad Thing. This book works very well as a portrait of pre- and post-war Afghani culture. The central story, though, did not draw me in.
It did remind me, though, to re-read an essay called “Naji’s Taliban Phase” which originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine, and was collected in the 2002 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading. I do recommend both the essay and the collection.