I am very excited to write about one of my favorite books, though it took me a little longer to take out time for this. The foremost reason behind my elation is that the first time I read it, I cried many times, which is an unprecedented experience for me. Generally, I do not write reviews of books I’ve read, but Khaled Hosseini’s fabulous writing in ‘The Kite Runner’, and the sensitive issue associated with it compelled me to express my emotions.
The reviews I’d read about the book before I headed towards writing on myself confirmed that the story is a fictional blend of love, sacrifice, and friendship, narrated in the background of non-fictional events in Afghanistan of the 1970s. But I think it is more than that.
The story starts with the friendship of a child and his servant’s little Hazara (an underprivileged ethnicity in Afghanistan) son. Both used to play together and make their childhood worth remembering in their memories throughout their lives. The use of exquisite literary expressions and portrayal of characters is done by the writer in such a lively manner that I started to connect emotionally with the story. I have never ever felt such a powerful impact of playing with words to make virtual characters dance in your mind.
Then, some adverse circumstances arise in the lives of those two little boys due to jealousy, racism, repentance, cruel society and terrorism, which gets them apart. This phase of the book has a powerful incident that is sure to wet your eyes at least if it does not get you to cry.
Then, the story runs through a time leap which shows struggles of a father, blossoming of love between two young ones, and attainment of success by someone. But amid all these life episodes, there is one lifetime regret, or you can say a dreadful memory, which reminds one of his cowardliness and stings like a needle every day. This regret is the essence of the story that unfolds many dark secrets of the characters in it.
Gradually, the reader is plunged in the story in such a way that they would want events to take a turn to get one of the characters justice, like a movie full of thrill and suspense. In the last few pages, the reader will be mesmerised by a realisation of how history repeats itself. Again, poignant descriptions of feelings of a character by the writer will make the reader shed some tears unknowingly. The story will engulf the reader with an image of a character with a feeling of pain in his eyes.
Unlike other ideal, happily-ending stories, Hosseini in this book has maintained a fragrance of reality till the end, where everything is not right. The reader will stick to the book till the last page, and wish that the story does not end soon. The whole story has been weaved to evoke emotions in the reader, which surely works like magic and overwhelms their heart.