The Kite Runner
Sep. 12th, 2007 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keladry_lupinBook review!
First and foremost, I enjoyed this book. It's not my favorite, but I liked it enough that I'll be reading A Thousand Splendid Suns some time soon. Seeing a book written by someone from such a different background was enlightening.
There's justice, in an eye-for-an-eye kind of way; Amir finds his redemption for not saving Hassan by going through a similar assault -- at the hands of the same person -- as Hassan had, all those years ago. He finally feels clean through the pain he experiences, as well as the act of rescuing Hassan's son. And Assef finally gets when Hassan threatened, all those years before: Hassan had threatened to take his eye out with his slingshot ... and Sohrab carries that threat out. That sort of thing is why I liked Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption so much. Justice!
I loved the symbolism in the book, especially the pomegranate tree. And the balance that Amir finds as time progresses; he has the dream where he watches his father wrestling the bear, but when he looks into his father's face, he sees it's himself. The similarities between Hassan and Amir, by the end of the book ... it took Amir time to catch up with Hassan, even though he'd felt like he was the superior one, when they were children.
So I discussed The Kite Runner with a co-worker yesterday. He was the only other person in the library who had finished it -- though a couple of others plan to finish it this weekend -- but he HATED the book. A lot of the things I liked about it, he hated. I think he was restricted by his Christian beliefs. Redemption cannot come through any way but repentance and acceptance of Christ. I happen to agree, but this novel wasn't written by a person with the same background that my co-worker and I have. When I tried to talk about Amir finding redemption, he was disgusted. And don't get him started on Hosseini's treatment of women in the book; one dies, another is a beautiful whore who is only acceptable when she returns at the end of Hassan's story (maimed, no less). Only Amir's wife escapes unscathed, though her own father treated her so terribly. Even the way the Afghans turn kite-flying into a vicious competition is so foreign that he decided Amir hadn't learned anything in his journey, which is the exact opposite of my reaction to this. And my icon is a reaction to just about everything he said in our discussion yesterday!
First and foremost, I enjoyed this book. It's not my favorite, but I liked it enough that I'll be reading A Thousand Splendid Suns some time soon. Seeing a book written by someone from such a different background was enlightening.
There's justice, in an eye-for-an-eye kind of way; Amir finds his redemption for not saving Hassan by going through a similar assault -- at the hands of the same person -- as Hassan had, all those years ago. He finally feels clean through the pain he experiences, as well as the act of rescuing Hassan's son. And Assef finally gets when Hassan threatened, all those years before: Hassan had threatened to take his eye out with his slingshot ... and Sohrab carries that threat out. That sort of thing is why I liked Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption so much. Justice!
I loved the symbolism in the book, especially the pomegranate tree. And the balance that Amir finds as time progresses; he has the dream where he watches his father wrestling the bear, but when he looks into his father's face, he sees it's himself. The similarities between Hassan and Amir, by the end of the book ... it took Amir time to catch up with Hassan, even though he'd felt like he was the superior one, when they were children.
So I discussed The Kite Runner with a co-worker yesterday. He was the only other person in the library who had finished it -- though a couple of others plan to finish it this weekend -- but he HATED the book. A lot of the things I liked about it, he hated. I think he was restricted by his Christian beliefs. Redemption cannot come through any way but repentance and acceptance of Christ. I happen to agree, but this novel wasn't written by a person with the same background that my co-worker and I have. When I tried to talk about Amir finding redemption, he was disgusted. And don't get him started on Hosseini's treatment of women in the book; one dies, another is a beautiful whore who is only acceptable when she returns at the end of Hassan's story (maimed, no less). Only Amir's wife escapes unscathed, though her own father treated her so terribly. Even the way the Afghans turn kite-flying into a vicious competition is so foreign that he decided Amir hadn't learned anything in his journey, which is the exact opposite of my reaction to this. And my icon is a reaction to just about everything he said in our discussion yesterday!
