The pace is fast, the language, fluid. The characters so real, you can almost feel the towering personality of ‘Baba’ jump out of the pages and loom large over the sheltered but hollow existence of young Amir. You can see little Hassan, the hare-lipped faithful, risk life and limb running after the coveted prize. You shudder at the prospect of the impending doom as he bends around the alley. You are as much a voyeur as his alter ego Amir, who bears the cross for most of his adult life, until the opportunity for redemption presents itself in the most befitting way it possibly could have.
The changing life and times in a shell-shocked and broken Afghanistan provide a cold and sordid backdrop as the story unfolds the coming of age of two friends, the children of destiny. Khaled Hosseini has indeed penned down a blockbuster.
Yet, what could have been a contemporary classic remains a much-talked about bestseller as the story takes a predictable turn. Khaled Hosseini’s ‘Kite Runner’ is a superlative attempt at narrating the well-worn and romanticized conflict of the protagonist with a painful past and pedigree.
It’s a recommended read for its sheer simplicity and raw appeal to the sensibilities of readers especially those from the Indian sub-continent. This lot has the relative advantage of early exposure to such legends as the mother-of-all epics, ‘Mahabharata’ to the more pedestrian Bollywood versions, where the overarching themes unfailingly are illicit relationships, illegitimate heirs, deceit, revenge, remorse and a friendship to die for.
manishabhise 