13 March, 2006

The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

When my mother gave me this book, she warned me that it was enormously depressing. It was sad, but also lovely, beautifully written. It tells the story of Amir, and his childhood friend Hassan, who is a servant in his home. After a terrible event, Hassan and his father leave Amir's house, and Amir and his father travel to America.

Amir is haunted by his past, and eventually, partly spurred on by this, he travels back to Afghanistan, to discover what has happened to Hassan.

(God, I hate summing up complex - and in this case, occasionally over-complex and convoluted - plots in a couple of sentences.)

A sometimes painful read, but a beautifully realised story of loss, regret, and love.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey C, the librarian at the Land Council in Cairns recommended this book to me. I found a copy at my sister's house and it has been waiting on my bedside-table, unopened, for a couple of weeks. As I have a number of job applications to write and weeks of Uni readings to catch up on, I'm thinking tonight is the perfect night to start reading a new novel!

BTW - love all your blogs, some entries made me laugh out loud...Mungbean... hee hee.

See you for rock climbing soon?
;o)
Meg

Anonymous said...

C
Finished this book this morning. It made me think of the young Hazara boys that I have met. This type of book is so important for people in over-privileged places like Australia to read. To make the horror of war and suffering elsewhere more human. It made me want to get back into volunteering with refugees. You?
M
Meg

TheDietitian said...

Just finished The Kite Runner on a flight and scared the life out of girls in the seats beside me with my sobbing into hanky. Most unlike me! Loved the book. So interesting and tragic to get an insight into pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

Also love your blogs- particularly Kitchen on Clarendon.

Cee said...

Thanks very much, Dietitian - I'm pleased you're enjoying the blogs. I really must update Kitchen more often, but I'm rather preoccupied with this one and Words at the moment. Kite Runner was terribly sad, wasn't it? I'd like to read some more of that author's work (if there is anything else published.)