"A thousand times for you": The Kite Runner

Just finished reading Khaled Hosseni's The Kite Runner , billed as the first Afghani novel in English. Cannot confirm that, but it is a debut novel from Mr. Hosseni and what a marvelous novel at that!

The book is a rollercoaster of emotions, touching fealties, lies and coverups, guilt and the final denouement, "a way to be good again," an absolution and deliverance from haunting regret. It brings out the sharp Afghan sense of 'nang' and 'namoos', honor and dignity and the famed fierce independent spirit of the Afghans, and not in small measure, their 'recklessness.'

It contains loving descriptions of growing up in Kabul by the protagonist and narrator, the young Amir jan, and then coming of age in the USA. The early story of growing up in an affluent section of Kabul called Wazir Akbar Khan and developing an intimate relationship with the Hazara (Shias of possibly of mixed Eastern Turkic and Mongol origin as opposed to the Sunni ethnic majority the Pashtuns) 'servant-boy' Hassan takes place in the 1970s from the period when the monarchy of the King Zahir Shah was in place through his displacement in 1973 in a coup and the subsequent political instability and the Russian occupation that followed in 1979. In March 1981, Amir jan and Baba, his non-conformist, larger-than-life father, escape to Pakistan and from there on to the west coast of the USA.

Much of the story has to do with incidents in the childhood of Amir and his interactions with Hassan who is unquestioningly loyal to him (It is here one gets welcome insight into life in Kabul before it became the shelled, bombed wreck one knows of later). Amir's father, Baba, also plays a large role in the story, what with his magnanimous nature, his pooh-poohing religious authority and form, and his vast influence on Amir.

This is a book that provides the outsider a glimpse into Afghan life and traditions and is written in delightful prose. The story is packed with details and evocative incidents and there are many twists and turns, none of them tawdry or forced, which make for compulsive reading, and one may even say, without demeaning the solidity of the narrative, a real page-turner.