Copyright University of British Columbia Spring 2005Ghosts of the Past Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner. Doubleday $34.95
The Kite Runner is a haunting and quite extraordinary first novel by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan medical doctor now residing in the United States. The novel launches readers into the realities of Afghan society, using the political events of Afghanistan from the 19705 to 2001 to foreground a touching and memorable story of the friendship between two boys of differing social class and ethnic backgrounds. The boys-the protagonist Amir and his friend Hassan-live in Kabul, where they have been tended to by the same wet-nurse and have been reared in the same household. Since Amir springs from the elite while Hassan emerges from a marginalized ethnic minority, the boys inhabit contrasting worlds. Their symbiotic relationship and their intertwined lives and fates-in particular the critical incident of the racist attack on Hassan by the half-caste Assef while Amir silently looks on-are cleverly but unobtrusively utilized by Hosseini to mirror Afghanistan's political, social and religious tensions and complexities. Lucky to escape an Afghanistan besieged by the Russians and their local allies, the Talibans, Amir embarks on a new life in California, convinced that his soul can be at peace now that he has left his past behind. Yet, like Morag Gunn in Laurence's The Diviners and Dunstan Ramsay in Davies' Fifth Business, Amir soon discovers that such a release is not easily achieved.
The Kite Runner attests to Hosseini's distaste for self-conscious fiction, to his belief that story-telling must be privileged in the novel, for it is a riveting page-turner that continuously engages readers in the unfolding events it depicts. Replete with surprising twists and turns, it is as tightly and intricately woven as a rich tapestry. If the author's intent, also, is to keep Afghanistan and its travails in the public's consciousness, he succeeds. At the same time, the novel transcends time, place, and the immediate locale, for it may be read as an ethical parable for all peoples who are confronted daily with personal struggles pertaining to family, love, betrayal, guilt, fear, and redemption. It foregrounds the complexity and difficulty of the achievement of personal salvation and the recognition of self. The Kite Runner is a remarkable novel well worth the attention of a general readership and it is certainly a rewarding addition to readings in Postcolonial or Cultural Studies courses at the university level.
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