The Kite Runner
At the very beginning, this book touched my heart quietly and powerfully with the first sentence: “I became what I am today at the age of twelve.” This strong feeling followed me while I was reading most parts of the story. I do believe it really is powerful and devastating.
But I thought quite a lot times, when I finished certain chapters, that the story could just end here. When something shocking and powerful happened, I would ask what else more do I want to know? Let it finish right there no more, and it will be a great book. But it went on relentlessly, and many plots turned out to be less successful, or somewhat plain. I do like the ending thought, and it left all readers a great range of imagination. They may live together happily as if nothing happened to Hassan, to Amir, to all their lives. They may have the happiness that should be enjoyed by any man and woman in the world.
If there was nothing happened at all in Afganistan, everything could be all right as ever. If there were no wars, no political dirty tricks, no Russian invasions, no Taliban takeover, if clashes among political powers could stay out of the way of daily lives of the people, this piece of territory can remain as cherished as every other place in the world. Painfully, all of those did happen. Former king was pushed aside, russian soldiers came with tanks and kalashnikovs, and Taliban drove in with blood stains.
Yes, in the end the American came in rescue. Social order could be rebuilt at that time, democracy might finally come, and peaceful life would come back in the end as well, if they were given more help and attention. But again sadly, Afganistan was again totally forgotten in newspapers and on TV screens right after American troops invaded Iraq. And what now, even after this book about Afghanistan once became bestseller? Same old same old.
PS: In chapter 13, there were words like:
The novel was released in the summer of that following year, 1989, and the publisher sent me on a five-city book tour. I became a minor celebrity in the Afghan community. … That was the year that the cold war ended, the year the Berlin Wall came down. It was the year of Tiananmen Square. In the midst of it all, Afghanistan was forgotten.
and in the Chinese transaltion, the Tiananmen Square killings was omitted (censored?).
