Five Stars for The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. First published in 2003, and fifteen years later with enormous praise from academic colleagues, and well-read family members; I finally read it. It is worth the acclaim. The Kite Runner understands human dynamics and the cowardice often found beneath our motives with an honesty that stings our sense of justice causing us to reflect on our first inclination to cast the first stone.

The protagonist, Amir, carries mixed emotions, because his actions are those of a coward; however, Amir understands the difference between right and wrong. It is this understanding and Amir’s inner cowardice that makes him a dynamic, and beautifully flawed character. Hosseini created an authentic character with a universal understanding that dives into the selfish hearts of all of us and our need to be accepted and loved. This universal thread is transparent in every culture whether you are in white America, Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Afghanistan.

C.S. Lewis makes the point much more pointedly than I do in Mere Christianity, “Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to – whether it was only our family, or your fellow countrymen, or every one. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired.”

It is selfishness and the road to redemption that underlines this book, and it is one we all can relate. Yes, Kite Runner is loaded with foreshadowing, and predictability, but not in how redemption is achieved, at least not until the very end after the reader walks for years alongside of Amir. Oddly, Amir’s salvation and grace remind me of a very different kind of writer, and an old favorite of mine, Flannery O’Connor who achieves redemption in grotesque, and often murderous characters with a hint of dark humor. Her method, although different, is much the same.

Now about that foreshadowing, much of the criticism relating to The Kite Runner lashes out at foreshadowing. In my reading, I’ve come across two different kinds of foreshadowing: 1) direct and 2) indirect. Hosseini takes the direct approach, which for some reviewers may seem irksome. An example would be, "I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of 1975 came along and changed everything."

I want to know what happens in the winter of 1975. Slowly the reader realizes certain people and events shape this, but eventually the horrific outcome pressed against my soul making the foreshadowing obsolete, and a deeper search of myself the most important pressing matter. Further, foreshadowing, direct, is one used by the greats of literature, Shakespeare’s prologue to Romeo and Juliet is a flashing neon lights sign defining predictability. Again, it is the ‘how’ that guides you through the literature.

Homer’s Odyssey is another example, the song of the muse conveys Odysseus’s treacherous journey. Specifics of Odysseus’s journey are further foreshadowed by Circe, the witch goddess’s warning to Odysseus and his men. The prophecy of Tiresias tells of Odysseus’s return home, broken with no more than his wit to win.

The Great Gatsby, although, twisted with surprise, the elements of indirect foreshadowing are transparent once the end is revealed. The point is whether a story is predictable or surprising, it is the journey we should read for, the one that makes us examine our self at the end forgiving a character we may not have liked much throughout. The devastation Amir felt at the end of the story was justified in my mind, and my forgiveness came willingly because of this.

Journey and plot go together in this much like a Thomas Cole painting picturesque of light, nature and inner solitude. The story takes flight with a kite in the winter of 1975 with the need to be loved and accepted, and it ends years later with the willingness to love someone else, selfishness sliding away like a faded memory.

A critic once said, “This is the sort of book White America reads to feel wordly.” Maybe this is true for some. I cannot speak for all readers, but after reading a book set in Afghanistan before the communist and Taliban; it doesn’t make me worldlier; however, it does make me understand the universal need for love and acceptance that often motivates all of us into selfish action, and the similar journey we all take towards attornment. I highly recommend Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.