Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I began it it with great trepidation but it more than liked it. The book is deceptively calm - like one of those movies where you something is going to happen but you dont know how or when it will happen but everytime you turn the page you this this is it.
Amir and Hassan - two children who lived in a wonderful bubble called childhood. All it takes is one incident to change all that. And somehow that tone is set from page one of the book. But one thing I did not expect is its sheer grab-you-straight-by-the-throat quality. And that happens every time the books turns a cornerstone and there are many.
The two lose their innocence in ways that makes you put down the book and hope to make the world a safer place for children. It is a story that explores friendship, courage, cruelty, humanism, loyalty and is brilliant without being maudlin. The more I talk about the story, the more I will give away.
You know there is this ugly fasciation where repulsive behaviour is concerned. There is a morbid fascination. You continue to stare and look even after getting digusted like I try and make eye contact with the lizards in my house.. and watch them eat cockroaches and butterflies but on a similar note, here you keep turning page after page, reading and reading and wondering and reading! Of course the book is not repulsive at all but the words conjure up images that are distressingly real.
I could write loads on how the book is so not what you expect and how it affected me and so on. But will just say - go read it. And yes close each lingering issue else it will come back to haunt you at absolutely unexpected times.
Amir and Hassan - two children who lived in a wonderful bubble called childhood. All it takes is one incident to change all that. And somehow that tone is set from page one of the book. But one thing I did not expect is its sheer grab-you-straight-by-the-throat quality. And that happens every time the books turns a cornerstone and there are many.
The two lose their innocence in ways that makes you put down the book and hope to make the world a safer place for children. It is a story that explores friendship, courage, cruelty, humanism, loyalty and is brilliant without being maudlin. The more I talk about the story, the more I will give away.
You know there is this ugly fasciation where repulsive behaviour is concerned. There is a morbid fascination. You continue to stare and look even after getting digusted like I try and make eye contact with the lizards in my house.. and watch them eat cockroaches and butterflies but on a similar note, here you keep turning page after page, reading and reading and wondering and reading! Of course the book is not repulsive at all but the words conjure up images that are distressingly real.
I could write loads on how the book is so not what you expect and how it affected me and so on. But will just say - go read it. And yes close each lingering issue else it will come back to haunt you at absolutely unexpected times.
# posted by Janaki @ 9:55 am 
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After reading certain passages in the Kite Runner i had to look up and out of the window, to let the phrases swirl around it my head for a bit and to distance myself from the images he conjured up, because it all pulled me in so complretely.
I'm a sucker :D
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I'm a sucker :D
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