The Kite Runner: An Overrated Book
The Kite Runner is a story about two Afghani children and the tosses and turns of their lives in Afghanistan’s political situation. One of them is Amir, a privileged child, and another one is Hassan, a Hazara. Ali, Hassan’s father, is a loyal servant of Amir’s family for years.
Before I start expressing my opinion on the book, I wanted to let you all know from which perspective I wrote this review. As a fan of Bangla literature, I have seen writers bringing out the exploitation people went through during both the British and Pak ruling in literature. Throughout those books, I have read about the amount of adversity faced by the people of this subcontinent.
So when my bookworm acquaintances recommended this book by saying it left a scar in their hearts, I expected to understand the intensity of the situation more. I thought I would burn with agony as a human being for my inability to do anything for those people.
This book wasn’t up to the mark, considering the lofty expectations I held of it. Instead, what I felt was a bit of melodrama mixed with cumbersome agonies. The description of that state’s condition was vague; the lack of acuteness while describing the outbreaks of violence was kind of disheartening.
The metaphors used to describe the events were often banal and sometimes theatrical which is not of my liking. and most importantly, the coincidence in this book isn’t even near to what it is called a coincidence. Everything, absolutely everything in this book was too predictable.
For people who are even a little acquainted with the history, it might appear to them that the writer, being an Afghani, did much injustice to the history of his land, where people for decades have been leading a miserable life. The book contains a humdrum visualization of the way the Taliban are exploiting Afghanis.
Belonging to Afghanistan gave Hosseini the scope to bring out the real circumstances of that state, the brutality of the Taliban, the plight of the people living there. To me, what appeared hurtful was Hosseini, instead of articulating the fact that America has a significant role to play in the fate of Afghanistan, praised them.
The book could have been something to draw people’s attention to the fact that almost every terrorist group was originally trained and armed by the Western powers. It could have shown the injustice that has been happening for years. It could have delivered the traumatized experience every Afghani child goes through.
Instead, Hosseini chose to write a book which made Americans feel that they have been doing enough, which in turn fueled their arrogance.. To me, this book was a simulation of the stigma of Islam being a terror spreading religion.
In the whole story, the writer used Farsi words in every sentence and explained the meaning later, which made it more distasteful and an uncomfortable read.
Despite all this irritation while reading the book, what kept me going was the protagonist and the visualization and the detailing of Afghan culture. The protagonist was a flawed, scared, cowardly character who never had the guts to speak up, sit with his emotions, and even confess them to himself. He was just a human being, a flawed one. Not like the other characters of the book who were too kind, brave, and righteous. The characterization of the protagonist is the only thing that felt real. In conclusion, the book is so easily understandable that a reader won’t even need to think twice while reading.
