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The Kite Runner
Mar. 25th, 2010 03:22 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wild-irises.livejournal.comI saw the movie of The Kite Runner before it came out, and at that point I was intrigued to read the book, but it took me this long to get around to it.
It's a problematic story, at best. The narrator, Amir, grew up as an upper-class Afghani. The story is about inter-Afghan racism in the narrator's childhood, with the narrator as the racist, holding privilege and power over his boyhood best friend, Hassan, who is a Hazara, and Amir's father's servant's son. The story is also homophobic. The relationship between the two boys is brought into sharp relief by a homosexual assault on Hassan, after which Amir's bad behavior destroys the friendship and eventually forces Hassan and his father out of the household.
With the Russian influx that started the destabilization of Afghanistan which continues to this day, Amir and his father immigrate to the United States. Amir eventually returns to Afghanistan to confront his old guilts and his old enemies, and attempt to rescue Hassan's son from (continued homophobic) Taliban excesses, at great cost to everyone involved.
The huge value of this best-selling novel, for me, is first in its willingness to explore the mind of a teenage boy actively engaged in cruel, selfish, and racist behavior, rather than the much easier task of staying with the boy who is harmed by that behavior. I also deeply appreciated its descriptions of Afghanistan and the comparisons with not only the U.S., but the San Francisco Bay Area, where the narrator, the author, and I all live. Finally, the book does not come to a clean, pretty resolution about rescuing the boy and bringing him to America to be one happy family.
Those very real qualities have to, in my mind, be balanced against the unremitting homophobia and a tendency to heighten the drama, sometimes at the expense of characterization and depth. In the end, however, I'm glad I read the book and glad I saw the movie, and I do feel like I understand a little more about Afghanistan, its people, and its travails, than I did before I picked up the novel.
It's a problematic story, at best. The narrator, Amir, grew up as an upper-class Afghani. The story is about inter-Afghan racism in the narrator's childhood, with the narrator as the racist, holding privilege and power over his boyhood best friend, Hassan, who is a Hazara, and Amir's father's servant's son. The story is also homophobic. The relationship between the two boys is brought into sharp relief by a homosexual assault on Hassan, after which Amir's bad behavior destroys the friendship and eventually forces Hassan and his father out of the household.
With the Russian influx that started the destabilization of Afghanistan which continues to this day, Amir and his father immigrate to the United States. Amir eventually returns to Afghanistan to confront his old guilts and his old enemies, and attempt to rescue Hassan's son from (continued homophobic) Taliban excesses, at great cost to everyone involved.
The huge value of this best-selling novel, for me, is first in its willingness to explore the mind of a teenage boy actively engaged in cruel, selfish, and racist behavior, rather than the much easier task of staying with the boy who is harmed by that behavior. I also deeply appreciated its descriptions of Afghanistan and the comparisons with not only the U.S., but the San Francisco Bay Area, where the narrator, the author, and I all live. Finally, the book does not come to a clean, pretty resolution about rescuing the boy and bringing him to America to be one happy family.
Those very real qualities have to, in my mind, be balanced against the unremitting homophobia and a tendency to heighten the drama, sometimes at the expense of characterization and depth. In the end, however, I'm glad I read the book and glad I saw the movie, and I do feel like I understand a little more about Afghanistan, its people, and its travails, than I did before I picked up the novel.
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