I'm not really a bookworm and I don't really like reading books. Well, that's not entirely true because I do like reading books. Its just that I never have either the time or the patience to read through a book. Novels are one thing that I'd always had a slight bias against. I don't know if its a self-bias or one caused by someone else saying something about them, like my father or some other elderly person telling me how novels are a waste of time and how I should be reading something more important. Well, I'll never know. Its sort of subconscious thing now. I have read a few novels, enough that you could count on your fingers, but the fact is that I have.
Recently, I found this book lying around in my house. I had heard how big "The Kite Runner" had been and was recommended to by my friend's girlfriend who had mentioned it to be her favorite book ever. One that was soooo dear to her that she gave it to my friend as her first gift in their relationship. Now this puzzled me and I had to find out how good Khaled Hosseini is. And because I had so much time while on my new job, I had to pass time doing something and I thought a book would be a good way as I need to work on my reading and writing skills. So I got this book and I started off.
Khaled Hosseini has a strange way of writing. His writing style reminds me of those Urdu passages I used to read in school. How the narration was very poetic even though they were just narrating a story. How they used examples that they had talked about previously in the story. Khaled Hosseini uses that same style of writing in this book by Urdu poets as well. I say "poets" because I saw that it was usually poets who also used to write stories we used to study in school. He uses a lot of Pashtun words in the books which I strangely knew meant. Basically, because Urdu uses some of the same words Pashtun uses. I've got a strange story about Pashtun and Urdu that happened while I was in Saudi Arabia, but thats for another time. There are times where the author just literally translates some lines into English, which I think was a great way to get across what the Afghani people actually say and their particular use of such words. Which is mostly seen when they curse, but then again, you get to see the true person when they're cursing, don't you?
I loved the way he takes the book through the eyes of the two main characters, Mariam and Laila. He starts with the story of one character, then the other. And there's a part where its a single scene and he narrates it through the eyes of one character in one chapter and then in the next chapter it goes over to the other persons eyes and then he tells it from her perspective. Great narration style. At that particular point, he had me on the edge.
But the thing that really had me on was the very, very grim picture he painted of Afghanistan. The war-torn land of Afghanistan. Living through wave after wave of conquerors, trying to take over the land. First the Soviets, then the Warlords, then the Taliban, then the Americans. He's written very well the emotions that go through people at the time of war, but of course, at times they seem very fictitious as well. If there's a word to describe this book clearly, it would be "gut-wrenching". Seriously, at times I was so disgusted to what was going on that it had my stomach in knots. This book is so sad that at times you're like "how can anyone even come out of this kind of stuff normally?". Its that disgusting.
People had told me conspiracy theories about Khaled Hosseini and why his book Kite Runner had become so famous. How the Americans needed his book to be able to push forward their agenda of going into Afghanistan to "liberate" the people there. And how their war was like the cleansing of the land, to bring order and save the people of Afghanistan (which we've found wasn't the truth at all for the war). But yes, you have to admit how strangely, the book ends with everything getting better for the main character once the Americans arrived. But then again, they're just conspiracy theories and can't really be trusted.
Overall this book was amazing to read. The narration style is great with his very poetic Urdu style of narration. The picture of Afghanistan is slightly accurate to how Afghani families are (I say "slightly" because I have never been with an Afghani family, just observed one or two while I was in Saudi Arabia, so I don't really know). At times he had me on the edge as to how much more atrocities the main characters could endure. But at times its just gets too much and you can't really believe that things could get THAT bad. It just loses touch with reality at some points. Its like a sob-story after a sob-story. Like some communist story of the poor man enduring tragedies after tragedies with no end in sight (slightly sadistic, if you ask me). But again, its a good read and I recommend it.
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