“For you, a thousand times over,” Amir said to Sohrab. With that, Amir was the happiest man in the snowy park of San Francisco.
The theme of the pleasure of giving is one of the best message delivered in “The Kite Runner” wrote by Khaled Hosseini. Friendship, love, guilt, fear, betrayal and salvation, hope and faith, cruelty and punishment are the other themes brought by the author. In the beginning, we were introduced to the main character Amir, an Afghan who migrated to the U.S, struggling with the guilt he hides for more than 25 years. With the call from Rahim Khan, a long time friend from Kabul, we were brought back to his childhood life where he live with his wealthy father and two loyal servants of a Hazara man name Ali and his son, Hassan who becomes his only best friend.
He treats Hassan like his toy, he plays with him and become the place he shows his compassion. As they play and grow together he learns how he like the company of Hassan, but in the same time he envy him for having the potential his father hopes in a son. He craves for his father’s affection, wanting his attention all for himself. One day, his fear made him betray Hassan and he made his only best friend leave with his father, not knowing that that would be the last time they see each other.
The story returns to the present and the image of that day still clear as the river. His cowardice has now become a big stone that covers his guilt. He’s now already an adult with a beautiful wife named Soraya, a good life as a writer and most important far from his long left but unforgettable sin. Now he was asked to go back to the place he most feared, to face it all again.
“There is a way to be good again”, said Rahim Khan. That sentence brought Amir back to Kabul, thinking he is visiting a sick old friend. Then everything gets 360 degrees when the truth is revealed. Hassan had been killed and he left a son. Now he has to retrieve the son from the Taliban whom had dominated the Afghan society. He hesitated and gave excuses, but the biggest truth is then revealed – he and Hassan are half-brothers.
How it ends? You have to read it yourself. The book had been first published in 2003 and the film adaptation had been made in 2007 if I'm not mistaken. Comparing both, I say the book maybe should just stay as a novel. There's no way the film can match up as emotional and as beautiful as the book. No offence to the film-maker, it's just that the story is so rich, cutting and simpling it up makes the story lose it's strength point.
I see Khaled Hosseini’s great quality is in the way he describe every plot of his story. He made believe like we are really experiencing the conflict, feeling all the emotion and the intensity. The characters were well built, as we get to know every person in depth without exaggeratedly described. I can easily absorb the development and the climaxes of the story even though many flashbacks technique were used in the book. Maybe in some plot can be easily predicted, but for me it still leaves a great impact.
I can say that the best persona of the book is the story itself. Maybe I rarely read novels, but I read short stories and watch a lot of movies. The story was extraordinary as it brought a simple theme but use a unique background and culture. Using a real current issue and event, the story seems real and poignant, yet it is so fresh; you had never heard something like it before.
-IMAN NAILAH 2009-
The theme of the pleasure of giving is one of the best message delivered in “The Kite Runner” wrote by Khaled Hosseini. Friendship, love, guilt, fear, betrayal and salvation, hope and faith, cruelty and punishment are the other themes brought by the author. In the beginning, we were introduced to the main character Amir, an Afghan who migrated to the U.S, struggling with the guilt he hides for more than 25 years. With the call from Rahim Khan, a long time friend from Kabul, we were brought back to his childhood life where he live with his wealthy father and two loyal servants of a Hazara man name Ali and his son, Hassan who becomes his only best friend.
He treats Hassan like his toy, he plays with him and become the place he shows his compassion. As they play and grow together he learns how he like the company of Hassan, but in the same time he envy him for having the potential his father hopes in a son. He craves for his father’s affection, wanting his attention all for himself. One day, his fear made him betray Hassan and he made his only best friend leave with his father, not knowing that that would be the last time they see each other.
The story returns to the present and the image of that day still clear as the river. His cowardice has now become a big stone that covers his guilt. He’s now already an adult with a beautiful wife named Soraya, a good life as a writer and most important far from his long left but unforgettable sin. Now he was asked to go back to the place he most feared, to face it all again.
“There is a way to be good again”, said Rahim Khan. That sentence brought Amir back to Kabul, thinking he is visiting a sick old friend. Then everything gets 360 degrees when the truth is revealed. Hassan had been killed and he left a son. Now he has to retrieve the son from the Taliban whom had dominated the Afghan society. He hesitated and gave excuses, but the biggest truth is then revealed – he and Hassan are half-brothers.
How it ends? You have to read it yourself. The book had been first published in 2003 and the film adaptation had been made in 2007 if I'm not mistaken. Comparing both, I say the book maybe should just stay as a novel. There's no way the film can match up as emotional and as beautiful as the book. No offence to the film-maker, it's just that the story is so rich, cutting and simpling it up makes the story lose it's strength point.
I see Khaled Hosseini’s great quality is in the way he describe every plot of his story. He made believe like we are really experiencing the conflict, feeling all the emotion and the intensity. The characters were well built, as we get to know every person in depth without exaggeratedly described. I can easily absorb the development and the climaxes of the story even though many flashbacks technique were used in the book. Maybe in some plot can be easily predicted, but for me it still leaves a great impact.
I can say that the best persona of the book is the story itself. Maybe I rarely read novels, but I read short stories and watch a lot of movies. The story was extraordinary as it brought a simple theme but use a unique background and culture. Using a real current issue and event, the story seems real and poignant, yet it is so fresh; you had never heard something like it before.
-IMAN NAILAH 2009-
5 comments:
Hmm,novel ini mengandungi banyak jarum2 halus puak2 liberal dan propaganda barat..
emm...yes it does...lupe pulak nak highlightkan..thx ye saudara farid...
mmg in the middle i felt quite disappointed with the way the story goes, like how Amir's father taught him about the 'basic of sins', and then also about how they see the Talibans(quite extreme I guess).
It is a matter of perspective, the way we percieve things.
Mungkin saya salah, mungkin ada yg sy terlepas pandang. Harap Farid dapat kongsikan... :)
mgkin klu tonton movie nye lg jelas
cthnye: mengagungkan ayah amir yg liberal dgn babak2 heroic dan dialog2 yg macho. Org Islam dipaparkan sbg mundur,penakut,jumud, korup dan racist. Taliban yg digambarkan secara tidak adil, ada sesetengahnya memg penipuan. Novel ini xlebih drpada nak mempromosi fahaman islam liberal dan US sbg land of freedom..typical propaganda of the west.
Dari segi drama,jalan cerita, memg hebat dan menyentuh hati.x dapat dinafikan.
Yes it is a matter of perspective, saya agak skeptic bila baca karya2 yg pki nama Islam..just my 2 cents..
emm...I have to admit, most things u said r true. for us who doesnt really know about Taliban, we might be influenced by this book perception. And yes, the movie highlighted on Taliban.
As a writer, maybe I focused too much on the writing and narration part. My bad.
Still, a big fan of the book. Cant help it!
Thx again for the opinion!
I am a senior at Desert Edge High School and I read The Kite Runner. This is one of the best books I have ever read and I recommend it to anyone.
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