Analysis of The Kite Runner Essay

The Kite Runner

The first book that I have chosen to read is the Kite Runner. This book would have to be probably one of the greatest novel written ever and the best book written by a Canadian author. Khalid Hosseinis use of settings and characters to tell his story is something of magic. The main character used by the author was very well used but the uses of sub-characters were used very effectively. Each character was put in place to help Amir, the main character, grow and serve as not only support but also inspiration to the main character as well. Amir character transformation from being very selfish and jealous of Hassan getting all the attention from is father at young to being a kind, forgiving, generous, and peaceful man at the end. While searching for peace for himself in Afghanistan, he not only helps himself but others as well and makes up for the mistakes he made when he was young. Through out the book we see Amirs moral stance on different issues such as war.

The book Kite Runner has kept me mesmerized to every page, despite some parts that were boring and hard to keep up with. The book reminds me of other cultural books that I have read. A book such as the The Wheel of Surya was just some of the novels I had read that told the story of the character while teaching about the rich culture that they were immersed in. However, I found this book to be different because the culture that it portrays is my own culture. I had left Afghanistan when I was five years old and I vividly remember the streets that I played in and the house that I grew up in. The book helped me form those mental images that I thought I had forgotten. The houses that the book describes and the streets that the book mentions seem to be right out of my own imagination. When I read the book, no matter how vivid the mental images are, they make me feel as if I am the one who is walking in those streets, climbing on the trees and living in the house. These books are also different on another level. The previous cultural books that I had read required me to check the back of the book for the meaning of certain words that were not English. In this book, however, I do not have to look for the translator. I can grasp the meaning of all the words and this gives me a sense of pride.

I read the biography and the authors comment regarding the book prior to reading the book. In the commentary, the author calls his father Baba which is the same name that the character of the book calls his father by. The author also lives in America, where his character eventually moves to. I automatically build a connection between the author and the character as if they represented the same person. I could not help but to think that the author was putting his own life story into words. I understand that the character is fictional and I highly doubt that the author betrayed a friend in such a horrible way. However, it is very tough for me not to think of Amir as the author while reading the book. Having said that, the author captures the history and hardships that the people had to endure in just a few pages. He makes the reader sympathize with the people of Afghanistan and builds a passion in their hearts to help them. This implies that the author is someone who is very patriotic and wants to help his people in any way he can. It also suggests that he has been an active member of humanitarian work, even if it is by promoting awareness through his books. In addition, the author does a great job of capturing the true personality or generosity of the Afghan people. A great job showing that was Farid, a taxi driver, had given Amir a meal when he could not afford to give his family a meal because Amir was a guest in his home. This in return, made Amir hid a generous amount of money under Farids pillow before he left their house. This action was one of the ways Amir made up for a mistake in his childhood, where he hid toys under Hassans pillow and blamed him of stealing it because he was jealous of his father giving so much attention to Hassan.

After reading the book, I am learning that I am a sympathetic person. I was not a big fan of reading books, but after enjoying books that are rich in different cultures, I now know that my favorite genre of books are the cultural books. My weakness has always been the fact that I would stop reading books that bored me. If there were a part of a book that I could not relate to, I did not agree with or simply did not keep me entertained, I would skip that part or the book in general. However, now I know that if I keep on reading and not give up, by the end of the book I will have learned something. All books are meant to capture the different interests of readers and after finishing it, any reader will be glad to have known more that they did in the beginning of the book. I also found that when some pages of the book are action filled and very entertaining, I read them very fast. I become so immersed and anxious to get to the next part that I fly through the paragraphs, thus prompting me to reread those parts more slowly in order to understand what I read.

In the end, after reading this book and really letting the story and message sink in, I must say that this book had thought an actual lesson that we can all learn. Khalid Hosseini had shown to us in this story that it is never too late to make up for your mistakes, to apologize or to make everything better. Ultimately from the book one message that kept going through my head was better late then never.