Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner

I’m a perennial fan of the underdog, and this colors my perception of popular culture because the opposite is also true-- I eschew anything that makes its way onto multiple 'Best Of...' lists. Few Americans read more than 2 books a year, yet whenever Oprah puts her stamp on a novel, it'll sell a quarter of a million copies faster than Eliot Spitzer's "escort" will get her own reality show (and you know she will).

Not only is this obnoxious, but it tends to homogenize taste and lower the intellectual bar since everyone who reads two books a year can “talk books” because everyone else has read the same two. Not only do they get to feel learn-ed (with two syllables), but a common enemy is found in the person who says "No, I didn't read The DaVinci Code, but I did read the collected essays of Jacques Derrida and Vonnegut's Galapagos.”

Of course, not all best-sellers are bad, as not all buzzworthy bands are terrible, but I generally avoid ‘the next big thing’. However, I do trust my friends, and when one of them would not shut her word hole about Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, I finally caved.

And she's right. It is very good.

Taking place over several decades, The Kite Runner tells the story of protagonist Amir's personal redemption as he struggles in adulthood to reconcile his past and atone for childhood sins. Amir grew up with his friend and servant Hassan, but greedy for his father's affections and ashamed of himself for abandoning Hassan in his moment of need, Amir drove Hassan away. He lives with his guilt until the chance at redemption comes. Amir, now emigrated to America and a successful writer, must return to a war-torn Afghanistan and perform a redeeming act.

The first half of the book is a retelling so powerfully authentic that it reads like a memoir, including an account of Afghani immigrants in the US and a sweeping history of Afghanistan which is almost more interesting than the main plot. But suddenly The Kite Runner turns into an action-packed tale of mystery and intrigue, complete with the great confrontation between good and evil. The evil in the present represents the evil in Amir's past, but Hosseini was not satisfied with that-- it actually IS the evil from the past. I guess symbolic redemption wasn’t obvious enough, so he had to get literal.

I won't give away too much, but when the child of the man you betrayed saves you in the EXACT same way that his father did long ago, it becomes too easy, almost gag-worthy. The very act of the child saving Amir makes the point— the obvious similarity is a ‘Dear Reader, you remember this, right?’ moment of epic proportions, not to mention that forcing a desired web of connections like that often leaves holes in logic that the beauty of the web cannot hide.

But my biggest complaint is a simple one, a rule of thumb for writers—get in late, get out early. Hosseini has a very evocative style, and uses it well to give readers a strong sense of what the characters feel, only to stick around 2 sentences too long and tell us what we just figured out. Amir wants his father to love him; his father gives Hassan attention; Amir cries. Excellent, we get it, no need to follow with "That hurt my feelings. I wanted that attention. All I ever wanted was for Baba to love me the way he loved Hassan." I don't know if that's just Hosseini’s style or concessions to editors/publishers saying "this could be a big thing, but you're going to need to hold the readers' hand a little more." Either way, it detracted significantly.

This appraisal may seem overly critical for a book I claim to enjoy, but despite my complaints, this is one of the best novels I’ve read in a while, and one of the rare times when pop culture and talent actually collide.

But isn't that the problem with buzzworthiness, after all? It creates an expectation for perfection, and any minor blemish stands in contrast as an ugly, jagged scar.