When would talking about The Kite Runner have been topical? Is it now?

During the summer a friend of mine was all about 'The Kite Runner'. In that when I was talking about books his response was "have you read The Kite Runner?"

At his insistence I put it on hold at the library and now I have it and now I've read it. It's 476 pages and I read about 350 of those pages last night, but don't be too impressed, I couldn't fall asleep and the print is really big.

I knew right off the bat that I would be going into it with a lot of bias- this must have been an Oprah book pick, and if not it was still highly favoured with that crowd. If you see a lot of people reading it on a subway, that's a bad sign right there. So the book is far too popular for me to enjoy. Because if everyone likes someting, then I obviously have to be against it. I'm lucky I still breathe. What else is working against the book?

I guess the only other thing is it's Afghanistan setting- it's an entirely alien world to me, and one that has been discussed in only the most negative terms for well beyond the last decade. In fact from a western perspective it's probably had bad P.R. since the Russians were in control, and that makes this a negative timeline stretching back to before I was born.

Okay, I'm back- had a friend over for hangouts, lunch and then... nap time. AUGH don't look at me!

Anyways-

Right, the book.

I've already prefaced with my prejudices, real or imagined, so be sure to factor that into whatever I say next for accuracies sake. My shot pulls a little to the left.

The story follows a wealthy Afghanistan boy from Kabul as he makes one bad decision after another (chiefly in a bid to impress his withdrawn and disapproving father)until he's grown into a haunted man living in america. An old friend of the family knows how bad he feels and uses that to guilt him into travelling into Afghanistan to find a boy who will otherwise most likely die. But the main character doesn't exactly blend in- he needs a fake beard for one thing. Basically there's no way this isn't a suicide mission- it sure would have been nice if he called his wife or wrote a letter or SOMETHING so she'd know why he died if he never came back. That part really bugged me.

But at least he ended up nearly beaten to death so he could get a scar like his childhood friend. It's a passing of the torch! It's literary!

Although there are some callbacks in the story, there are some heinous exceptions to tha callback formula. What do I mean by this? The best (I mean worst of course) example is when the protagonist refers to a look in a guys eyes as that of "the lamb". Then the story immediately cuts away to this eponymous lamb, a random sacrifice the protagonist had witnessed at some point earlier in his life. It was a written version of a Family Guy moment. Maypbe that's a plus for you? Not me. To me it was just a clumsy insertion and then explanation of a metaphor.

In general the book could have been an example of pedestal narration, the narrator/protagonist even became a writer when he grew up, that's a staple of those stories (at least as far as I'm concerned)- but his friend/servant is gone before the half way mark of the book, he isn't actively impacting the story from that point. Yes, I acknowledge his memory impacts the protagonists actions but I still assert there's a difference.

The best thing about the book is how it instructs through story- because it takes place from the 1970's to 2000's we get to hear about the monarchy getting booted out, replaced by a Russian government, with the Taliban coming into power in the middle 90's, and the re-establishment of a relatively legitimate government in uh 2002?
But you can get history from any of a number of sources. History books and wikipedia for two. So that in itself isn't a reason to read the book.

And it wouldn't end! There were several perfectly good end points to the novel, which would change the kind of novel I was reading. Redemption? Oh, wait, then he made some new mistake... Tragedy? Oh, hey, he pulled through...

It just fizzles out- it's trying to do the 'life goes on- this isn't a storybook, it just is' ending but man that's a tough sell. And of course I'm in love with the alpha example of doing that ending right- The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck (had to prove to myself I remembered his name)

Ah I'm sorry I wasn't blown away by this book society- maybe next worldwide phenomenon, eh? Maybe the Girl Playing With Fire books, right? They're swedish, I'm swedish, that makes sense, right? Right?