The Kite Runner - Half Way Post
This book is really starting to find its groove for me. I think that the author did a really great job at describing the childhood of Amir and helping you visualize and feel the relationships he had with the people around him even as a young boy. I did however find I frequently had to put it down due to interruptions and I wasn't always drawn to quickly pick right back up in the first 1/3. I don't believe it's because the story itself was bad, but it did feel like a lot of anecdotal blerps one would have about their childhood. Almost a feel of biographical short stories. I found it easy to put down and pick up when I was able to get back to it without feeling lost.
Once the current day story picked up a bit I felt more the flow of a
whole piece, which had me wanting to keep going and find out what happened. I
am more drawn in now, but I also appreciated the well written pieces of Amir's
past so I could understand his feelings and emotions and reactions in his
future, even though I did find it a lot to get through at fist.
In the book, one of the problems Amir faces is an
traumatic incident that happens involving someone very close to him when he is just
a young boy. This goes on to deeply impact his entire life. Unfortunately as a boy he doesn't know how to deal with it so he
doesn't(as of the half way mark). He pretends nothing happened. He blames
himself for not doing more but as I am reading this while yes, he could have
tried to step in, but he was a young boy a child even still in a lot of ways.
He was scared and did what a lot of others at the same age would have done in
the situation.
"But I think a big part of the reason I didn't care
about Soraya's past was that I had one of my own. I knew all about regret. "
Page 180
But his lack of action eat at him. It haunts him that he did
nothing. More than that, when the guilt got to much for him he took action to
have this person completely erased from his life. I felt for him. I don't judge
or criminalize him for his lack of action. He was scared and he was a child. I
feel like I can understand how after a while it became not even that he didn't
want to tell, but you couldn't tell anyone.
I would absolutely recommend this book to a friend, maybe someone who is
looking more for a serious read. I would advise them that I had a bit of a hard
time really feeling it as a whole book until about 1/3 of the way in. That way
if they also aren't into it right away , they don't write it off as something
that just doesn't pique their interest. I find myself learning a lot about
early Afgahanastan and it makes me sympathetic all those whos entire way of
life was destroyed by the wars. Those who have had to flee their homes and
everything and everyone they have known.
I look forward to finishing the book now and see if you find out what
became of the Kite Runner.
