The Kite Runner

You've always been a tourist here. You just didn't know it.

The Kite Runner showed me that everything I knew about Afghanistan was nothing more than an abridged version without much of true humanity and brutal reality.

The Kite Runner

I read the movie tie-in edition book first, then saw the film.  It was first tie-in I had read, I thought it would be very close, but there are quite a few differences, changes in details, scenes missing.  I think the book version is better, there is a lot character building in the book and detail in the telling.

Amir, the character you just couldn't help to hate his cowardice and piss at his treachery, but you might also think if his father had been different, he wouldn't be so jealous of Hassan.

The story was like a tropical storm at beach, it started with one wave, then a couple of smaller, followed by a bigger one, then smaller again, a huge one soon to hit.  It just keeps coming as you reading it, and you don't actually what's on next page until you flip the page.

But it's not that unpredictable, actually, when I read that they couldn't have children and Hassan was dead and Sohrab was in orphanage.  I could have guessed Rahim Khan would ask Amir to get the boy, and he and Soraya would raise the boy.

But I never saw Assef coming back after probably half amount of pages, just like I didn't see what was happening when Hassan was cornered with the kite almost until the point that horrible act was about to happen.

And the true Baba.

..., there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of thief.  ...,there is no act more wretched than stealing.

He committed it, and probably one of the worst variations.  I was like Amir, didn't understand why Rahim Khan brought up Ali's first wife until sterile was mentioned.  I was really hoping, it would be Rahim Khan, not Baba, but we all knew that'd not be a story to tell.

When the film started, frankly, what I imagined was quite different, the house didn't seem to what it should be, the location where the pomegranate was at didn't seem right to me.  The characters didn't look like Amir or Hassan, even the Soviet solider.  But it might just be me being ignorant of what things and people would actually look like around the global.

The relationships between the characters were what made this novel captivating.  Amir and Hassan, the two classes and one elusive friendship, betrayal and loyalty.

For you, a thousand times over

Sons and fathers, Amir and Baba, Hassan and Ali, perhaps even Amir and Rahim Khan.  Amir was trying and not trying to be the son his father wanted him to be, the changes when they went to America.

The film didn't have the suicide scene, which explained why Sohrab was so unresponsive to anyone, he just acted that way in the film, lack of explanation.  It was also how Amir found his faith again, but in film, he found it when the boy missing in the morning, which was not as believable as it could be.

One of the favorite scenes I like was Amir telling the General to shut his mouth up, ah, I meant, not to refer to the boy as "Hazara boy" in his presence.  I like that in the book and love in the film.

The rescue was played down in the film, it was bloodier and dramatic, although I didn't believe Assef would have told his men not to harm Amir if he is the one to walk out the door.

The ending was a happy one, even everyone lived in Baba's house was dead except Amir, but I found the most interesting thing was the author is also a doctor, remember the scene they went to a bar after college graduation?  He told his father he wanted to be writer not a doctor.

There is a way to be good again.