The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

I have to admit that it took me a while to get into this book. It was, unfortunately, an abridged version of the book and 5 CDs in all, and only halfway through the third did I start to really like it.

I say unfortunately because I'm sure that a lot of the questions I asked myself about what was happening had to do with the fact that some jumps in the storyline just didn't sound right.

Also, the book was read by the author, a fact I at first found fascinating, since I imagined the person who wrote the story should be able to give us enormous insight into how it should be read and felt and lived. How wrong was I. My previous two books had been read by Paul Michael, an actor, who is absolutely excellent at accents and at enveloping you into the story.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hosseini does not have that ability. It was for instance very hard to distinguish who was saying what during a conversation, because no accent or intonation was used. Also, being an Afghan himself, the author read all Farsi words in pure Arabic, making it harder to understand. Finally, he occasionally would slip in some word in Farsi without even telling us what it meant (although maybe the book does, and no, it wasn't always possible to extrapolate its meaning from the context).

Trust me, all those little, seemingly innocuous differences can amount to a lot when you're constantly jolted out of the story to understand who is talking, what they are saying, or what they might be saying. Over and over, I found myself rewinding to make sure I understood what was going on.

Anyway, like I said, eventually I got into the story, which really is beautiful, and I would definitely recommend the book, although not the abridged audio version. However, on his behalf, I have to say that Mr. Hosseini is a wonderful writer, capable of painting magnificent images with just a few words. And this was only his first literary effort!!

The Kite Runner is the story of two kids, Amir and Hassan, who grow up in Afghanistan before the Russian invasion and the Taliban reign. Belonging to different social classes, things aren't always perfect, but the two are, one way or another, connected for the rest of their lives.

The story is also interesting because it affords us a window into the normal, everyday life of a country that, alas, is now in the headlines only for bad news, like drug trafficking, infighting among local tribes or the growing insurgency, and that we mostly know for being the country that harbored Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The book offers both laughs and tears and all the characters are fully developed, three dimensional, and very real. I often wondered if this was an autobiography, but apparently it's not.

Anyway, a good book (Ray actually loved it from the very beginning).

Grade: 8.5