“The Kite Runner's portrayal of the country before the Soviet invasion is accurate; its depiction of life within an exiled ethnic community in America is nuanced and true. It also nails the casual and not-so-casual cruelty of childhood. The Kite Runner offers a realistically bleak vision of Afghanistan under the Taliban as a place where civilization was encouraged to fall into ruin. The zealous gunmen imprisoned women in burkhas, imposed a narrow interpretation of Islam on the Muslim population and tried to outlaw the human spirit. They even banned kite flying.”This aspect of the story was fascinating for me. Because the fictional book is accurate in terms of the country, I felt like I learned a lot about a life I wouldn’t otherwise know anything about. I really like when fiction can take me places and teach me things and The Kite Runner certainly does that. I feel like for this reason alone, it’s worth the read, especially here in America, where most of our judgment and understanding comes from how the country is now rather than what the people were like before it got so bad. I think it is one of those books that tries to reach out and bridge the gap and tell us that in the end, we are all the same and we are all human and I can respect that.
Labels: eclectic reader, Review