‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini

“There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

 'The kite runner' ;before reading, it was one of those books for me that you see everywhere. On the shelves, in a bookstore, lying by the bedside of a friend, bookshelf of your room-mate, on random flipkart advertisements in the mail, but somehow it just kept getting ignored, tagged as commonplace, never really got lured enough by it to read it. But then came a day when I ran out of books and finally picked it up from my room mate's shelf for a light reading on the flight. 

“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Guess what? When people say "Try this! I swear it will change your life" mine changed half way through the book.

It became those books that got into my head and took a long time to get out. This is a powerful, raw, emotional and honest novel. A good part of the power of the Kite Runner comes from its relevance and importance to today’s world. 

'The Kite runner" is a tale of betrayal and redemption that rises above time and place while simultaneously remaining firmly anchored against the tumultuous backdrop of modern Afghanistan. The Afghanistan that very few of us know or even care to remember; at a time when its streets and people were not ravaged by the mania of religious extremism and war; when it was (believe it or not) a country of prosperity and liberal thought.

“You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

The story deals with themes of sacrifice, loyalty, father-son relationships, betrayal and eventual redemption. All the characters have their own secret sins and regrets, and as the novel progresses time manages to unearth even the most deeply buried ones.

“A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

It is a pretty famous book and a well known story, so I don't feel the need to summarize the story in the review. As to what I felt about the book - I found the book morally challenging. There are characters in the book that have been immensely praised by the narrator, infact they have been given such a powerful image that you would not dare question them on moral grounds. But later part proves whatever they did was out of guilt.

“True redemption is...when guilt leads to good."

“And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father's remorse. Sometimes, I thing everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“After everything he'd built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life; one disappointing son and two suitcases.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“For you, a thousand times over” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

You also come across a character who is selfless, no matter what the situation is. It makes you wonder, makes you question, makes you doubt and eventually makes you feel disgusted with yourself. Which is a part of what happened to the main character in the book and the connection that you you form with the main character by relating it to your own life at this moment is priceless. Because all of us at some point in our life have been faced with better people who are cruelly good to us, making us question our own virtues.

“A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Readers recognize their own lives in the dirty social secrets and the dignity, integrity and in the end strength of the characters. In one way or another, they’ve been there themselves, and are moved sometimes to tears by this recognition and what the writer has done with his words.

It is definitely one of those books that gets tucked in your thoughts, drives the moral driver in you, maybe not in executing the right turns but atleast helping you realize the wrong ones and feeling the imperative guilt for them. But mostly, this is a book about choices, mistakes and redemption.

“In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Zindagi migzara (life goes on)” 

I found this video online which completely defines the experience I had when reading the book, the thing that I loved about it was the right timing of the quotes :)

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Kafka on the shore...

“Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they're also what tear you apart.” 

There are certain books that get you completely hooked to the plot and some where the things that you are hooked on to has nothing to do with the plot. 'Kafka on the shore' was one such book for me where the things that made me think had hardly anything to do with the metaphysical plot of the novel. The story of Oedipus is the template for Murakami's narrative and yet his prose has the flow of jazz. 

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.” 

"Kafka on the shore" is a story of a Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura run-away from home who finds himself in Takamastu, where he discovers a charming, privately owned public library to spend his days until things get complicated. Turns out the events in his life--and possibly even his body--is intralinked with a man named Nakata. When Nakata was a child during World War II, a mysterious force in a field put him and several other school children in a coma, but Nakata's mind was the only one erased entirely. As an adult, though mentally challenged, he has the ability to communicate with cats (along with several other larger-than-life talents). Surreal forces draw Nakata, all which relate to Kafka Tamura's world. 

“It feels like everything's been decided in advance that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense of who I am. It's like my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch.” 

Damned with the oedipal curse, Kafka believes that he has no identity of his own and yet this is not a story of him trying to search his identity nor is it the story of him giving in to the oedipal curse. 

“Everything in life is a metaphor.” 

Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel that Murakami aimed to write.

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” 

It is at once humorous and revelatory, all the while engaging.  I was charmed by the compellingly ordinary characters who move nonplussed through extraordinary realms and circumstances.  - Oshima, the person in charge of the library, who loves music and shares stories about musicians with Kafka; Hoshino, the truck driver who leaves everything and decides to accompany Nakata on his strange journey; Miss Saeki, the fifty-year old patron of the library whose tragic past clings to her even thirty years later, and who Kafka imagines to be his long-lost mother. These characters are as well-created as the two protagonists. When I started reading, I was more interested in Kafka's story, but as the pages kept turning, Nakata's strange mission intrigued me more.

“People are by and large a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel's always linked to the lie of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.” 

“Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.” 

When asked about Nakata who is a lovable victim of the school disaster who is unlike everyone around him, in Nakata's words - "not bright", Murakami said -
I'm always interested in people who've dropped out of society, those who've withdrawn from it. Most of the people in Kafka on the Shore are, in one sense or another, outside the mainstream. Nakata is most definitely one of them. Why did I create a character like him? It must be because I like him. It's a long novel, and the author has to have at least one character he loves unconditionally.

Something that made me realize how all the characters in the books that I like are based on the exact same thing and it was one of the first things that attracted me to this book.

“Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.” 

Kafka on the Shore showcases magical realism, people who can talk to cats, people who can cross the invisible barrier between life and death, which did not really encourage me to be so intent. And despite my reluctance to find anything grounded in reality, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There were times, I emerged from the book as if in a trance. The writing is deceptively simple.

“But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.” 

Unbelievable stuff happens on the outside, but underneath those, there are meanings. The book is written at such a metaphysical level that it's easier to grasp the threads once you understand that the world in this book runs on a different dimension. For that reason, this is a book that has to be reread - it's almost impossible to get all the threads at one go. I'm pretty much astounded at Murakami's ingenuity at writing this book. How he managed to hold this story together with all that happens is pretty much incredible. There is strange stuff happening in this book, and not even in the paranormal realm, but in a very metaphysical sense. It challenged me to accept the idea of a world where you can meet dead people to get answers to your most pressing questions. Like they say, once you accepted the impossible, the possibilities are endless. Mostly, Kafka on the Shore challenged me to construct my own barriers between reality and otherworld, and keep moving the barrier further as he put forth an idea.

“Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.” 

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.”