A decade ago, I saw the cover of the book for the first time. I remember thinking :
Kaki
Kaboul
Kites
Nothing about this interests me. I know there's violence and suffering and all kinds of drama, but I'm not interested right now.
Maybe I wasn't prepared or maybe I was just a darn fool, but boy did I miss out on something !
The kite runner transformed my vision of a country I only knew through war. Flooded by all the terrible images of modern day Afghanistan, I never stopped to think "What's the history of this place? How did people used to live there before all they ever knew became this horrible nightmare ?"
I would be hard pressed to find a better way of getting to know Afghanistan than through Khaled Hosseini's eyes.
I will abstain from the flood of superlatives that come to mind as I just finished the book 10 minutes ago, but what I would like to try is to describe how reading this book made me feel.
I smelled the naan oven throughout the first part of the book, like a presence of a reassuring mother.
I tasted the dried mulberries and realised that childhood, in the end, has the same taste no matter the continent.
I heard the qawwali music as a soundtrack of the simple wisdom that does not need words or dissertations.
I felt extremely privileged for the opportunity to understand a different way of thinking, of loving one another and of being at peace with the world, even when it seems that the world is not such a wonderful place.
The kite runner is the answer to our search for balance : be true to yourself and cultivate honesty in every aspect of your life.
Kaki
Kaboul
Kites
Nothing about this interests me. I know there's violence and suffering and all kinds of drama, but I'm not interested right now.
Maybe I wasn't prepared or maybe I was just a darn fool, but boy did I miss out on something !
The kite runner transformed my vision of a country I only knew through war. Flooded by all the terrible images of modern day Afghanistan, I never stopped to think "What's the history of this place? How did people used to live there before all they ever knew became this horrible nightmare ?"
I would be hard pressed to find a better way of getting to know Afghanistan than through Khaled Hosseini's eyes.
I will abstain from the flood of superlatives that come to mind as I just finished the book 10 minutes ago, but what I would like to try is to describe how reading this book made me feel.
I smelled the naan oven throughout the first part of the book, like a presence of a reassuring mother.
I tasted the dried mulberries and realised that childhood, in the end, has the same taste no matter the continent.
I heard the qawwali music as a soundtrack of the simple wisdom that does not need words or dissertations.
I felt extremely privileged for the opportunity to understand a different way of thinking, of loving one another and of being at peace with the world, even when it seems that the world is not such a wonderful place.
The kite runner is the answer to our search for balance : be true to yourself and cultivate honesty in every aspect of your life.
Deeply impressed and grateful, thank you Khaled Hosseini !
No comments:
Post a Comment