I just finished reading Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner."
I picked it up shortly after Steve left because I wanted to have a better sense about where he was going. Not having much knowledge about Afghan literature or literature about Afghanistan, it seemed like the obvious choice.
I don't need to offer another review of the book. I'll go right along with all the other critics who said it was a marvelous and unforgettable story.
What it did for me was give Afghanistan a more a sympathetic and real place on my map of the world. Maybe personal isn't the right word.
With my little brother living there now, I feel a small kinship with this place half a world away. But that's limited to his descriptions of life on base and his perceptions as an outsider. He tells me the city is dirty and just different from what he's used to.
Considering we grew up in a nice house in the suburbs of Virginia, that isn't the most telling description.
As an insider Hosseini introduced me to the sights, smells and sounds of Afghanistan and Kabul in particular. He painted in the outlines that history books and encyclopedias provide. And more than adding color to the physical place, he adds depth to the culture. He and his characters are allowed to react to the events unfolding around them - revolution and the Taliban - in a way historians can't.
And this is so important for us, as Americans, to witness. It's easy to dismiss the war because it's dragged on for eight years now ... our lives moved on. And it's easy to dismiss the people in Afghanistan, some of who are in such abject poverty we can't even relate to them on any level. We can shake our heads at the TV in the comfort of our living room, send our prayers and count our blessings.
"The Kite Runner" shows us that life wasn't always like that. In fact, in so many ways the Afghan people are not unlike us. They just eat kebab instead of burgers and drink tea instead of coffee.
Maybe we don't see ourselves in them because outside of 9/11 and scattered attacks overseas, our day-to-day life in the states is peaceful. We haven't had to flee our country because of persecution, or stay behind and have everything we know taken from us.
We tasted what it was like to live in fear in the days and weeks after 9/11. Imagine if that feeling extended months and then years, until eventually you just accepted it as normal.
Maybe for Afghanis this war is just an extension of the last 30 years of unrest. I wonder if they have faith that things could get better.
As an American, I think we take optimism for granted. I mean, OK, so sometimes we feign cynicism, and that's even more true given the year's economic news. But even as companies were going bankrupt I think we all knew, or felt almost instinctively, that we'd get through the storm.
I wonder if our troops have brought any of that optimism to the Afghan people?
Hosseini book ends in a half-smile of hope.
Whenever this war ends, I hope that we can at least do the same.
I have no words..... Its marvelous!!!
And I think Its a true story....
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