I must be getting old....(actually, an incontestable truth).

But, damn, I was sure I had already written a review of this book, however it is nowhere to be seen. Maybe I wrote it and never submitted it. Maybe my memory is just crap.

So, here goes... though I have to say at the outset that it is a while since I read it and so I don't recall the names of the all the protagonists.

At the beginning of the book, we are in Afghanistan when it was still a kingdom, (which places it in around the early 1970's)... before it became the tragic, war-torn country that we see almost daily on the news.....before the Russians tried to invade, and were repelled heroically by brave tribesmen supplied with munitions from the United States. (One wonders if any of those same "freedom fighters" are now known as the Taliban).

The narrator is a small boy, Amir, the son of rich man who lives like a feudal lord, with servants and retainers who touch their forelocks to him. The father is not just rich, he is physically large, a fighting man admired and respected by all his friends for those qualities; a man not to be challenged.

Amir has a friend, Hassan, who is the son of one of the retainers. Hassan belongs to an ethnic group called the Hazara, a tribe who are treated with contempt by other afghani clans, and regarded as suspicious..... rather like the attitude of British people towards Romany folk, but famed also for the beauty of their women. Amir, on the other hand, is a Pashtun. Readers of National Geographic magazine may recall a photograph of a young green-eyed Afghani girl who's captivating expression bewitched the world some 20 years ago from the front cover of that journal. I believe she was Hazara.

Due to the differences in social standing between the boys, Amir, the rich and privileged one, goes to school, while little Hassan stays home doing the menial tasks assigned to him as a servant boy. As a result, Hassan remains illiterate....and Amir mocks him for his ignorance. Hassan is portrayed as a noble, loyal little boy..... he is also the kite runner of the title.

At that time in Afghanistan, as in other countries, small boys indulged in the practice of kite-flying as a form of combat. It is a rather civilized type of contest, where one party gets defeated, but no one gets hurt (at least that is the theory). I happen to know a little about this, not from having lived in Afghanistan, but in Mexico. There small boys fly home-made kites of split bamboo, cotton thread and coloured tissue paper, which are called "papolotes", an old Nahuatl word...which suggests that the practice dates from before the Conquest. My youngest son was quite adept at making, and flying papalotes when he was younger; a very wholesome pastime, I always thought. The sport involves tying razor blades to the string just below the kite (or alternatively, shards of broken glass are glued to the line), and then once the kite is airborne, trying to engage an enemy kite and cut its string. This causes the defeated kite to plummet to the ground, its tail trailing behind it.

At the opening of the Kite Runner, we meet Hassan, the little servant boy and expert kite dude and his social "superior", Amir. It is a lyrical beginning, portraying the innocence of youth, the peaceful sun-blessed days with blue skies, when small boys sit in a pear tree, surrounded by its blossoms, and discuss their possibilities of winning the next kite flying contest.

I had great hopes that the story would continue to enchant me like those first few pages did, but I was disappointed. I would say that it went down-hill progressively from the opening pages.

We are also introduced to the bad guy, a kid who is half German and half Afghani, by the name of Hermann (I am not sure that this is really his name, but it will do for my purpose).

Political strife comes quickly to upset the old order, there is a revolution, the king is deposed, shortly after that the invasion by Russia begins... the victims, as ever, are the civilians caught between the warring factions. Violence becomes a way of life, and the Taliban appear.

And who do you think grows up to be the meanest Taliban of the lot....? Hermann, of course. And just to make sure that you really don't identify with him, Hermann is guilty of the following faults, a) he is a paedophile... he likes small boys b) he is a sadist, and takes great pleasure in torturing his victims, c) he is a heroin addict d) finally he is the worst sort of hypocritical, bigoted, intolerant, religious fundamentalist.

So, a really good question is, why is this particular book being hailed across America as a terrific read? Could it be that it is because it is saying exactly what the American public want to believe?

In the same way that the crushingly boring books of the late Alex Solzhenitzin were acclaimed and he got the Nobel (for one of those dreadful, depressing tomes like Cancer Ward, or the Gulag Archipelago) because at the time, the cold war was on and this was what the West wanted.... an authoritative account to reassure them that communism was really as nasty and evil as they had thought. (A belief which made storming into Vietnam seem "justifiable".)

Now, from what we are able to glean from the news....which of course will be slanted by the people in power.... the Taliban are indeed responsible for some dreadful crimes and oppression.... (particularly towards the unfortunate Hazara people). However, this caricature of evil, in the person of Hermann, seems to be intended as a symbol for us to seethe against and hate.... as a literary device, it seems too blatant, too extreme, and unlikely to be typical.

Towards the end, the story degenerates even further. Amir and his father being wealthy, escape to America... there Amir courts an Afghani girl as though they were still in Afghanistan.... by asking her father for her hand. And gets married. Frankly, it just reads like mundane autobiographical stuff... of interest only to the people concerned.

Later, motivated primarily by the guilt he feels about the way he treated his little buddy, Hassan, who is now dead, Amir has to go back to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan's son.... a child traumatized by ill-treatment at the hands of Hermann, and bring him to live happily every after???? in the land of the free. Oh dear.

My advice... forget it. It is propaganda disguised as literature.

Post Script. I wonder if this review is too judgmental, too damning. Maybe too arrogant? Is there something I am missing here? Should I be listening to Mr Hosseini more sympathetically? I am aware that a lot of people are reading this book and seem to think it is great ... please share your impressions by adding your comments. Thanks.