The Kite Runner - I won't forget this one!

Dear Friends,
I hope this finds you with a few minutes to read this letter. I'm glad you came.

I finished The Kite Runner yesterday evening. While my reading group had read it in November, I didn't and didn't go for the discussion. I had read the reviews and knew I wanted to read it. This book, like Gaines' book A Lesson Before Dying, and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, will live on in my mind for a long time. The absolutely, impossible to understand seems to stay with me. How these folks coped with the depravations and the cruelty they lived with is beyond my understanding. I know The Kite Runner is fiction, but is written by a man who was born in and lived in Afganistan and supposedly portrays the social conditions there accurately. After 9-11, I remember a picture of a man in Afganistan who was living in a hole - not a cave but just a hole in the dirt. It was winter. I don't think I realized that so terribly many were living as poorly as that man. But they were. I think maybe I understood with my intellect, but don't think I understood it emotionally until I read this book.
The only part of The Kite Runner that I found out of character with the rest of the book was the fight between Assef and Amir. I felt like Assef would not have made the deal with Amir to let him go if he lost the fight. I don't think even if he made that deal, that he would stick to it. I know that it was implied that Assef's people were watching Amir at least when he first went into the hospital after the fight. But they didn't kill him which I think in life would have been what would have happened. I also wondered why Amir didn't seek psychological counseling for his newphew. I suppose it had to do with his culture. I am glad I read this book.
I need to go walk my 2 - 3 miles today and it's warm enough that I can put on a coat and do it outside instead of at the Y. So better go do it.

My Mom's birthday was in January. She made the best brownies. What a great memory. I am grateful for a warm house and warm clothes. I am grateful to be an American - my Dad was an immigrant and I think the realization that I could have been born in Russia has colored the thinking for all of us in our family.

Take care,

Maggie GladYouCame