Those who loved are damned

P'Noung (who used to study in the same program with me), lent The Kite Runner to me and it is brilliant. There is no other word for it. Reading the first paragraph reminded me of how I felt when I started Memoirs of a Geisha. I got this sense of "Whoa, this is major". I think every good book makes you do that, gives you goosebumps, makes you actually stop and say, "My God!" There's just so much beauty in Khaled Hosseini's words - it's the kind of beauty that makes you want to cry, like watching the snow fall. Lovely, but melancholy at the same time. It tells the story of a privileged Afghan boy named Amir and how he spends his entire life trying to win the attention and affection of his powerful father, called Baba - and ultimately, what he sacrifices to this end. Key to the plot is his friendship with his servant, Hassan, a dedicated boy who practically worhsips the ground Amir walks on. This is the paragraph that struck me the most:

...he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.
Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name.
Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 - and all that followed - was already laid in those first words.

There are a lot of themes in the book, but for me, that paragraph epitomizes that one that was the most potent to me - the damning effects of love. Sometimes, you care so much about someone, you lose yourself and when you find yourself again, you may not like the discovery. I was like that, for a long while, and then I woke up, and it hurt, but I got over it. Slowly. Painfully. But finally. When a bond is forged, there is no pain, but when it's broken...there's blood, there's tears, there's anger...it's a messy, messy process. There's nothing beautiful about it. Which is kinda what this book says...but I'm giving too much away. If you're looking for an engaging read, I highly recommend it - The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Brilliant. It's now on my top ten list.

Final thought: Another wonderful quote - "And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too." Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner