Kite Runners and Geishas

I've recently rediscovered the joys of staying up waaaay too late in order to finish a book of good fiction. It's been a long time since I've been flipping the pages of a book saying, "just one more page, I just want to see what happens next" (it's possible that the last time I did it, I was holding a flashlight underneath my covers)

So the first book I did this with was Memoirs of a Geisha when I was coming back from Dallas several weeks ago. I had picked it up in the airport and had about 1/3 of it left when I landed in Billings ... so I stayed up to finish it. It's fun to read a book almost straight through. It's been long enough that my impressions of Memoirs are fading, so I should have made some notes of it after I finished it. Very interesting literature.

Last night, I finished The Kite Runner; I moved from Japan to Afghanistan. It's such a tragic story in a lot of ways; it definitely makes your heart go out for the Afghani children to whom the author dedicates his book. There's more I could say, but I'll say two things:

1. One of the reviewers on the back says that it's a great story of redemption. From a human perspective, yes, this is as close to redemption as you can get, but it seemed to me like he was trying desperately to atone for his own sins.
2. I wonder how accurate his view of the Taliban was. I won't ruin the ending for those of you who haven't read it yet, but my skepticism of radical Islam certainly wasn't allayed when the motives of the Taliban were revealed.

That said, it's an excellent read: compelling, thought-provoking, heart-rending, realistic.

And since I stayed up too late last night, I've gotta go home and go to bed!