I heard of this book a lot, then got it as a present from a friend one or two weeks ago. Here's a short comment:
1. It has very good descriptions. And the author is familiar with various stylistic effects (eg. in the beginning of Chapter 25, the way he continuously uses sentences begin with "I". Such sentences accelerate the speed, demonstrating the mental state of the protagonist.)
2. The latter part is much better written than the beginning, as the characters are more convincing.
3. The story itself is great, and sometimes very touching, but some characters are not convincing enough - a trace that this is not a mature work.
4. It is an old-fashioned story (not necessarily bad though.)
5. I like the way Hosseini inserts words like Inshallah, namaz etc. in his work.
6. Since it's a post-911 international best-seller on Afghan written by an Afghanistan American, it would be interested to do a bit research on the reception and circulation of the book, the mentality of its readers, as well as the publishing industry.
~後來被送書人責令寫個Long Comment~
There're many ways to discuss a book, but I guess it's better to focus on one point at a time. So, let me just say something about "perspective" this time.
The story is told completely from Amir's (a rich, prestigious Pashtuns) perspective. He has complete discourse power. And I'm sometimes troubled by his perspective, especially when it comes to his relation with Hassan (a Hazara, and a "servant"). Is his perspective objective? Is our protagonist lying? Hassan is a very important character in the novel, yet Hassan, in my opinion, is the most "unbelievable", "unreal" character, not because he is "too good to be true" or what, but because he has always been denied a discourse. All we know about Hassan, including what Hassan has said, is through Amir. Just as what we know about Lolita is completely through Humbert Humbert, and we doubt from time to time whether there is something wrong with Humbert Humbert's perspective, and what it would be like if the story is written from Lolita's perspective. Sometimes I wonder, what it would be like if the Kite Runner is written from Hassan's perspective? Now I begin to think of other possibilities: what if the story is written by Rahim Kahn? by Baba? by Sorayana? No one has an almighty perspective. Say, if it is written by Baba, he might have told us his secret, or maybe even his Baba's secret, but we wouldn't know a thing about his son's secret.
What Pamuk does in My Name Is Red is: he tries to offer everyone a chance to speak. (A chance to speak is, also, sometimes, a chance to lie, and also a chance not to speak, which can be another form of lying.) He has demonstrated the unreliability of language, and the constant possibilities of using language to lie. Of course, it will be difficult to write in this way because the author needs to put himself into the shoes of people from all walks of life, and write in different styles.
Even though Pamuk grants different characters a chance to speak, it is still impossible to tell "everything". Because such a writing strategy, in its extreme, would involve the whole universe, since everything is interrelated. Such a situation leads to another question: does knowing parts of the truth equals knowing the truth? A book written in all perspectives would give its reader a sort of almighty power, the capital "Truth". But then it takes an almighty author to write such a book. Now it is evident that there is only one book in the world - the Universe, and only one author - the God (that is to say, if HE really exists... always a problem for non-believers/not-yet-believers like me) that can live up to such a high expectation. In fact, Galileo treats the universe as a book. The idea that God composed two books - the world and the Sacred Scripture - is mentioned by Bacon, and can be traced back at least to the thirteenth-century.
Let's assume that there is such a book. (Will it be similar to an extremely large Universe with cross-references/hyper-links like the Internet?) Its readers will acquire a God-like Perspective, seeing all things at once, just as is the case in Borges "Aleph" (Aleph is "one of the points in space that contains all other points.... the only place on earth where all places are - seen from every angle, each standing clear, without confusion or blending." Important Note: "Aleph" is also the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And the Jewish Sepher Yetzirah mentions that "Twenty-two fundamental letters: God drew them, engraved them, combined them, weighed them, permuted them, and with them produced everything that is and everything that will be." Anyway, you'll also read of this strange letter "Aleph"in Dictionary of the Khazars.)
Now I see I'm drifting away from my original discussion on TKR. A book is a world created by the author, who is the God of that world. I don't know whether you have experience writing something. But when you start putting yourself in the shoes of the author, imagining you were him, writing the very book you're reading. You're holding his pen, choosing from which perspective to write, picking the right wordings etc, then you feel something. In TKR, I felt like my emotions are being "manipulated" by the author, so I ventured to ask "why", pondering what tricks he used, and what "betrayed" him, making me doubt about something he wrote.
I like Hosseini's description of Afghan before and after the war. Though descriptions as such might not be "objective", the feelings are always true. And novels are often far better documents of "emotions" and "atmospheres" of an era than historical documents focusing on places, dates, and events. Yet emotions are also a part of history, if history can really be called a "humanistic" discipline, which I strongly believe it is. I guess I'd better stop here, keeping my promise of focusing on "one point at a time".