The Kite Runner
《追风筝的人》的故事开始时12岁的阿富汗富家少爷阿米尔与仆人哈桑情同手足。然而，在一场风筝比赛后，阿米尔目睹了发生在哈桑身上一件悲惨的事，阿米尔为自己的懦弱感到自责和痛苦，而不久哈桑也离开了。不久阿富汗爆发战争，阿米尔被迫与父亲逃亡美国。成年后的阿米尔始终无法原谅自己当年对哈桑的背叛。为了赎罪，阿米尔再次回到故乡，展开了对自己的救赎。
哈桑，质朴，勇敢，心地善良。他对顺从于阿米尔，阿米尔对于他不仅是主人，更是像兄弟一般最好的朋友。他心中一直怀有宽容，默默包容着阿米尔对他的嘲讽，栽赃，甚至是躲在暗处的懦弱。他甚至能在很多年之后骄傲地对儿子说阿米尔少爷是他最好的朋友。
但是阿米尔却不一样，性格存在缺陷，仗着哈桑对他的爱有恃无恐，却也亲手葬送了哈桑。对阿米尔来说，哈桑可能只是拿不出手的普通朋友。
可能我们有时天真地以为，和自己认为的最好的朋友的友情可以天长地久，假如有一天需要他，他会无条件支持你，坚定地站在你身后。但人总有一厢情愿的时候，到了那一天，原来他也只会袖手旁观。
而他没有对不起你，只是我们有时候会自作多情而已。这个世界上，从来就没有一条法律规定，把某人视作最好的朋友，他就应该同样掏心掏肺地回报。
人大都是自私的。现在有像哈桑这样有伟大情怀的人已十分罕见。能与之媲美的唯有父母对子女无私的爱及在爱情里对爱慕对象真挚的爱。但有些时候，即使对这两种爱也要打个问号。
珍惜身边的朋友，不要吝惜自己对他们的爱，不要在需要他们时才重视朋友的存在。对朋友的付出总会有回报。就像哈桑所说，贯穿全书的：为你，千千万万遍。
第二篇：A Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid Suns Quite a lot of people have read the book—The Kite Runner, whereas this one—a thousand splendid suns, another book written by Khaled Hossini, grasps less attention from the readers. Born in Afghanistan, Khaled Hosseini, the author then escaped with his father to America with a view to being far away from the constant wars and conflicts in his lovely hometown. The Kite Runner, known as Hosseini’s first novel, made him a legend with 6 million copies of it sold throughout the world. A Thousand Splendid Suns is another hit to the publishing industry, though one not as big. Both of the two are considered excellent works, but as for me, the latter tells a more wonderful and more moving story.
The two main characters, Mariam and Leila, are two mere average people in Afghanistan, a Midwestern country where the God of peace seldom visits. Mariam, an illegitimate child who lost her childhood on her fifteenth birthday with her mother’s suicide and once loving father’s cold shoulder, was eventually compelled to marry a middle-aged shoemaker, Rashid, who was extraordinarily 30 years older than her. Henceforth, she began her new life in the shadow of domestic violence in the unrest times.
Another hero is Leila, born in the year of Mariam’s marriage to Rashid. Before she could peacefully bring her childhood to a close,
the fierce stole it by taking away both her loving parents and her lover. The same man, Mariam’s husband, saved her and she at last became is third wife and lived with Rashid and Mariam.
Hosseini tells us the miserable and poor life story of the two giant women. It is a story about family, friendship, faith and Self-redemption, about an inexcusable age, an impossible friendship and an indestructible love. For a time there is only endless despair in their life, but hope always comes at last, though never too much. Life is full of misery and bitterness for them, yet we can see from every chapter of the book the sunshine of hope. In fact, the whole story is a miniature of the whole Afghanistan society. It was not until the year 2004 that Afghanistan held its first presidential election, which has finally put an end to the conflicts and sufferings brought by Taliban and Al Qaeda. Today, people in Afghanistan still live a very poor life; an eternal peaceful life seems an eternity.
Look back at Mariam and Leila. Mariam was an illegitimate child who lived with her abandoned mother, sometimes insane. Life was barely good for her until her fifteenth birthday, which should have been a rather pretty day yet was ruined with her mother’s suicide and her unfamiliar father’s becoming indifference. As for Leila, fate was also against her, taking her parents and her loved one. It was destiny that at last arranged the two to serve the same man.
Under the same roof, they swear, they fight, the struggle for Rashid’s affection; then they got to know each other, they laugh against misery, they share; until eventually one sacrificed for the other.
It is a natural path of two women’s psychological change. Grown up in the same social context, sharing more or less the same calculating experience, compelled by the same wired man, Mariam and Leila have some similar characteristics in themselves-determination, tolerance, protest, hope. To Leila, her little babies, one her lover Tariq’s and one Rashid’s, were all her life was meant for; yet, to Mariam, sterile, nothing can be more enjoyable and worthwhile than to see Leila playing happily with the little babies and sometimes to enjoy the babies’ affection toward herself.
Confined to the small shabby house, violated by the old man, still they have hope. But the escape has only brought them more suffering both in body and in mind, as they were caught by the police and sent back to Rashid before they could get on the bus toward freedom.
But God has always been fair. Tariq, Leila’s lover, who was presumed to have died long before on his way of escaping, came back to find Leila. There was the most intense fight ever happened in the family when Rashid got to know that Tariq’s back and have met
Leila. Rashid was so insane that he would almost killed Leila, but at last everything ended up with Mariam’s spade toward Rashid’s head. Mariam chose to confess to the police of her crime at last to protect the newly reunited couple. Homeland still unsafe, Leila and Tariq decided to escape to a neighboring country-Pakistan. One year later, when a peaceful life seemed possible in Afghanistan, Leila insisted that they come back, for she knows that Mariam’s here. The couple knows they must and they will live a good life, as Mariam’s right behind the one thousand splendid suns smiling at them. They will live their own life together with Mariam’s for ever.