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Did you feel like this book situated itself as an "eye opener" for Americans - trying to teach Americans about a place no one here knew anything about before 9-11, to humanize a group the American media has unwaiveringly associated with dusty rubble and rifles? Let me flesh this out a bit.

On the one hand, I found it wonderful that someone would put out a reminder that even this war (which has all but disappeared from our evening news) is between two pre-existing civilizations with long histories and real, normal people living out their lives in both places, and that Afghanistan is so much more than the Taliban. I loved the childhood sculpted in this novel.

On the other hand, I was ashamed of being a part of the American culture which needed to have that reminder in the first place. How completely self-centered and Daisy Buchanan are we as a nation that I can say a book is a nice reminder of other people's humanity? Should we need such reminders? Is this a strictly American condition, to be so self-absorbed?

I have read that there is a rock on the southern shore of China (near Sanya) which is said to represent the end of the civilized world (that China represents the whole of the civilized world.) So the American culture, which is really a baby compared to the 2000+ years of Chinese culture, is not paving new road in our isolationism... but should we, as the self-styled "leaders of the free world," hold ourselves to a higher standard? With great power comes great responsibility, and all that?

Or am I reading way too much into this and it's just a great book? Because it is a wonderful story, and the guilt and quasi-redemption themes are superb. Maybe those would be a better focal point for the American conscience at this point time.

What do you think?

That's definitely and interesting point of view, Janna, and not one that I really considered as I read the book. I don't feel guilty that the book served as a teaching tool for me. It's a great book that provided what I assume to be a pretty realistic view into several decades of life in Afghanistan. I'm thankful I have a better understanding and don't feel bad that my starting point was fairly uneducated.

Janna, I mostly agree with you. I think Americans read this book because they know they are self-centered and ignorant about the world. This is a respectable sentiment. But I'd go so far as to say that the only reason this book is so popular is that it supposedly teaches us about Afghanistan. If you were to take this same story, with the same prose style, and set it in America, I would argue this book may never have taken off. Now, it is the sort of story Oprah latches onto, and that would certainly have helped its popularity. But I believe people read this book exactly because they want to learn something about Afghanistan. The book can then be viewed in two different lights: its instructional value on Afghan culture, and its story and writing as a novel. I would say that, when viewed independently, the book fails on both counts. It doesn't teach much about Afghan culture--it gives us just enough to bill itself as an Afghan novel. The writing isn't great and the story is not that compelling. But take these two mediocres halves and put them together, and you have a book that most Americans can read easily and feel as if they're doing their fair share in learning about those other people who live in a terrorist-infested land. So Americans feel noble, somehow, in just reading this book. And luckily the book is easy to read, if not disturbing.

If you want this story in a much more compelling form, read "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb. If Americans want to learn about Afghanistan, they should be looking elsewhere.

Hi Janna,
Interesting topic. I think I'm with (was it Tim?) in thinking it is okay to begin where you begin with understanding what you do about a setting and the author's role will be to bring you along whereever you began be it as an Afghan family with a similar background or an American living in the Bay Area around other immigrant folks or someone else somewhere else that is in a homogeneous population. I can only read it from my vantage point, but think the author accomplished so much regardless of your vantage point. I like the focus on the theme because that is a universal one that crosses every sort of gender/religion/age/generational line. Certainly US citizens like me with limited perspective on international/Afghan/immigrant/Islamic/current events and perspectives may have gained a lot more than others because of our relationship with Afghanistan and the Taliban now, but it did not do very much on the history of Afghanistan anyway so the family's story was sufficient to bring us through another place and time which can sometimes be a much more compelling one than a historical one.

Thanks for raisiing the conversation!

I feel the focus of the book was more the story of a tormented friendship between two characters than an expose on Afghanistan. For one, the narrator, as he admits later in the novel, grew up in a very privileged world that was not exemplary of the experience of many afghans. The story, had it been told through Hassan's eyes would have provided an entirely different window into life in Afghanistan. Although, I have to agree with Grant, the story would not have been as compelling had it been set in the America we are familiar with. The setting adds a touch of exoticism and intrigue to readers. I don't think one should feel guilty for learning something about another culture through a book. After all, part of the reason we read is to learn and experience that with which we are unfamiliar.

I am not ashamed that I do not know about cultures that I have had no exposure to. I do not expect myself to have intimate knowledge of what it is like to live in the 108+ countries around the world, much