The Kite Runner!

OK, I had wanted to post this earlier (thus the exclamation point...I somehow had a theme going...), but time ran away from me...and I went to Prague. But this is still relevant information pertaining to my incredibly exciting and fulfilling life in Amstetten! Well...you can be the judge.


For one of the English classes (5th form), the students recently read The Kite Runner.  Never having read it, but sort of wanting to, I decided to catch up with them and read it myself...also, the teacher strongly recommended that I read it so I could follow along in class.


I was not disappointed. Touching, memorable, well-written and easy to follow, I found myself intrigued and enlightened by the story. Although it was a little forced at times (i.e. Hassan being pure good and Assef being pure evil), the story ultimately explores relationships, devotion, redemption, and the human soul.

I can say that I found Amir (the main character) a complete spoiled brat and a wimp. Unsurprisingly, so did the students. What I found more impressive than the novel was the idea that a bunch of 19-year-olds could read a complex, 350+ page novel in a foreign language and come up with enlightened, meaningful things to say about the characters, the plot, and the overall concept of the novel. You would never in a million years find that in a German class in the US. In my high school, we covered verb conjugation and adjective endings. No literature, no cultural musings. Nothing. Zip. Zero.

Which is totally why students in the US don't take foreign languages...or don't take them seriously...and don't like them when they do take them. You get the boring stuff in school, and then maybe - just maybe - if you take a 300-levelish course at university, you can get something like Faust to analyze to death. Well, OK, as a German major I read a hell of a lot more than just Faust, but think of all the people who casually take a foreign language. They never get past Ich heisse John and Wo sind die Toiletten? and Das ist gleich um die Ecke and useless shit like that.

So, to make a long rant short(er), keep literature in the classroom. Kids eat it up. They crave it. Their souls yearn for an explanation of the human soul - that only literature can provide - and they're never going to get it otherwise because they barely know where to look for it. Give the kids what they want before they burst all their braincells on Facebook.