My first Dutch novel

Yesterday at about 2pm, I finished my very first Dutch language novel, De Vliegeraar, by Khaled Hosseini. All 350 pages of it.

There's not a lot I can really say about its being a literary masterpiece, because half the time I was just happy to know what was going on.

But this time, that was the object.

What I feel most triumphant about is that it's the first book in ages that I've cried during reading ... and not once, not twice, but three times. For me, that means I was looking beyond the frustration of not really understanding every third word, but that I was being involved.

De Vliegeraar is set in Afghanistan and the US, told by the guilt-riddled narrator, Amir, who neatly unravels the tale of how he reaches salvation after 20 years of self-hatred and cowardice.

I may well re-read it in English to see whether I should have enjoyed (is that the right word?) it so much ... or maybe I'll just wait five years and re-read it in Dutch to capture the nuances I lost this time around.

A real accomplishment for me, she who never read such a long book in Italian or French! (And who now probably couldn't, if she tried!)