The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

11/12/2005

Amir is the son of a wealthy man in 1970's Afghanistan. Hassan is the son of the family's servant. They are a year apart in age. Although Hassan is Hazara, a lower, despised class of Afghanistani, Amir and Hassan are as close as brothers. They both had the same wet nurse and played together as they grew up.

Amir has the privileges of his father's wealth. He is literate and goes to a private school. He doesn't play with Hassan when the other boys from his class are around. He plays private pranks on Hassan because the other boy is illiterate. Hassan doesn't notice these things. He only knows that Amir is the most important person in his life and he would do anything for him.

Amir is a disappointment to his father. His father is a strong, big man. Amir is a reader, not a fighter or sports jock. When Amir is threatened by the local bully, Hassan stands up to the bully and protects Amir. Later, when Hassan is cornered by the same bully, Amir comes upon the scene, hides, and pretends he doesn't see.

After that Amir cannot live with his own guilt, but cannot tell, either. Hassan never says a word about the incident that Amir knows of. The guilt stays with him as Hassan and his father leave about a year later, then into America when Amir and his father escape when the Russians invade Afghanistan. Eventually, when Amir is in his 30's, he has to return to Afghanistan after the Russians have and the Taliban is in control of the country. Amir finally has to face his own past in order to continue into his own future.

This novel is told in first person narrative by Amir. I had to keep reminding myself that this is a novel, not an autobiography. It feels like an autobiography to the reader. Hosseini writes with feeling and pathos. From the first attack on Hassan through the rest of the book, I had to keep putting it down. It made me heart sick. The emotion never left me, even when the book had lighter, happier sections.

Hosseini gives a portrait of Afghanistan that the average American doesn't know or imagine. The author was raised in that country and emigrated to the United States about the same time as Amir does in The Kite Runner. He is able to make the environment a real backdrop to a story of betrayal and redemption.

The Kite Runner is an excellent book. It is written in an easy narrative style that is easy for the reader to follow. The reader doesn't have to be familiar with the background of Afghanistan, the social classes there, or the religious practices to be able to understand and accept the story. Amir's guilt is the ongoing theme, but much more is there. It discusses the religious and political problems in Afghanistan. It describes the situation of an immgrant in modern America trying to retain his own culture. The reader needs to be aware that it is a painful read. Amir and Hassan's story pierces deep. I will not read it again.

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