The Kite Runner-Book Review

Khaled Hosseini’s adventurous novel. It is a novel which touches travel, friendship, a father son relationship, loyalty, slavery, racial prejudice, betrayal and resilience.

It’s a story about two friends, Amir and Hassan, living in Afghanistan. One was a son of a rich man and the latter was a son of a loyal servant, who was serving Baba, father of Amir. Just like his father, Hassan has been also loyal to Amir, as a friend and as a servant, he was treated like his own son by Baba.

The kite was used as a metaphor in this novel. The early stage of this novel has an interesting episode, a Kite competition, where Amir tries to impress his father by winning the game and Hassan shows his innocent loyalty by being a kite runner. Khaled Hosseini’s quotes are very sole stringing “For you, a thousand times over” a dialog by Hassan when Amir said “Hassan, come back with the kite”. It clearly denotes Hassan’s sincere devotion to their friendship. Being a hero to his son, Baba is treating his servant’s son as his own. Amir tries to impress him in most of the way and got tired, where Hassan does that like a cake walk. So he hates Hassan for that one reason. Baba’s quote on lie “there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life… you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a other. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness… there is no act more wretched than stealing.”  Become an irony in the latter half of the novel.

Hassan as a Hazara (minority community) is undergoing racial prejudice by his fellow kids. The protagonist of this novel, Amir was very evil and selfish, betraying his own loyal friend by being a mute spectator, when Hassan was raped. This haunts him throughout his life, but his acts were bad because he was afraid to handle the situation and he was a coward and not matured in his younger age to handle the situation. As Amir can’t live with his haunting memories, He created a drama and accused Hassan for stealing his watch. The situation made Hassan and Ali(his father) to leave the house. Followed by a lot of tragic incidents, like Russian invasion and change of rulers in Afghanistan, made Amir and Baba to leave the country after a long struggle.  Amir with his brave father and his haunting memory of his friend, reached America for his new life.

Now Amir is grown up and tries to live along with his haunting memories of his friend Hassan. He started searching his life destiny, found a writer in him and persuades his carrier in that. Later he met his love of life Soraya and got married. Later Baba dies because of cancer. Baba had always been a great father, Amir always admired his father’s bravery ex., when he saves a woman from Russian soldier during transit from Afghan to America.

One fine day he got a call from Pakistan, from his father’s friend Rahim Khan, who I forgot to introduce in the first half. Rahim khan was a friend of Baba and a good mentor to Amir. He called Amir and told his interest to meet him to convey an important message about Hassan. In search of his resilience. Amir started his trip to Pakistan to meet Rahim Khan. Amir believed in the Rahim Khan’s words “There is a way to be good again.”

Rahim Khan in his last stage of his life, holding one secret, that needs to be conveyed to a person who has the right to now, Amir is the one and secret is his father’s “lie of life”, that is Hassan is an illegitimate child of Baba. After Amir and Baba left to America, Rahim Khan lived with Hassan’s family; Hassan was blessed with a boy who named Sourab. From Rahim Khan, Amir learns about the death of Ali, Hassan and his wife; Taliban killed them because Hassan refused to give up Baba’s house, where they lived after Rahim Khan requested them to stay with him.

After his parents death now Sourab is in the hands of Taliban who is ruling Afghan in the name of insurgency.

Sourab being kept at Taliban local leader Assefs home, who once raped Hassan in their childhood. Rahim Khan asked Amir to bring back Sourab from Afghan.

Amir felt this as his duty to bring back Sourab, As a search of his resilience Amir took this mission and entered Afghan from Pakistan to bring back his brother’s son.  Amir begins his travel in a taxi with an Afghan driver named Farid. Afghan was turned upside down, with militants everywhere and Amir realized there is no room for peacefulness. After a long struggle, Amir found Sourab in Assif’s place. Sourab was manhandled by Assif. Amir realized that this time I should not be a mute spectator and Amir bounced back at Assef. Amir struggled to withstand the fight as Assif is well built and well trained, Somehow Sourab ended the fight with a slingshot (He is good in it)  on Assef’s eye and both of them escaped to Pakistan.

In Pakistan, Amir planned to put Sourab in an orphanage as it is difficult to take illegal immigrants to America. This leads to Sourab’s suicide attempt, because he thought orphanage will be another hell as he faced in Afghan. And his word “I am done” at hospital bed, made Amir to take furious steps to take him to America. Finally Amir convinced the American embassy officer and took Sourab to America.

Sourab is not easily ready to adapt America. Amir tried his best. One day to break the ice Amir took Sourab to a kite festival and gave a kite to him. Sourab hesitated and slowly picked the string, like a butterfly from a cocoon. Amir helped him with the tricks he learned from Baba to cut the opponent kite. This time the kite runner is Amir for Sourab. For him the thousand times began.

My take away

The author played between the truth & lie and conveyed the message of the importance of truth with an ironic quote of Baba. Amir is a rich father’s son; he struggles on his imperfections, and loses his self confidence, which made him a mute spectator, when his best friend was in a deadly situation. Author Khaled Hosseini portrayed the guilt of Amir and his inner conflict deeply in the narration and introduced a situation to rescue Sourab, son of Hassan, to overcome his guilt. Solace by means of resilience.

Role of women in this book is very less. There is no women’s perception.

After Russians call off their militancy, America invaded Afghan, So there is no point in portraying America like heaven. The book clearly depicts how super power countries destroy third world countries for their power and wealth.

The pain behind leaving motherland and the consequences needs more elaboration.

All the negatives are completely suppressed by the author’s writing. The way he handled emotions is worth reading it.

Migration may be a temporary solution, but always “There is a way to be good again”.