Human Rights Law

Monday Night Book Club: The Kite Runner

By Alexa

Welcome to Monday Night Book Club. Tonight's selection, proposed by possum, is one I have read several times, and even on rereading, found myself spellbound by author Khaled Hosseini's very vivid memories of forty years of Kabul.
Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable, beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan nonetheless grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara, member of a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.

The Kite Runner follows the story of the two children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s. Amir and Hassan are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted.

When the Soviets invade and Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")

"Never mind that we taught each other to ride a bicycle with no hands, or to build a fully functional homemade camera out of a cardboard box. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. [...]

Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashthun and he was a Hazara, I was a Sunni and he was a Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing."

"But he's not my friend!" I almost blurted. "He's my servant!" Had I really thought that? Of course I hadn't. I hadn't. I treated Hassan well, just like a friend, better even, more like a brother. But if so, then why, when Baba's friend came to visit with their kids, didn't I ever include Hassan in our games? Why did I play with Hassan only when no one else was around?"

Amir's father, Baba, considers his son's query about his own sins of drinking. "There is only one sin, only one," he started . "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 father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness."

Amir grew up with his father and did not have the strength of character as his father would want. He would throw up due to motion sickness and lacked natural toughness. To gain respect in his father's, Amir tries to win a kite flying competition. He manages to win the kite flying competition but loses the biggest thing - self-respect. Hassan is sexually assaulted by a Hitler-worshipping older boy, Assef. as he runs to get a kite for Amir who turns his back to Hassan. Amir lives with the guilt of deceitfulness through his life for lack of courage.

Amir and his father flee to US for a comfortable life, as political unrest engulfs Afghanistan. Amir gets married to an Afghani girl Soraya before his father's cancer stops his wanderings on earth.

"There is a way to be good again."
Years after, Amir's guilt takes him back to Afghanistan where he faces the utter truth that Hassan was related to Amir as brother. He learns that Hassan has died in an atrocity by the Taliban who usurped the rein of the country and Hassan's son, Sohrab, is living in an orphanage where the caretaker is trading children to run the expenses.

Amir determines to overcome his guilt by safeguarding Sohrab. But, as the luck would have it, Amir runs into Assef again who is now a part of the Taliban and has the custody of Sohrab. They both engage in a duel when eventually Sohrab uses his slingshot to poke out one eye of Assef. Amir eventually takes Sohrab back to US with him.

The Kite Runner is a novel about friendship, betrayal, and the price of loyalty. It is about the bonds between fathers and sons, and the power of their lies. Written against a history that had not been told in fiction before, The Kite Runner describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed. But with the devastation, Khaled Hosseini also gives us hope: through the novel's faith in the power of reading and storytelling, and in the possibilities he shows for redemption.

Something I especially liked in The Kite Runner is the way Hosseini goes easy on the ethnography. You don't hear long lectures on Burqas, or Pashtun marriage rituals, or inter-ethnic rivalries in Afghan society. There is a little on each of the above in the novel -- you might learn a couple of things about relations between Pashtuns and Hazaras -- and that's undoubtedly part of its appeal for some people. But Hosseini doesn't hit the reader over the head with it, the way Asne Seierstad does in The Bookseller of Kabul -- the "other" book on Afghanistan everyone is talking about.

About The Author
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History at a large high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, Hosseini's family moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University where he earned a bachelor's degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California-San Diego's School of Medicine, where he earned a Medical Degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Hosseini was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.

While in medical practice, Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, in March of 2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 48 countries. In 2006 he was named a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.  

His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007. Currently, A Thousand Splendid Suns is published in 25 countries.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) is the UN Refugee Agency. Formed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1950, UNHCR has helped an estimated 50 million refugees restart their lives, winning two Nobel Peace Prizes in the process. It is one of the world's foremost humanitarian agencies, providing shelter, protection, emergency food, medical care and other necessities to those who have been forced to abandon their homes and flee due to violence, persecution or war. This year alone, UNHCR will help more than 20 million people in 116 countries. The agency is active in Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Columbia, Uganda, and many other locations.

At the height of the Afghan refugee crisis, as many as 8 million people had fled abroad to escape the violence at home. Since 2002, nearly 5 million Afghan refugees have returned after years of living in Pakistan and Iran. For many, the return home has proved very difficult. Many refugees live in abject poverty. They are homeless, landless, and have no access to clean water, schools, or health clinics.

In September of 2007, Khaled returned to Afghanistan as an envoy for the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. He visited villages in northern Afghanistan and spoke to refugees who have resettled there. He saw first hand the humanitarian assistance provided by aid organizations such as UNHCR. This return trip reinforced for Khaled the reality that Afghans are still hopelessly dependent on the support of the international community.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
This is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years-from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding-that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives-the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness-are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

"For you, a thousand times over".
These words of assurance given by Hassan to Amir symbolize The Kite Runner.

In their most epic kite battle, Amir manages to cut the last kite, setting Hassan off to look for it. It was the last scene before Hassan was raped, which probably wouldn't have happened had Hassan heeded Amir's words. "No, Hassan, you don't have to." Hassan turns back, and smiles.

For you, a thousand times over"

And these words are repeated by Amir to Sohrab, the orphaned son of Hassan, whom Amir rescues from the Taliban in Afghanistan and adopts in  America.

A Note of Dedication
Many thanks to mi novio, Unitary Moonbat who encouraged my interest in Afghanistan and gave me the best gift I've ever received, a seven-part compendium on the history of Afghanistan. I am twelve times blessed for having Unitary Moonbat as a permanent partner in Loya Jirga.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).