Mrs. Arnold
English 10
27 February 2015
Kite Runner Blog Post
Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is an eye opening historical fiction story of a young boy from Afghanistan who grows up in a time of conflict and strife. The story begins in Afghanistan in the mid 1900's. Other settings include Pakistan and Fremont, California. Kite Runner begins with the main character, Amir, reflecting on the events that occurred 26 years ago. Amir and his father Baba were extremely wealthy and had two servants, Ali and his son Hassan. Ali and Hassan were Hazaras, which meant that they were politically and socially inferior to the other ethnic groups. However since Amir and Hassan were the same age they grew up together and were able to forge a friendship since at the time they were both too young to be extremely discriminatory. Amir and Hassan were constantly picked on, but Hassan would stand up for both of them and drive the harassers off. One day during the flying kite festival a terrible event occurs that will change the lives of Amir and Hassan drastically. After Amir wins the kite battle competition Hassan offers to run his kite for him. Hassan runs after the kite, but does not return for a while. Amir is troubled by how long it is taking Hassan to return so he sets out after him. He finds Hassan in an alleyway surrounded by three of the boys who have constantly bullied Hassan and Amir. Amir sees Hassan being raped by the boys, but does nothing, and return to the festival as if nothing happens. After the incident Amir continues to act normal, and does not tell Hassan that he saw what happens. Over time a rift forms between the two boys, and Amir and Baba leave Afghanistan. They move to Fremont, California where they encounter somebody that they knew from Afghanistan, General Taheri. After receiving consent from the general Amir marries his daughter. However their joy is shortly lived because Baba dies a month after the wedding. Time passes and life continues on until one day a family friend named Rahim Khan contacts Amir and tells him that he must return to Afghanistan, which has turned into a war zone due to the control of the Taliban, in order to bring Hassans only son, Sohrab, to a safe orphanage. In order to find out if Amir is able to safely save his long lost best friends son and discover what happens to Hassan you will have to read the book. Although the book is historical fiction it was still able to make me see how unfair and horrible the middle east can be. I have heard many stories of brutal treatment and punishment in Afghanistan before, but hearing the story from the perspective of a child helped me understand how somebody who lived there would view the events that were going on. The only character that I really liked was Sohrab. In a way Sohrab reminds me of Maya from the book Karma, since they both stop speaking after traumatic experiences occur. I like Sohrab because he stands up to the Taliban officials who were beating the adult that was trying to save him. The book contained a plethora of events, but the author was able to smoothly string them together by using the narrative of a child, who was able to keep them simple, optimistic, and light hearted. The theme in this book is the search for redemption. Early on Amir strives to redeem himself to Baba, since Baba's beloved wife died as a result of giving birth to Amir. Amir believes that in order to redeem himself to Baba he must win the kite flying competition, and bring Baba the kite after he wins. This leads to the second instance of the theme: Amir feels guilty for what happened to Hassan, which drives him to return back to Afghanistan in order to save Hassan's son. At first I thought that I was not going to like this book, but as I read it I began to like it more and more. I liked it because it seemed like a very plausible plot, which made the story feel real to me. I would recommend this book to literally any mature reader who is able to handle death, abuse, and rape as a subject in a book. Even though those are some very serious topics, I believe that this book is not only something that the reader can learn from, but a page turning novel as well.
http://khaledhosseini.com/ - Authors Website
http://www.amazon.com/The-Kite-Runner-Khalid-Abdalla/dp/B0012OX7EO - Kite Runner Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfeNUaKxufA - Video about actual Kite Running
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