The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel. It focuses on the relationship between two Afghan boys --- Amir, the novel’s narrator and the son of a prosperous Kabul businessman, and Hassan, the son of Ali, a servant in the household of Amir’s father. Amir is a Pashtun and Sunni Muslim, while Hassan is a Hazara and a Shi’a.
Despite their ethnic and religious differences, Amir and Hassan grow to be friends, although Amir is troubled by Hassan’s subservience, and his relationship with his companion, one year his junior, is ambivalent and complex.
Amir only played with Hassan when there was no one else with them and he would not invite Hassan to play with his other friends. Within himself, Amir was confused to the type of relationship he had with Hassan. Were they really friends or was this a more master-slave relationship?
The other source of tension in Amir’s life is his relationship with Baba, his hard-driving and demanding father and also the inability in Amir - physically and mentally - to be the son that Baba wants and expects him to be. To Amir, he was a disappointment and a failure to his Baba.
Desperate to win his father’s affection and respect, Amir turns to the sport of kite flying, and at the age of 12, with the assistance of Hassan, he wins the annual tournament in Kabul. But Amir’s victory soon is tarnished when he witnesses a vicious assault against his friend.
Hassan had raced through the streets of Kabul to retrieve the last kite Amir had sliced from the sky and make Amir double the winner than he already is. In his pursuit of the last kite, he was met with thugs who physically and sexually abused him. Amir witnessed this horrible act and failed to come to his aid.
That was the moment at which the friendship between Amir and Hassan took a downward spiral. They did not hang out together although Hassan tried somewhat to restore some sort of communication and connection with Amir. But consumed by his guilt, Amir just could not reconnect with Hassan. Amir’s cowardice is compounded by a later act of betrayal - placing money under the mattress of Ali and Hassan and thus accusing them of theft - caused Ali and Hassan to leave their home, and he now faces the nightmare prospect of bearing the burden of his ill-fated choices for the rest of his life.
In 1981, following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Amir and Baba flee the country for California, where Amir attends college, marries and becomes a successful novelist. Amir’s world is shaken in 2001 when he receives a call from his father’s best friend, informing him that “There is a way to be good again.” That call launches him on a journey to rescue Hassan’s son Sohrab, orphaned by the brutal Taliban, and at the same time redeem himself from the torment of his youthful mistakes. What Amir learnt in this journey - although I must say that I suspected this from the get-go - was that Baba was the biological father of Hassan. Amir and Hassan were half-brothers.
See, the physical abuse that Hassan endured was traumatic and damaging but he lived true to himself and being always truthful, faithful and pure at heart. Amir, on the other hand, lived a life of continued guilt and was never truly happy although he was married and quite successful professionally.
To me, the first half of this book was really engaging and descriptive in terms of the relationship between Amir and Hassan. But the moment Amir and Baba fled to US, the story around them were not as outstanding as while they were in Afganistan. In fact, the journey to find Sohrab was just too quick and rushed. It felt the the author just wanted the story to end and for Amir to finally find Sohrab. So I personally give the first half of the book an A but the second half a C.
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