Book Review for Kite Runner

1.         In the one of my posts, I said that I thought the book would be about remorse. Some of it turned out to be that way. However, now that I've read the entire book, I know that there's more to it than just remorse. It gives the reader feelings of hope, loyalty, redemption, and the price of making very wrong decisions. Since I already talked about why this book has remorse, I will explain why and how there is all the other feelings that I stated earlier.
         I said that there was hope in this novel. This is depicted when Amir begins his search for Hassan, then later searching for Hassan's son, Sohrab. Amir assumes that getting him out of Kabul will be easy, but then realizes little by little that he could fail his task. Even after he rescues Sohrab from Kabul, he finds Sohrab lying unconscious, and bleeding to death.

"There is no God but Allah and Muhammad his messenger. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I always feared they would."(p346)

This is where Amir has a spiritual awakening and prays that if there is a God, then he will keep Sohrab alive, and in return, Amir will be Muslim and pray daily. Since Sohrab is alive, Amir keeps his promise and prays everyday, does namaz, and all the other requirements of a Muslim.
        The part where loyalty comes in is with Hassan. He was forever loyal and shared a strong bond with Amir, even when Amir watched him get raped by Assef. Hassan knew that Amir had done this, yet he still forgave him and considered them to still be great friends with the same bond. Evidence in this is written in a letter that Hassan writes to him.

"If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you."(p218)

Whether it was because Hassan was their servant or because of the friendship that he and Amir had, Hassan was always a great friend to Amir.
          Despite this loyalty however, Amir could never forgive himself for what he did. He thought of himself a sinner, and desperately wanted to be punished for the bad things that he did.

"I wished he would. I wished he would give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night."(p92)

           Shortly after the event took place, Amir and Hassan both went to their favorite tree and stayed there a while. Amir then threw a pomegranite at Hassan, and when Amir told Hassan to punish him, Hassan only took another one and squished it against his head, and made a reply that made Amir feel even worse.

"Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?" (p 93)

         Amir was then haunted by everything he did to Hassan. He became an insomniac, and couldn't bear to even think about Hassan. He finally feels that he gets some punishment that he deserves when he crosses paths with Assef, and he gets beaten up by him. Then he ends up in the hospital.

"The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip."(p297)

         Amir soon starts to think that every bad thing that happens to him is punishment for what he did. When he thinks this, he thinks that now he has a harelip like Hassan did. He thinks that he is going to go through everything that Hassan went through, starting with the harelip. Another example of this is when Amir and Soraya try to have a baby, but they can't.

"Maybe this was my punishment, and perhaps justly so. It wasn't meant to be, Khala Jamila had said. Or, maybe, it was meant not to be."(p 188)

        After the sins that Amir commited, he feels extremely guilty and fears that his sins will catch up to him and he will lose many things: He fears that he will die in Kabul and fail Hassan, he fears he will lose Sohrab, he fears that Soraya will never be happy because they can't have a baby, and he fears that he won't know what to do when Baba dies.
        All of these feelings that are presented in the book are meant to teach children to make good choices, otherwise they'll either wish almost all the time that they could take it back or they'll be distraught from remorse of something they did. This may have happened to Khaled Hosseni, as I stated in one of my posts on The Kite Runnner.

It is possible that something like this happened to Hosseni. Not all of this word for word, but maybe he did something small that he would never forgive himself for. Then he could have exaggerated greatly the amount of regret he felt and made it into a much bigger problem. Also, he may have based Amir on himself, maybe on the decisions he would have made as a kid: trying anything to please his father, being scared of bullies like Assef, and even making some decisions that may have seemed good at first, but later he realized that was the wrong choice. Then these may have affected his life. He may have even gone a long time in his life haunted by something he did, and every day wishing he could take it back.

       In the end, Amir has to make it up to Sohrab because he broke a promise to Sohrab. He then teaches Sohrab how to be a kite-runner like Hassan. Sohrab still doesn't forgive Amir for the promise that he broke, but he smiles when Amir performs tricks that his father did. It was, as Hosseni put it, the first snowflake melting. So Amir is close to making up for his sins by regaining Sohrab's trust and taking care of him. 
        To summarize it all, the purpose of this book can be viewed from many perspectives: teaching children to stick up for their friends, to teach them to have hope and faith, or even so Hosseni can feel that making the book (and trying to teach children about all the feelings that I talked about) is making up for whatever sins he did and he went through all the guilt that Amir went through.

General Sahib

         In the novel The Kite Runner, General Sahib is Amir's father-in-law. He is also a good friend of Baba's, so there must be some kind of relation between them. It is possible, but not likely, that he may have know how Baba also had Hassan as his son. At the end of the book, the general refers to Sohrab as "the Hazara boy". It is possible that he too, like many others in Kabul, had a certain kind of dislike or discrimination against Hazaras. One piece of evidence that is given on this theory is when he walks in and sees Sohrab.

"'Hello, young man,' was all the general said, leaning with both hands on his cane, looking at Sohrab the way one might stud a bizarre decorative item at someone's house."

       It is obvious here that the general has a kind of racism against Hazaras.That much is clear. But it's what's in between the lines that is interesting. When I said that General Sahib might have known that Baba was Hassan's father, this may also lead to the general somehow knowing that Hassan had Sohrab. It is possible that Rahim Khan had talked to the general many times, and had also talked about Sohrab and how he was hoping to get Amir to take care of him. Therefore, when Amir and Soraya told him that they were going to adopt someone, the general assumed that it would be Sohrab. He then made up excuses for reasons to not adopt, because he didn't want a "Hazara" in his family. So when Amir came back with Sohrab, the general had no idea and assumed that Amir wouldn't adopt him. That is why he asked about Sohrab and why Amir brought him.
         Another part at the end was that the general had been summoned to Afghanistan. However, it could have been just a lie so that he could get away from Sohrab for a while. Or he was too embarrassed to be seen around him. Either way, the "summons" was probably a lie. My last assumption was that General Sahib was a Taliban. He may have hired Assef to kidnap Sohrab and make sure that Amir would not take him to America. He knew, or thought he knew, that Assef would not fail him, so the "summons" was to find Assef, and punish him for his failure.

Response to Meriam's story

    I was looking at Meriam’s post and I saw that she made a post called Story Time. Here’s what she wrote at the end.

Also, the toddler became ill however the step mom believed it was just a regular flu and payed no special attention to him. The brother would escape to the family friend's home trying to escape his own problems. After a month or so the toddlers illness resulted in death and a month later the father had died in war.

       This post I will write is just kudos and some advice. First off, you should probably give names to the people. That would make it easier to understand what’s going on in the story. I understood what happened, but I had to read it 2-3 times to know what was going on. Then you should also make this an actual post and divide it into chapters. Then, if you made at least 15 chapters, you could even make it a book. That could be very nice reading.
    Another thing you could do is just organize it into paragraphs. Some dialogue could be nice too. Also, just as you said in the first paragraph, you should put it through the oldest son’s perspective. And if Corbally ever assigns an essay or something this year or next year, you could use this story for an essay or something. Two birds with one stone.
    All in all, I think that if you really put some time into the story, it would turn out really good. You should consider what I said about making this story into chapters earlier in he post.

Vic's blog is awesome!!!

            I looked at Vic's blog and saw the awesome fish tank he had. When I looked at it, I added a bunch of other fishes in the tank. I even added so many that all the fish were cramped up in the tank and could barely move. I thought that was kinda funny. So I took away a few fish and changed the settings on them. I changed the movement and put their speed and fast, so all the fish were swimming all around the tank in different directions like they were hyper. I recommend putting either the swordfish (cause they're awesome) or the tropical fish so they can make a bunch of colors around the tank.
            Anyone who reads this and wants to look at Vic's fish tank, I would appreciate it if they responded to these questions. My first question is there is a little search box above the tank that says something about searching other fish from other websites and adding them to the tank. I haven't tried it out yet, but I don't know whether or not you can actually get other fish or if you have to go through a bunch of stupid downloading crap and pay for the fish. Anyone who tries it out before I do, could you post a comment on either my blog or Vic's blog saying if you can or can't. If you can, then I would put a bunch of cool fish. One that I would love to put is an octopus, or a poisonous sea snake. Maybe even a penguin, even though that's not a fish, but a fish-eater. But I'd put that if it were possible. Then I'd make the octopus try to eat the puffer fish, and it could die. That would be fun to watch.
           Also if anyone reads this, I'd love to know if you can give them their own names. Then I'd give them a bunch of funny names. I'd name the blonde female-looking one Justin Beiber and the fish that keeps following it Sam. (I hope you're reading this Sam).

Punishment for Baba or for Amir?

              In the novel The Kite Runner, Amir and Baba have both done terrible things and their life changed because of the decisions they made. When Baba was dying, Amir was in greif. He began to cry a lot and worry about what he would do when Baba died. Since Amir left Hassan to be a victim of Assef's and allowed him to be raped, this could be punishment for his sins. Baba dying and not being able to be with Amir could be part of what he deserves for what he did to Hassan. Amir didn't do anything to make up for what he did, except for sending him out of Kabul. But even that didn't help since the Taliban came and made things bad for Hazaras. Baba's death could have been the first punishment he gets for abandoning Hassan.
               Though Baba doesn't show it, he seems unprepared to die so soon. Possibly he too wants to make up for his sins and is not ready to die because he wants to do more. The only things that he really did to make up for them are to give the poor some money and give money to orphanages. He may also have wanted to live to see Amir's grandchildren or to see him be successful, or maybe the same for Hassan, but if he did, then he never showed it. On the other hand, it could also just be his time. Perhaps, as said in the paragraph above, that Baba's death could be punishment for Amir. Fate could have given Baba what he deserved. This could be when Hassan left and was out of Baba's life forever. That could be the last punishment for him.

Response to Sam's Response

I was looking at Google Reader to find some inspiration for a response, and I found this on Sam's Blog.

The reason Amir didn’t interact with Hassan after he was raped was that he was Jealous of Hassan.  Throughout the whole story Baba makes an effort to make sure that whenever he and Amir can have a moment alone Hassan is there or has been invited.  This leads Amir to believe that Baba loves the child of their servant as much, or possibly even more then his own child.  Also when Amir and Hassan were approached by Assef on the hill, Hassan had the courage to stand up to Assef and cause him to stop bullying Amir.  Amirs lack of this kind of courage is shown when he witnesses Hassan getting raped.  Although no one knows that Amir is watching the brutal act, he still chooses not to get help because he is a coward.    After, that is when Amir can’t talk to Hassan because he is angry at him for being stronger.  This situation gets even worse when Hassan is able to heal from the incident even faster then Amir.  They were no longer able to be friends because they were simply different.

        I highly disagree with what Sam says about Amir not talking to Hassan because he's angry. Amir is ashamed of what he did, which is why he always feels short of breath when Hassan is around. If you want evidence Sam, then there is a part in the Kite Runner where Rahim Khan says that he was in love with a Hazara, but they were separted and decided to not marry because she would have been treated badly by his family. This is symbolizing how Amir and Hassan are friends and want to stay with each other, but Assef is always taunting them and and even threatened to beat both of them up with brass knuckles. And another piece of evidence is where Amir is about to frame Hassan, he says that he remembers what Rahim had said to him about the Hazara he fell in love with, and it was for the best, otherwise she would have suffered. Amir takes this idea from Rahim and frames Hassan so that he and his father can be safe without being taunted for being a Hazara, and especially for being safe from Assef. Amir may have been jealous that Hassan got better treatment from his dad at some points, but that's not why he sent them away. He was doing it to protect them. He also pretended that he didn't see what happened, even in front of Hassan because if he didn't know and Amir told him, then they would never be friends, and he would never be forgiven.

Remorse

                    When Khaled Hosseni wrote the book The Kite Runner, he most likely intended it to show what remorse and regret really mean. This can be shown when Amir says,

" In the end I ran. I ran because I was a coward." (pg 77)

                     There are many other small parts in the book where Amir states that he is ashamed that he left Hassen to be tortured by Assef. Usually when we think of regret, we may think of regretting a decision, like wishing you hadn't made a bet, or wishing that you should have started your homework earlier. When we think of remorse, we think of small things, like not fighting with a younger sibling or feeling guilty that you lied and they easily believed you. Amir's constant feelings of regret and remorse are much bigger reasons than any other person may feel. Amir feels he betrayed Hassan, the brother he never had. Hassan had always stuck up for Amir and helped him whenever he needed it most, and during Hassan's greatest moment of need, Amir ran and pretended that he never saw what happened. Even when Amir saves him from any more harm from Assef, he still is haunted by his decision to run instead of trying to protect Hassan. He knows that he could never do anything to be able to forgive himself for what he did, even if Hassen did.
                     It is possible that something like this happened to Hosseni. Not all of this word for word, but maybe he did something small that he would never forgive himself for. Then he could have exaggerated greatly the amount of regret he felt and made it into a much bigger problem. Also, he may have based Amir on himself, maybe on the decisions he would have made as a kid: trying anything to please his father, being scared of bullies like Assef, and even making some decisions that may have seemed good at first, but later he realized that was the wrong choice. Then these may have affected his life. He may have even gone a long time in his life haunted by something he did, and every day wishing he could take it back.