The Kite Runner …weekly blog #1

Reading the book, we get to know the period it was written in; December 2001, and our narrator, who tells his story in the first person, recalls an event that occurred in 1975, when he was twelve years old and growing up in Afghanistan. He does not say what happened, but says the event made him who he is now.

The first three chapters set out the basic facts of the story, including who the major characters are, and their backgrounds, and what their relationships with each other are like.

The author, Khaled Hosseini, spends much more time on characterization than action in this section. In terms of plot, little happens. Instead, Khaled Hosseini introduces us to the personalities of the characters.

We learn that the boy Amir is sensitive, bookish, sometimes selfish, and a little mischievous. He is eager to please Baba, whom he views as a role model he can never live up to. Yet he feels Baba does not love him because he is not like Baba and because it was during his birth that his mother died.

Meanwhile, there’s Hassan, who is a loyal and courageous friend. When Amir is threatened, Hassan intervenes {as children, Amir and Hassan would climb trees and use mirrors to reflect sunlight into a neighbor’s window, or neighbor’s dog with a slingshot. Though they were always Amir’s ideas, Hassan never blamed Amir if they were caught} He has his own vulnerabilities, however, particularly regarding his mother.

Lastly Baba, who is gruff, hardworking, a little distant from Amir, and very much an independent thinker. Anytime someone said he would fail, he didn’t listen, and he always succeeded. He doesn’t always listen to religious authorities either, evidenced by the fact that he disregarded Mullah Fatiullah Khan saying it is a sin to drink alcohol. Ali, meanwhile, is dutiful, modest, and quiet.

Significantly, both Hassan and Amir have lost their mothers. They have only their fathers and each other. The relationship between fathers and sons, and between the older generation and the new one, is a major theme of the story. 

Also, in many ways Amir and Hassan act for each other as a kind of substitute parent, looking out for the other and providing companionship. They are closer than regular friends. They are more like brothers who are on occasion reminded that one is Pashtun and one Hazara.

A related divide in religions is present: like most Pashtuns, Baba and Amir are Sunni Muslim, while Ali and Hassan, like most Hazaras are Shia Muslim {The difference between Sunni and Shia is something like the difference between Catholic and Protestant Christians. They share the fundamental beliefs of Islam, that there is only one god and that Muhammad was his prophet for instance, but some of their other beliefs and practices differ.}

One additional divide hinted at in this section is that between Islamic fundamentalists, such as Amir’s teacher, Mullah Fatiullah Khan, and more liberal Afghans like Baba. Baba’s words in Chapter 3 foreshadow the eventual takeover of Afghanistan by the radical Islamic fundamentalists called the Taliban. “God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands,” he says, after calling Mullah Fatiullah Khan and those like him “self-righteous monkeys” (p. 17). It will be decades before this happens in the novel, but the political events leading up to the rise of the Taliban, beginning in the 1970s and continuing through 2001, will play a major role throughout the book……