The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

It was good to reread The Kite Runner, something familiar but still gripping and moving the second time around. I definitely think this book should be classified as a modern great, and was not surprised to see it on a list of 100 books to read in a lifetime. It brings a different insight into the war in Afghanistan than the stories heard on the news, opening up their struggles to the Western World through the empathy we feel towards the individual fictional characters.

This novel tells the story of Amir and his best friend Hassan, who is also his father’s servant. They grow up doing everything together. Hassan is extremely loyal to Amir, he says he would do anything for him, “for you a thousand times over”, and this unfortunately comes to the test. Amir, however, is not so loyal, he doesn’t stand up for his friend when another boy, Assef, rapes Hassan. Unable to cope with the guilt he feels seeing Hassan every day, Amir frames him for theft, causing Hassan and his father to leave. Subsequently war comes to Afghanistan and Amir and his father flee first to Pakistan and then on to America.

Amir spends the rest of his adult life there, going to college, watching his father die of cancer and meeting and marrying Soraya, but he cannot escape his guilt or his insomnia. When his father’s friend calls him back, tells him the truth about his family and Hassan’s, Amir is given the chance to do something right and to try and redeem himself by rescuing Hassan’s son from the Taliban.

It is horrifying at points and definitely emotionally potent. The novel speaks many truths about what it means to act in the world and the impact we have on the lives of others. Amir’s father is full of wise words. He tells his son, “There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is variation of theft”. Amir recalls this later when he realises how he has ‘stolen’ from Hassan, but also how his father stole in keeping the truth about Hassan’s birth from him. Baba also teaches his son about the cruelty of time; “it may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime”. The novel itself points to this; one day in Amir’s childhood has dictated the person he has become and also the ‘demons’ he is constantly trying to escape.

In his mission to find Sohrab, Amir also finds God, “in the eyes of the people in this corridor of desperation”, waiting in the hospital hoping and praying that Hassan’s son pulls through, he realises “this is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him, not the white masjid with its bright diamond lights and towering minarets”. It is powerfully real and at points painfully ironic, for example, when Amir speaks to an old man who once worked with his mother before she died, he learns that she was worried at her profound happiness because “they only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you”.

Amir does manage to somehow overcome his guilt. Though he cannot undo his betrayal he is able to stand up for Sohrab in the way he failed to do so for Hassan; he sacrifices a lot for the boy and finally comes to term with his past: “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 night”.

We are encouraged to focus on the small victories as well as the large – in the smile that Sohrab gives Amir when kite flying in the novel’s final scene – “it was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything alright”. He narrates that he is not sure whether it is a happy ending but this smile does at least offer a glimmer of hope. We are reminded that “life is not a Hindi movie […] life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end, crisis or catharsis”.

Us

Us – David Nicholls

Having enjoyed One Day, I was looking forward to reading Us and I was not disappointed. In fact, I think this one is better. It is written from the perspective of Douglas, a middle-aged man whose wife has announced she is leaving him, but wants to still go ahead with their final family holiday before their son goes to college. Douglas alternates telling the story of how they met and their married life, with their present tour round Europe.

Unfortunately, the holiday that he hopes will save his marriage does not start off well and only seems to get worse. Their son, Albie, is not interested in going to conventional tourist attractions, or following Douglas’ carefully planned itinerary. After a heated incident, he goes off on his own and Connie decides they must return to England. But Douglas will not stand for this failure. He decides to continue the tour and find his son to apologise.

Douglas and Connie appear to be opposites; he is science, she is art, he likes planning, she likes spontaneity. But they do get along well, not without struggles, but they do have a happy relationship most of the time. He is shocked to learn that she wants to leave him and retains this sense of shock throughout.

“Imagine that time is a long strip of paper. This is not the shape of time, of course. Time has no shape”. Douglas puts forward this metaphor to illustrate the points in his life where the ‘scissor cuts’ come in. He is a scientist but he is working in the artistic medium of the novel. At the end, a brief ‘Points of View’ section, tells the story from Albie’s and then Connie’s perspective; Douglas is not the obvious choice of storyteller but the novel is all the more interesting for that reason.

He seeks to make amends and he does. The wonders of the internet and a little help from Kat the accordionist allow Douglas to track down his son and say the things that have been on his mind. They even travel on for a bit together though this has to be cut short after Douglas is stung by a jellyfish and then has a heart-attack! The reunion does take place and his wife flies back out to be by his side, but the traditional happy ending does not happen. Their marriage is still over. They part on good terms but they do not get back together as far as we can tell. As Connie puts it, “the fact that you and I didn’t last forever, well, you have to stop thinking of that as failure or defeat […] this is not the end of your world”. We are reminded that all things eventually come to an end and the fact that they do end does not mean that they were not wonderful or meaningful.

And it is not the end for Douglas. The final words prove that he continues with his journey; he seeks to find a woman he encountered in the time he spent travelling alone. Her name forms the title of a new chapter.