There are definitely things I wish I would have known before starting this novel. A lot of what takes place happened either before I was born or while I was a young child, so while I should be well aware of them now, I shamefully admit that I wasn’t. 

I always find myself flipping back and forth while reading novels, trying to keep up with characters, places, times, and events. I’ll jot things down to make sure I’m fully understanding the plot, a skill I wish more of my students would adopt. Here are a few things I think are important to know as you make your way through the story:

• Amir, the protagonist, is born in 1963 in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
• On July 17, 1973, Daoud Khan takes over Afghanistan in a middle of the night coup while King Shah is vacationing in Italy. Khan declares a Republic and takes on the role of President. Amir is about 10 years old at the time. Though initially frightened by this event, it doesn’t seem to change much, and life resumes for Amir as normal.
• On April 27th, 1978, anti-communist President Khan is murdered by pro-communist rebels, and Nur Mohammed Taraki, head of the Afghan Communist Party takes over as President, which leads to the December 1978 signing of the “friendship treaty” with Russia. Amir is 15 now, and things are going to begin to decline for his home country.
• In September of 1979, Taraki is murdered, and by December of that same year, Russia walks into the middle of an Afghan civil war between a communist government and the Muslim Mujahideen. Russia will occupy Afghanistan for about ten years. Amir is 16.
• In 1981, just shy of 18, Amir flees Kabul. He and his father, Baba, spend six months in Peshawar in Pakistan waiting for American visas. Amir will spend the rest of his life, minus a short, harrowing return to Afghanistan, in America.

The Kite Runner is a story of two boys: Amir, a Pushtan, is the son of wealth and privilege in Afghanistan, while Hassan, a Hazara, is a poor servant’s son. Hassan and his father work for Amir and Amir’s father, a history you learn about, or so you think, early on in the story. Hazaras, I would learn, are one of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic minority groups. I read this article from Al Jazeera to gain a better understanding of their history and hardships. The cities and history covered in the article mirror the events described in the novel, which is what always draws me to historical fiction. I know the story isn’t real, but in my heart I feel it could be for someone out there, or at least it is a very close representation of someone’s life, somewhere.

The novel is a story of friendship and the things we do or don’t do for those we call friends. It is also a story of betrayal, not only of those very friendships but betrayal that possibly changed the entire course of one’s life. You will be shocked by what happens and what you learn has happened. I finished The Kite Runner in two days because I simply had to know what was going to happen to the characters. I was invested, and I was heartbroken for every single person in the story.

…mechanics and tailors selling hand-me-down wool coats and scraped bicycle helmets, alongside former ambassadors, out-of-work surgeons, and university professors.

I have no idea what it’s like to have to walk away from everything in my life. I was struck by how so many had to just up and leave their homes, or how their homes were just taken from them with no remorse and no justice. I was reminded of how American it is to judge these kinds of people when they show up on our doorstep and how too many of us snub our noses at the idea of taking them in. I was struck by how the characters had been so successful in their home countries and could barely find work in the States.

The best word I can use to describe this novel is heavy. My heart was heavy, my body was literally weighed down by it. I felt ashamed for not knowing much at all about Afghanistan, the people, the culture. I felt guilty for being white, for being American, for being privileged, mostly guilty for not appreciating the privilege. We can’t change who we are, who we were born to, where we were born, but we can choose how we live our lives, and that’s what this story teaches us. What we do with our circumstance is what defines us.

Sad stories make good books.

After reading a hundred pages on a car ride to Corpus, I said to my sister in law after arriving at her apartment, “Are all books sad?” Forty-seven pages later, Amir’s soon-to-be wife would remind me that “Sad stories make good books.” The Kite Runner is sad and good in the best ways. 

Pick up a copy of one of my all time favorite books, A Kite Runner, at our shop!
-Lindsay