Kite Runner - Book Review

Book report

Kite Runner

Kite Runner is very interesting book. It is a very disturbing book with all of the graphic details and what not. You know when your watching a movie and someone is getting tortured very badly and there is blood everywhere and it is a really graphic scene? But you still watch even though it’s gross because you want to see what is going to happen to the person? That is how Kite Runner is for me. Even though the book is very disturbing in many parts I can’t put it down because I want to keep reading to see what happens to the person after the graphic and disturbing scenes. Not only are the rape scenes disturbing but also the whole passage on the Buzkashi tournament. During the time of when this book takes place in Afghanistan there were/are many people that are illiterate. Amir was well educated and sometimes took advantage of it. Because Amir was much more intelligent that Hassan he was always playing mind games with Hassan and he would fall for them because he didn’t really know lies from the truth.

Assef reminds me of Hitler because of his way of thinking and actions. Assef wanted Afghanistan to be just pure afghan people and Hitler was the same way because he only wanted pure Germans in Germany. However the funny part is they wanted this but at the same time Assef was not pure afghan and Hitler wasn’t pure German.

There were many things that bothered me through out the book and that were hard to get through. In the beginning of the book when Amir is describing his house in great detail was really hard to get though. .

Another part of the book that bothered me was the all the rape scenes. The worst so far that bothered me the most was when Amir is in the alley and he has a decision to either help Hassan or run away. He says “ I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan-the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past-and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran…maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba”(77). This is very upsetting because right there is where I lost all respect for Amir. He is sacrificing his friend for about two weeks of a good relationship with his father. Amir is complete scum because the reason Hassan was getting raped was because he didn’t want to give up the kite because he was going to give it to Amir. Hassan could have given the kite and would not have gotten raped, but he is a true and genuine friend unlike Amir.

Hassan always considered Amir his friend but Amir didn’t consider Hassan his friend. And that is interesting because it was the same with their fathers. When Amir is talking about his father he says, “but in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend. The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either”(25). The phrase “like father like son” perfectly describes this situation. Another time is when Baba takes Amir to the lake the day the orphanage opens, Baba tells his son to invite Hassan to go with them. But he doesn’t and admits that “He asked me to fetch Hassan too, but I lied and told him Hassan had the runs. I wanted Baba all to myself”(12). That was a very selfish move because Amir was only thinking of himself and not about others.

Amir and Baba are also both very self-centered. Amir is self-centered because he didn’t care that Hassan was getting raped just so that Amir could get Hassan’s kite. When Rahim Khan is talking to Baba he says, “you know, sometimes you are the most self-centered man I know”(22).

I also lost complete respect for Baba when he was talking very negatively about his son, Amir. When Baba is talking to Rahim Khan he talks about Amir to him and says, “I’m telling you, Rahim, there is something missing in that boy…a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything”(22). There is nothing wrong with Amir not wanting to be violent and Baba right now is contradicting himself and being a hypocrite. He is being a hypocrite because Baba is the one who likes to keep peace and a way to keep peace is no violence and that is exactly what Amir is doing. Baba and Amir have a very weird relationship and because it is so weird I don’t understand why Amir would always try to please him and want to be with him. Lastly I don’t understand why Amir would care about what his father said to him because of all the things Amir says about his father he makes him sound very weird, and the interpretation that I have of Baba I don’t really want to be near him. The first negative comment Amir says about him father is “ the problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way