This is one of the most compelling and moving novels I've read in many years. The fact that it concerns Afghanistan, a country that has up to now attracted the attention of few novelists writing in English, adds to its attraction, just as the contemporary importance of Afghanistan in international affairs adds to its significance. Its author is a San Francisco doctor of Afghan extraction, and because the main character in the novel is an aspiring writer, you can't help feeling there is a degree of autobiographical content in the book.
The title The Kite Runner refers to the game of flying kites with their strings coated in glue and powdered glass, so that they can be used to cut through the strings of competing kites. Such kite battles are an ancient sport in Asia, and constituted a regular date on the calendar in Kabul before the coming to power of the puritanical Taliban.
"The thing about you Afghanis is that — well, you people are a little reckless." This observation from a Peshawar hotel manager in the novel strikes at the heart of Afghanistan's many afflictions. Invaded by the Soviets in 1980, only to suffer again at the hands of the fundamentalist Taliban, you can only wonder why such a bold, free-spirited people, however reckless, should have to suffer under such a devastating double-assault.
The novel begins before the Soviet invasion with the childhood pranks of two Afghan boys. As with Alain-Fournier's classic Le Grand Meaulnes, this book presents a world that is now gone forever. Amir is officially the only son of Baba and lives in the relative luxury of his spacious Kabul house. His friend is Hassan, a servant-boy living in a hut in the family compound. Whereas Amir's mother haemorraged to death in giving birth, Hassan's mother eloped to join a group of travelling singers and dancers at the sight of her new-born's hare lip.
The contrast between Amir and Hassan is established from the beginning. Driven by a need for his father's approval, Amir teasingly exploits Hassan's illiteracy. Hassan, by contrast, is a pure innocent. Born into the Hezara tribe, he's happy to serve Amir's breakfast and cheerfully attends to his daily needs. Yet his capacity for intuitive thought, plus his unflinching loyalty, mark him out as an incomparable childhood companion.
Amir is a fledgeling writer, and when Hassan is tricked into hearing one of his stories, believing it's from the school anthology, his joyful, ecstatic response gives Amir the confidence he's previously lacked.
A casual remark by his father that Amir might win the biggest kite tournament in 25 years stimulates his ambitions. Hassan is his "kite runner" — the person who runs to claim the cut-free kites — but their eventual victory is marred by the intervention of Assef, one of Amir's classmates. Of mixed Afghan and German blood, he admires Hitler and loathes the Hezaras.
Pinning Hassan to the ground, Assef proceeds to rape the Hezara servant, while Amir turns his back on the scene, too terrified to protest. So begins Amir's inner guilt and ultimate quest for redemption.
Like many people who have witnessed and been tainted by a brutal event, Amir's initial response is to withdraw from Hassan. Their final meeting, involving a dysfunctional pomegranate fight, leaves Hassan smearing his own face with pomegranate juice rather than attack Amir, and they part in an unsatisfactory stalemate. Amir's indecision causes him to miss a decisive confrontation with Assef, something that's left to Hassan's son, years later, to enact.
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