Reading: Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
Kite Runner (2003) is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini that talks about Amir who seeks his redemption from his mistake he made when he was still with Hassan. The one first mistake that created the others, was Amir’s jealousness of Hassan. Amir was very jealous of Hassan because Amir’s father, Baba, was so fond of Hassan more than to him because Hassan was more ‘manly’ than Amir was, even though Hassan was from a lower social class. Amir felt that he was a failure to Baba, hence Baba was ignoring him, and showed more respect to Hassan as if he were more of ‘his son’. Sadly, when the day came when Amir could show his ‘manly’ side by winning in a kite fighting, Amir somehow showed to himself that he was actually not ‘manly’ by ignoring Hassan when Hassan was raped by bullies rather than saving him. That was the turning point when everything became worse and worse, until one day, he got a chance to redeem himself by saving Hassan’s child.
There are five important characters in this novel which are Amir, Baba, Hassan, Ali, and Sohrab. The first one, the main character, is Amir. Amir comes from high social class and is wealthy. However, as I have mentioned before, he thinks that his father hates him because Amir acts like a girl, for example reading books, and cannot defend himself from bullies. Not only that, but Amir also thinks that his father hates him because Amir was the reason why his wife was dead (by giving him birth). Next, there is Baba, Amir’s father. He comes from the high social class and is wealthy. The third one is Hassan. Hassan is Amir’s best friend and also his servant. He comes from low social class and is poor. Later we know that Hassan is actually Baba’s son which makes him Amir’s brother. That is also the reason why Baba cares about Hassan. He is very kind and always help Amir when someone bullies him. Ali is Hassan’s father, and he is also a servant and very loyal to Baba. He comes from lower class and is poor. Next is Sohrab. Sohrab is Hassan’s son. He is depressed because he is also abused by the same bullies who bullied Hassan. However, he becomes the concrete thing in Amir’s redemption.
The interesting thing about this novel is the Amir’s seek of redemption. In his story, there are a lot of things that can be learned such as humanity, human rights, and equality. We can learn those things just like Amir can learn and discover those things in the book, for example, how they become equal with common people in America. They experience living in low social class, not like the way they used to be. One thing in the book that is also quite unique that Khaled Hosseini decided to put the gay rape as the turning point for Amir to betray Hassan.
In my opinion, I don’t love it, but I also don’t hate it. This book is not my cup of tea, for I prefer action, fantasy, and science fiction. However, what I like about this story is it is not cliché. These types of book, where it talks about humanity, equality, and other philosophy, usually come in a boring and predictable story, but Kite Runner isn’t that predictable. But the thing that makes me didn’t enjoy it is I couldn’t relate to this story or to Amir in most things. The only relatable thing that kind of stroke me, was the feeling of guiltiness in me for doing some fatal mistakes in my life and understand how difficult to redeem and fix that mistake.
