"For you, a thousand times over"

Brutally honest. Depressing. A work of sheer brilliance.

This is how I would describe Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner

This is an intense story with complex characters and situations that force you to think about friendship and loyalty, betrayal and forgiveness, regret and redemption. It makes you think hard about the consequences of your actions, and how your every day choices and decisions ultimately make you the person you grow up to be.

The story opens with the protagonist, Amir, looking back at his childhood days in Afghanistan, as he recalls a day in the winter of 1975 that changed his life forever. He talks about old memories that haunt him till several years later, even after he tried his best to leave his old life behind. It talks about Amir’s childhood friendship with Hassan, his relationship with his father, and his upbringing as a privileged member of the society.

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek... Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

I developed a love-hate relationship with Amir. As a reader, I could not help but be angry with him, with the things he did, with the people he wronged, and with his betrayal of Hassan’s never ending loyalty and friendship. Yet, there are times when I couldn't help but sympathize with him. Amir was self centered to have lied to get rid of Ali and Hassan, the people who have devoted their entire existence to the service of him and his father, and ultimately to even get any second thoughts about rescuing Hassan’s son from the war ravaged, Taliban ruled Afghanistan.

I was drawn in by Amir’s voice. I sympathized with him, cheered for him and felt angry with him at different points. He is human and admits to make mistakes, but towards the end he is heroic and noble.

I became attached to Hassan and his father, Ali. It broke my heart to understand Hassan’s true identity, and even more to learn he was eventually shot dead by the Taliban, sadly making me realise that there was going to no happy reunion between him and Amir, no way to make amends.
After everything that transpired between himself and Amir, Hassan bore nothing but love for him, and years later, still prayed for his friend’s well being, and waited patiently and respectfully for his return.

Amir’s father is one of the more complex elements of the story. He is brave, strong in his beliefs, and stands for what is right even if his life depends on it. He is loyal to Afghanistan and always thought of Kabul as home. Confused as I was at first, I eventually grew to admire his courage, righteousness and strength of character.

On another level, this is a book about culture. It is an insightful novel that spans three decades of the life and customs that have tragically become synonymous with terrorism. The story opens on an Afghanistan very few of us have known, a time when its streets and people were not ravaged by the mania of religious extremism and war, when it was a country of prosperity and liberal thought. 

Hosseini describes how the war has changed the country. As Amir returns, he sees the war ravaged streets of his hometown; the burned down houses, and rubble are all thats left of his beloved Kabul. 

“The infighting between the factions was fierce and no one knew if they would live to see the end of the day. Our ears became accustomed to the whistle of falling shells, to the rumble of gunfire, our eyes familiar with the sight of men digging bodies out of piles of rubble. Kabul in those days, Amir jan, was as close as you could get to that proverbial hell on earth.”

The Kite Runner is a melodramatic tearjerker of a novel that attempts to portray some of the pain of a country that has been ripped apart again and again. It doesn’t suggest any answers but tries to highlight the humanity behind the headlines.

Definitely not a happy ending story, it is painfully accurate about the realities of a country torn apart by war and terrorism.
There are no second chances, and by the time Amir has the good sense to try and set things right, most of the people who made his odd family back in Kabul are either dead or dying.
All the characters have their own sins and regrets, and as the novel progresses, time manages to unearth even the most deeply buried ones.

                                                                                                                                                               

The Kite Runner Quotes

“There is a way to be good again.”

“I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

“There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break.”

“For you, a thousand times over.”

“I brought Hassan’s son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.”

“I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba's guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, under-priveleged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son.”

“Because when spring comes it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting”

“I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curled up just so. A smile. Lopsided. Hardly there. But there.”

“"Good," Baba said, but his eyes wondered. "Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?"

"No, Baba jan," I said, desperately wishing I did. I didn't want to disappoint him again. [...]"When you kill a man, you steal a life," Baba said. "You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see? [...]There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir," Baba said. "A man who takes what's not his to take, be it a life or a loaf of naan...I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him. Do you understand?"”

“"Then I'll tell you," Baba said, "but first understand this and understand it now, Amir: You'll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots."

[Amir:] "You mean Mullah Fatiullah Khan?" [...]"They do nothing but thumb their prayer beads and recite a book written in a tongue they don't even understand." He [Baba] took a sip. "God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands."”

(As Amir prays in the hospital)

“I throw my makeshift jai-namaz, my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I bow to the west. Then I remember I haven't prayed for over fifteen years. I have long forgotten the words. But it doesn't matter [...]. [...]. I see now that Baba was wrong, there is a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this corridor of desperation. 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. There is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need [...].”

“Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.

Mine was Baba.His was Amir. My name. 

Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975—and all that followed—was already laid in those first words.”

“..to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance..."

By the River Piedra I sat Down and Wept 

~ Paulo Coelho

By the river Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river—leaves, insects, the feathers of birds—is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then my pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.

By the river Piedra I sat down and wept. The winter air chills the tears on my cheeks, and my tears fall into the cold waters that course past me.

Somewhere, this river joins another, then another, until far from my heart and sight all of them merge with the sea. May my tears run just as far, that my love might never know that one day I cried for him. May my tears run just as far, that I might forget the River Piedra, the monastery, the church in the Pyrenees, the mists, and the paths we walked together. I shall forget the roads, the mountains, and the fields of my dreamsthe dreams that will never come true.

I remember my "magic moment"that instant when a "yes" or a "no" can change one's life forever. It seems so long ago now. It is hard to believe that it was only last week that I had found my love once again, and then lost him.I am writing this story on the bank of the River Piedra. My hands are freezing, my legs are numb, and every minute I want to stop."Seek to live. Remembrance is for the old," he said.

Perhaps love makes us old before our time or young, if youth has passed. But how can I not recall those moments? 

That is why I write, to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance. 

So that when I finish telling myself the story, I can toss it into the Piedra. That's what the woman who has given me shelter told me to do. 

Only then, in the words of one of the saints, will the water extinguish what the flames have written.

All love stories are the same. 

And with love, there are no rules. Some may try to control their emotions and develop strategies for their behavior; others may turn to reading books of advice from "experts" on relationships but this is all folly. The heart decides, and what it decides is all that really matters.

All of us have had this experience. At some point, we have each said through our tears, "I'm suffering for a love that's not worth it." We suffer because we feel we are giving more than we receive. We suffer because our love is going unrecognized. We suffer because we are unable to impose our own rules.

"If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him. 

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."

“Yes, my mind was wandering. I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that i would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation. I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words.” 

Wait. This was the first lesson I learned about love. The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways – and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don’t know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection.

“Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.” 

"Every day, God gives us the sun – and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived the moment, that it doesn’t exist – that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention in their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seems the same to us. But that moment exists – a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles."

"I’m going to fight for your love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end. You are worth it.”

"The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no matter how foolish they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.

Love perseveres. It’s men who change.

“In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.” 

“But he was wrong. Because I had fought with my heart and defeated it long ago. I was certainly not going to become passionate about something that was impossible. I knew my limits; I knew how much suffering i could bear.” 

“And I began to feel sorry for myself; for so many years, my drawer full of memories had held the same old stories.”

“It's risky, falling in love.”

"I know that," I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.

"But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love.”

"What a horrible way to put it," he said.” 

“You shouldn't have asked," I said. "Love doesn't ask many questions, because if we stop to think we become fearful. It's an inexplicable fear; it's difficult even to describe it. Maybe it's the fear of being scorned, of not being accepted, or of breaking the spell. It's ridiculous, but that's the way it is. That's why you don't ask-you act. As you've said many times, you have to take risks.” 

“Make whatever decision you wish but never forget one thing: all of you are much better than you believed. Take advantage of the chance that tragedy has given you; not everyone is capable of doing so”