"Think of something good," Baba said in my ear. "Something happy."
Something good. Something happy. I let my mind wander. I let it come:
Friday afternoon in Paghman. An open field of grass speckled with mulberry trees in blossom. Hassan and I stand ankle-deep in untamed grass, I am tugging on the line, the spool spinning in Hassan's calloused hands, our eyes turned up to the kite in the sky. Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything – that's how it is between people who are each other's first memories, people who have fed from the same breast. A breeze stirs the grass and Hassan lets the spool roll. The kite spins, dips, steadies. Our twin shadows dance on the rippling grass. From somewhere over the low brick wall at the other end of the field, we hear chatter and laughter and the chirping of a water fountain. And music, some thing old and familiar, I think it's Ya Mowlah on rubab strings. Someone calls our names over the wall, says it's time for tea and cake. (10.73-75)
You need some context for this quote. Baba and Amir are on their way to Pakistan, but they're not traveling by taxi or bus. They're in the belly of an oil tanker along with dozens of other Afghans. Baba tells Amir to think of something "good," something "happy." So what does Amir think of? His childhood with Hassan. We believe this passage proves Amir's (brotherly) love for Hassan. Notice that Amir doesn't recall a special moment with Baba, or even his books or poetry. He thinks of Hassan.
"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?" (3.29-34)
As Amir tells us about his father, a portrait of an immensely likable, dominant, and moral man emerges. To Amir, Baba is both larger-than-life and principled. The combination of these two qualities magnifies Amir's shame when he abandons Hassan in the alleyway. How could you ever tell a man who supposedly wrestled a bear that you broke one of his principles? That you allowed Assef to steal Hassan's innocence and childhood? Of course, all this is complicated by the fact that Baba – before Amir was born – stole Ali's honor. With that in mind, Baba's bit of advice to Amir contains a good deal of self-loathing.
Quote 3
I heard the leather of Baba's seat creaking as he shifted on it. I closed my eyes, pressed my ear even harder against the door, wanting to hear, not wanting to hear. [Baba:] "Sometimes I look out this window and I see him playing on the street with the neighborhood boys. I see how they push him around, take his toys from him, give him a shove here, a whack there. And, you know, he never fights back. Never. He just...drops his head and..."
"So he's not violent," Rahim Khan said.
"That's not what I mean, Rahim, and you know it," Baba shot back. "There is something missing in that boy."
[Rahim Khan:] "Yes, a mean streak."
[Baba:] "Self-defense has nothing to do with meanness. You know what always happens when the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fends them off. I've seen it with my own eyes. And when they come home, I say to him, 'How did Hassan get that scrape on his face?' And he says, 'He fell down.' I'm telling you, Rahim, there is something missing in that boy."
"You just need to let him find his way," Rahim Khan said.
"And where is he headed?" Baba said. "A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything." (3.60-66)
Hosseini, you and your irony. Baba complains to Rahim Khan about Amir. According to Baba, Amir never stands up for himself; he always lets Hassan defend him. And someone who can't stand up for himself can't stand up for a friend, or his principles, or anything. Amir overhears Baba's little speech and it hurts him deeply. But the irony comes into focus later when Amir watches Assef rape Hassan and doesn't intervene. So Amir secretly listens to his father criticize the betrayal he will later secretly commit. Irony and foreshadowing at the same time. It's like a party or something.
Quote 4
That was when Baba stood up. It was my turn to clamp a hand on his thigh, but Baba pried it loose, snatched his leg away. When he stood, he eclipsed the moonlight. "I want you to ask this man something," Baba said. He said it to Karim, but looked directly at the Russian officer. "Ask him where his shame is."
They spoke. "He says this is war. There is no shame in war."
"Tell him he's wrong. War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace." (10.18-20)
Well, when a man eclipses the moonlight, you should listen. Notice how Amir doesn't listen, though. An Afghan woman is about to be raped and Amir tries to stop Baba from standing up to the Russian officer. Remind you of something Amir does (or doesn't do) in an earlier chapter? Baba's actions, honorable as they are, must compound Amir's guilt. His father does exactly what Amir failed to do. Amir even tries to stop his father – as if some unconscious part of him wants his father, and the others in the truck, to share his guilt instead of magnifying it.
Quote 5
The same day he was hired, Baba and I went to our eligibility officer in San Jose, Mrs. Dobbins. She was an overweight black woman with twinkling eyes and a dimpled smile. She'd told me once that she sang in church, and I believed her – she had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey. Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. "Thank you but I don't want," Baba said. "I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don't like it free money."
Mrs. Dobbins blinked. Picked up the food stamps, looked from me to Baba like we were pulling a prank, or "slipping her a trick" as Hassan used to say. "Fifteen years I been doin' this job and nobody's ever done this," she said. And that was how Baba ended those humiliating food stamp moments at the cash register and alleviated one of his greatest fears: that an Afghan would see him buying food with charity money. Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor. (11.29-30)
Even in America, where Amir finally sees a more human side of Baba since they struggle to make ends meet, Baba never wavers in his principles. One of which, it seems, is to not be on welfare. This probably comes from Baba's strong sense of independence and self-sufficiency. This episode with the welfare eligibility officer makes Rahim Khan's revelation of Baba's affair with Sanaubar all the more surprising. Baba seems ready to sacrifice his comfort (here) and even his life (with the Russian soldier above) for the principle of honor (nang). So, how could Baba betray Ali? And how could Baba literally live with his betrayal (since he keeps Hassan around)?
Quote 6
Baba would enlighten me with his politics during those walks with long-winded dissertations. "There are only three real men in this world, Amir," he'd say. He'd count them off on his fingers: America the brash savior, Britain, and Israel. "The rest of them – " he used to wave his hand and make a phht sound " – they're like gossiping old women."
[...]. In Baba's view, Israel was an island of "real men" in a sea of Arabs too busy getting fat off their oil to care for their own. "Israel does this, Israel does that," Baba would say in a mock-Arabic accent. "Then do something about it! Take action. You're Arabs, help the Palestinians, then!" (11.3-4)
Baba's ideas about masculinity even seep into his politics. America, Britain, and Israel are the only real men in international politics because they take action instead of simply talk. Don't forget, though, how Baba's life changes once he immigrates to America, one of the "masculine" countries. He diminishes in stature; he's no longer throwing lavish parties and building orphanages, but instead working long hours at a gas station. And what caused Baba to move to America? The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, which sounds like a country "taking action." The very qualities – and countries – Baba praises actually ruin him. Is it possible for Hosseini to include any more irony in this novel?
Quote 7
"Remember this," Baba said, pointing at me, "The man is a Pashtun to the root. He has nang and namoos." Nang. Namoos. Honor and pride. The tenets of Pashtun men. Especially when it came to the chastity of a wife. Or a daughter. (12.11)
Well, Baba gives you a pretty explicit definition of masculinity here: honor and pride. But we also want to note – though honor and pride are generally good things – how nang and namoos affect Afghan women. Meaning, how do Baba's (and General Taheri's) ideas about their own identity affect their wives and daughters and daughter in-laws? Well, the idea here is that women need to be pure for men. A man's honor is tied up in the purity of his wife and daughter. Granted, feminists would have a field day with this one, but we also want to point out the irony (again!) of Baba's statement. Didn't he steal Ali's honor by sleeping with Sanaubar? Did that act destroy Baba's honor, too, and thus his masculinity? Are there any truly honorable men in this novel? Or are the honorable men only in the movies Amir and Baba used to watch?
When I was in fifth grade, we had a mullah who taught us about Islam. His name was Mullah Fatiullah Khan, a short, stubby man with a face full of acne scars and a gruff voice. He lectured us about the virtues of zakat and the duty of hadj; he taught us the intricacies of performing the five daily namaz prayers, and made us memorize verses from the Koran – and though he never translated the words for us, he did stress, sometimes with the help of a stripped willow branch, that we had to pronounce the Arabic words correctly so God would hear us better. He told us one day that Islam considered drinking a terrible sin; those who drank would answer for their sin on the day of Qiyamat, Judgment Day. [...]
"I see you've confused what you're learning in school with actual education," he [Baba] said in his thick voice.
[Amir:] "But if what he said is true then does it make you a sinner, Baba?"
"Hmm." Baba crushed an ice cube between his teeth. "Do you want to know what your father thinks about sin?"
[Amir:] "Yes."
"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." (3.13-25)
Hosseini depicts a liberal, Westernized Afghanistan through the character of Baba. Most of us probably think of Afghanistan as a traditional Islamic country – and some of that's true. But that thinking ignores the people like Baba, of an earlier era, who lived in larger cities like Kabul. Baba also has Westernized tastes: action movies, American cars, scotch. We can place Baba against the more extreme Taliban-ruled era – he's a throwback to the urban, secular Afghanistan of Amir's childhood.
I read it to him in the living room by the marble fireplace. No playful straying from the words this time; this was about me! Hassan was the perfect audience in many ways, totally immersed in the tale, his face shifting with the changing tones in the story. When I read the last sentence, he made a muted clapping sound with his hands.
"Mashallah, Amir agha. Bravo!" He was beaming.
"You liked it?" I said, getting my second taste – and how sweet it was – of a positive review.
"Some day, Inshallah, you will be a great writer," Hassan said. "And people all over the world will read your stories."
"You exaggerate, Hassan," I said, loving him for it.
"No. You will be great and famous," he insisted. (4.52-57)
If we were to ask you (we're asking you) who admires whom in The Kite Runner, how would you respond? Your first answer would surely be: Amir admires Baba. Most of the events in the novel happen because Amir never gets the love he needs from Baba. Amir's jealousy of Hassan drives him to do some pretty terrible things. But don't forget the other story of devotion and admiration in The Kite Runner: Hassan's unflagging admiration for Amir.
"Amir is going to be a great writer," Baba said. I did a double take at this. "He has finished his first year of college and earned A's in all of his courses."
"Junior college," I corrected him.
"Mashallah," General Taheri said. "Will you be writing about our country, history perhaps? Economics?"
"I write fiction," I said, thinking of the dozen or so short stories I had written in the leather-bound notebook Rahim Khan had given me, wondering why I was suddenly embarrassed by them in this man's presence.
"Ah, a storyteller," the general said. "Well, people need stories to divert them at difficult times like this." (11.78-82)
The General intends to slam writing here as if he's a WWF wrestler and writing is a competitor who just insulted his mother. The General dismisses fiction as mere storytelling. As a diversion for people during "difficult times." How accurate is the General's comments? Does Amir write for diversion in "difficult times"? Do you think Amir feels guilty because he's not writing about Afghan history? Does The Kite Runner itself fulfill the General's requirements for serious writing? Or would the General call it mere storytelling?