The Kite Runner Chapter 19 Quotes
The Kite Runner Chapter 19 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
We said our good-byes early the next morning. Just before I climbed into the Land Cruiser, I thanked Wahid for his hospitality. He pointed to the little house behind him. "This is your home," he said. His three sons were standing in the doorway watching us. The little one was wearing the watch – it dangled around his twiggy wrist. (19.113)
To undo his actions – or pardon himself – Amir gives Wahid's sons a watch. Where did we see a watch before in this novel? Oh yeah, the time Amir put a watch under Hassan's mattress in order to get his half-brother dismissed from the household. Now that we think about it, this story has a lot in common with Oedipus the King and other Greek tragedies. (Here, let me betray you. What's that? You're my brother? Flip.)
Quote 2
"So what do you do in America, Amir agha?" Wahid asked.
"I'm a writer," I said. I thought I heard Farid chuckle at that.
"A writer?" Wahid said, clearly impressed. "Do you write about Afghanistan?"
"Well, I have. But not currently," I said. My last novel, A Season for Ashes, had been about a university professor who joins a clan of gypsies after he finds his wife in bed with one of his students. It wasn't a bad book. Some reviewers had called it a "good" book, and one had even used the word "riveting." But suddenly I was embarrassed by it. I hoped Wahid wouldn't ask what it was about.
"Maybe you should write about Afghanistan again," Wahid said. "Tell the rest of the world what the Taliban are doing to our country."
[Amir:] "Well, I'm not...I'm not quite that kind of writer." (19.51-56)
We think the plot of A Season for Ashes might be the most ridiculous plot ever. How could Amir not feel guilty as an Afghan writer (or even as a writer in general)? He's not writing about his homeland, or the devastation and destruction there, but instead about a professor who joins a troupe of gypsies. That's silly. We see how A Season for Ashes could be a serious book – both funny and heartbreaking at the same time – but the book seems to have nothing to do with Amir's life. It's "fiction" in the worst sense.