"Come. There is a way to be good again". These words are spoken at about the middle of The Kite Runner, a book I read when it first came out, and re-read in the wake of it now being 10 years of American warfare in Afghanistan. I was thinking about Khaled Hosseini's stunning novel and picked it up again, and found that it hit me in new ways.
The whole book reads in some ways like a series of punches in the gut. Told by Amir, the son of a wealthy Kabul businessman, it centers around his life and the intertwining life of his servant and inseparable companion, an ethnic Hazara by the name of Hassan.The two have an innocent, joyful childhood, one that comes to an abrupt halt when two things happen: Afghanistan is taken over by the Communists, and something so awful happens to Hassan that I can't speak of it; Hosseini does a far better job of that than I can. Amir can't live with his guilt, so he contrives a plot to have Hassan and Ali (Hassan's father) sent away.
Fast forward about 20 years. Amir has gone through college, married, and lost his father, Baba, to cancer. One day, the proverbial phone rings, and his quiet life is turned upside down. His father's dearest friend and business partner, Rahim Khan, is gravely ill. What Amir doesn't know, but suspects, is that Rahim Khan had known all along what Amir had done with Hassan. This is confirmed with the remark that I opened this diary with: "Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan hand said on the phone, just before hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought" (Kindle Locations 2747-2755).
So Amir accepts the invitation, and goes to Peshawar, Pakistan. Here comes another punch in the gut: in Peshawar, he finds out that Hassan, his inseparable companion, is actually his illegitimate half-brother. This revelation hits Amir hard. He screams. His whole world is shattered; everything he knows is upside down. "I opened the door and turned to him. 'Why? What can you possibly say to me? I'm thirty-eight years old and I've just found out my whole life is one big fucking lie! What can you possibly say to make things better? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing!' And with that, I stormed out of the apartment" (Kindle Locations 3164-67).
Amir soon realizes that Rahim Khan is right, that there "is a way to be good again". Khan is offering him a way to find redemption, through Hassan's little son, Sohrab. The thrilling adventure he goes through to find this little child is amazing and haunting: he finds his homeland decimated under Taliban rule, and finds Sohrab--a victim of the Taliban himself.
The novel is a roller-coaster of emotion, redemption and forgiveness. Amir knows the joy of making peace with his past, of ending the cycle of lies and betrayals that he has seen his whole life. This idea of redemption that has woven itself into the whole novel is something that I fear we have lost in our society. We all too quickly write off politicians for their personal foolishness, and judge people only based on their behavior, which, if it doesn't meet our standards (which we are far too often self-righteous about), we dismiss them out of hand, not giving them a second chance.
Amir has been given a second chance in trying to find Sohrab. He passes through a lot of physical and emotional pain in order to do this, and one final twist (which I will not give away), that literally brings him to his kness. Has he been wrong? Was his quest for redemption a meaningless dead end?
Not quite. In one of the final scenes, he is standing, looking at a photo of Sohrab and Hassan, his father.
"I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between two halves, Rahim Khan had said in his letter. 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 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.
I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night" (Kindle Locations 5085-94).
Ultimately, The Kite Runner is a tale of forgiveness, of healing from the heartbreaks of life. It is a beautiful novel, one that I hope we all read. I know that in a strange way, it helped me make peace with my own past--a good book can do that.