The Kite Runner: Week 6, Post B

!!!!! WARNING: THIS POST WILL SPOIL THE BOOK FOR ANYONE WHO READS IT. *BIG  HUGE SPOILER WARNING* !!!!!

For this week's Post B, I just want to reflect on what I just read. The section was full of significant events and there is a lot to think and talk about. 

When I finished the last page of this section, I just started to cry. I couldn't help but do anything but that. I felt terrible for Amir and all he went through in this section of the book. 

First of all, there's Baba getting sick and Amir having to help him and support him when he was turning so incredibly frail. Because Baba was so strong, confident, and robust in his life as a younger man, no one ever saw his illness and being so sick coming. Amir doesn't know what to do once Baba gets really sick. Baba had always been his strongman when Amir really needed it. Now that Baba was weaker and less confident, Amir doesn't know what to do. He can hardly recognize his father. 

 

Second, there was actually a really happy and good thing that happened in this section. Amir finally talks to his father about wanting to marry Soraya. Baba goes to the General's house and asks if he will allow his daughter to marry Amir, Baba's son. This is how engagements happen in Afghan custom. Then, Baba tells Amir that the General has indeed allowed Soraya and Amir to get engaged. They have a huge party, and Amir and Baba meet all of Soraya's family and they get to know them better and everyone becomes very happy about the engagement. They get married and they become a perfectly married couple, wonderfully happy with each other. Soraya helps take care of Baba with Amir, and he continues just about the same as he was when he got sick.

 

Third, there is something heart-wrenchingly sad that happens once Amir and Soraya get married. They try to have a child for about a year. They go to see a doctor about it and he calls it "unexplainable infertility". This devastates Amir and Soraya because they really wanted to have children, and adoption is just not an option in the Afghan state-of-mind. 

 

Fourth, Rahim Kahn calls Amir all the way from Afghanistan and tells him that he is getting sick. Rahim is the man that was best friends with Baba when Amir was a young boy still living in Afghanistan. He almost preferred Rahim Kahn to Baba, because Rahim supported Amir in everything he did and he had encouraged Amir's writing ever since he gave him the leather-bound notebook to write all his stories in. He was Amir's second father, and when he finds out that Rahim is getting old and becoming very sick, Amir is torn apart. Amir goes to visit him in Afghanistan.

 

Fifth, when Amir gets to his homeland, Rahim begins to tell him what happened to Hassan ever since Amir and Baba fled their beloved country. Hassan had found a small home, a wife, and he'd had a son. But, then, things suddenly turned worse when he moved into Baba's house to live with Rahim Kahn. The Hazaras, Hassan's people, are getting killed everywhere, and for no reasons at all. Soon, they find Hassan and his wife. He is tortured in the street, and then shot in the head. Same with his wife. 

When Amir hears all that has happened to Hassan, he feels terrible. He starts to cry, he cannot believe what he's hearing, and he wishes that he could do something about it. He has just lost the closest person he ever had to a brother. I think most of what Amir feels is guilt from not protecting Hassan in the alley that afternoon. He probably believes that this is the reason Hassan stopped talking to him. And, I think it is. If I were in Hassan's shoes, I'm almost sure that I would treat Amir the very same way. Hassan was nothing but loyal, loving, trustworthy, and kind to Amir. Pretty much the only thing Amir was to Hassan was betraying, cruel, and just plain bullying most of the time. I do not blame Hassan at all for how he treated Amir. I think Amir deserved it. But, after a while, Hassan or Amir should have done more to find the other, because they still loved each other very much. I think they should have found each other and forgiven each other for what both of them did to the other.

 

Now can you see how the only thing I could do in response to this section was cry? I think all of it was heart-wrenching. I still adore this book, however. It is amazing to me. I am still only a little more than halfway done with it! I have a long ways to go yet.