More Kite Runner

THIRD ENTRY
Continuing from my last blog; Amir and his wife, Soraya, are unable to have children and while Soraya is devastated by this fact, Amir thinks it's a punishment, from a higher power, for what he did to Hassan. Amir's life after Baba's death is pretty successful; he has a nice house, loveable in-laws, and a few published books. One day, Rahim Khan, an old friend of Baba's, calls up Amir and asks him to visit. While in Afghanistan, for the first time since he and Baba fled, Amir learns, from Rahim Khan, that Hassan was married, and had a son, but died at the hands of unjust Taliban soldiers. Hassan's son, Sohrab, is sent to an orphanage in Kabul where Rahim Khan asks Amir to get him. One intersting twist in the story was the fact that Hassan is actually Baba's son, not Ali's. Thinking back to his childhood, Amir now "connects the dots" as to why Baba never forgot Hassan's birthday, got him an operation for his harelip, always treated him as part of the family and cried so hard when Ali took him away. The one good thing out of all this was that Amir doesn't feel as bad about the way he treated Hassan because his father, in Amir's mind, did much worse. So, Amir, along with Farid, his driver, head to the orphanage to find Sohrab. Incidentally, the man-hunt for Sohrab leads Amir to Assef, his childhood nemesis, who bought Sohrab from the orphange he previously lived in. Sohrab, who looks just like Hassan, was ridiculed by Assef. Though it was not said exactly, it can be inferred that Assef raped Sohrab, as he did to his father many years before. Amir is challenged to a fight for Sohrab and, ultimately, gets demolished but, thanks to Sohrab and his handy dandy slingshot skills, Amir and saved and Assef loses an eye, as was promised by Hassan years before. The rest of the book is just a custody battle over Sohrab, between Amir and the Afghan government. Sohrab attempts suicide, after learning that he may have to go back to an orphanage, but is adopted by Amir in the end. After his suicide attempt, Sohrab remains silent for a year, and only breaks into a smile after kite fighting with Amir, who became Sohrab's kite runner. One word to describe this book: wow. This novel is like a rollercoaster, not in the emotional sense, but in the interest level sense. One minute the reader is completely bored, wondering when the torture, and the next minute the reader finds her/himself sucked into this original story. The only query I have about this book is the inspiration, was it an autobiography? The details seemed eerily descriptive, as if Hosseini (sorry if I spelled it wrong), while writing the book, was going over every little detail of his life up until that point. All in all, the book was actually more interesting than I once gave it credit for. One part of the book that really stuck out to me was the twist: Baba was Hassan's father. The only thing I regret about the book is that they didn't delve deeper into Baba's sordid past, it was the most scandalous part of the book and yet Hosseini didn't have much more description than the fact that men couldn't resist Sanaubar and Baba's extreme devotion to Hassan. In the beginning of the book, I always wondered why Baba treated Hassan so well, as far as Hazara slaves go, and why he cried so hard when Ali took Hassan away. Anyway, really good read, something I just may want to read again, in the future.