A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner: A Comparison

For me, The Kite Runner was a revelation. The first half of the book was, without question, much, much better than the second half, yet through and through it remained an excellent read. Shortly after finishing the book, I went to the library in search of another Khaled Hosseini read. I settled on A Thousand Splendid Suns, the book Hosseini wrote following The Kite Runner. While reading The Kite Runner, I complained about how little time was given to women. How can you write a book that critiques Islam while largely leaving out the female perspective? In this way, A Thousand Splendid Suns has, insofar, delivered. In most other aspects, however, A Thousand Splendid Suns has fallen well short of the lofty expectations that I originally set for it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns feels a lot like “The Kite Runner 2.0”. Rather than invent new plot and setting aspects, Hosseini chooses instead to reuse much of what made The Kite Runner so unique and enjoyable. Both books deal with infidelity and its consequences. In The Kite Runner, Baba and Ali keep the fact that Baba fathered an illegitimate son a secret. Hassan, said illegitimate child, lives and appears to all to be Ali’s child. This allows Baba to maintain his good standing in Kabul. The same is true in A Thousand Splendid Suns as a Baba-like figure fathers a girl with a housemaid. Instead of keeping them close, the man (Jalil), builds a hut in the woods for his illegitimate child and his mistress (Mariam and Nana, respectively). Nana goes on to commit suicide. This made me think of Sohrab’s attempted suicide, and also the twisty-turny The Da Vinci Code-esque feel of the second part of The Kite Runner.

That being said, A Thousand Splendid Suns does touch on the female perspective, as Mariam is wedded through arranged marriage to a man she doesn’t know and has no interest in marrying. Many women, as depicted in this book, are truly powerless. They are forced to wear burkas in public, and A Thousand Splendid Suns chronicles rampant domestic abuse. Hosseini also examines the double standard between men and women. Mariam discovers pornography belonging to her husband. This goes strongly against Islam, yet he still forces her to wear the burqa, etc. and follow a strict form of Islam.

All in all,  A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner were eerily similar. Both are good books and I think that had I read his second book first, I may have liked it more than his first. It’s just unfortunate that Hosseini felt the need to make them so unnecessarily similar.

The Kite Runner is fantastic, yet is it AP?

The Kite Runner is an excellent yarn--hardly anyone can deny this--yet is it of sufficient literary merit for an AP English class? While the book does possess many positive qualities, I am inclined to think that it is not deep enough for an AP English class. That being said, I believe that an argument can be made for either side.

The Kite Runner can really be split into two parts. Up until Rahim Khan’s “call to adventure,” where he urges Amir to return to Pakistan to “be good again,” the book seems to demonstrate a somewhat dubious claim to its value as an book worthy of an AP English class. There is certainly some historical worth, as Hosseini manages to quietly depict the changes undergone in Afghanistan’s tumultuous recent history. The increase in Soviet “soft power,” the nonviolent spread of culture and economic influence, is seen rise before the eventual Soviet invasion, and Khaled Hosseini doesn’t miss his chance to compare pre-war Kabul with Taliban-controlled Kabul, yet the book could have gone farther in this respect. Hosseini was limited because the narrator is a man remembering the past, all the way back to his childhood. As a child, Amir was understandably unconcerned with Afghani politics.

In my mind, The Kite Runner’s biggest claim to literary value may come through it’s themes and irony. The theme that, for better or worse, things are not always as they seem is an idea seen countless times in the book. Baba may be the most prominent example, as his god-like respect is tempered when Rahim Khan tells Amir that he fathered an illegitimate son, Hassan. Irony and this theme weave together in the book, as we see that the United States, the grand land of opportunity, is not hugely helpful to Baba and General Taheri, as neither are very wealthy. The appearance vs. reality theme continues with them, as they were once powerful in Afghanistan yet are a gas station manager and jobless, respectively, in the U.S.

While its themes and irony may be of literary merit, its motifs are woeful and the second half of the book devolves in quality. The book shifts from a deep storyline, to a journey myth. With this change, the book becomes a fast-paced read and the plot becomes more dynamic, but these changes come at the expense of the literary value of the book as a whole. The second half feels like a retrogression as The Kite Runner becomes more of a Dan Brown-esque book than one worthy of our attention.

Despite its drawbacks, The Kite Runner is by no means a book without value. It has become one of my favorite books, even if I think its literary merit to be second-rate.

Hosseini's Departure Into Fiction, and the Possibility of a Veiled Autobiography

Up till now, it could’ve been an autobiography. This third quarter of the The Kite Runner is quite different than the first half of the book, as the autobiographical feel falls apart as Amir returns to Kabul to find Hassan’s son Sohrab who is now in the hands of Assef, Amir’s childhood bully. The unlikeliness of this situation contrasts greatly with the reasonably authentic air seen in the preceding pages. What is lost in authenticity is made up for by the plot, which becomes much more interesting with this unexpected twist.

In Amir’s return to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Khaled Hosseini sees his chance to contrast life their with the previous settings we have become familiar with: the old Kabul, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Peshawar is described as “clogged with bicycle riders, milling pedestrians, and rickshaws popping blue smoke, all weaving through a maze of narrow lanes and alleys. Bearded vendors draped in thin blankets sold animal-skin lampshades, carpets, embroidered shawls, and copper goods from rows of small, tightly jammed stalls. The city was bustling with sounds; the shouts of vendors rang in my ears mingled with the blare of Hindi music, the sputtering of rickshaws”(196). This is a level of description not seen previously, as Amir took these aspects of his surroundings for granted. After his time in America, Amir can now clearly see the differences, which allows Hosseini to better demonstrate the contrasting cultures. The contrast continues into Afghanistan, where Hosseini can contrast the new, Taliban-controlled Kabul with the old Kabul, as well as with the United States.

This section also beautifully depicts Hosseini’s skills as a writer, with the previous example being just one demonstration. My favorite example comes on page 237 as Amir likens seeing a picture of a grown Hassan as”[tearing] the fresh scab off his death.” This simile is relatable to everyone and thus keeps things personal and informal.

While I have little proof, I believe that The Kite Runner is brimming with references to Khaled Hosseini’s life. Baba pushed Amir to become a doctor, and perhaps the same is true of Hosseini and his father. Amir is characterized as having little willpower, yet he managed to resist Baba’s urgings to enter the medical field. Khaled Hosseini actually became a doctor and hated it, eventually choosing to switch to writing. I believe that Amir is based loosely on Khaled Hosseini himself, and that the The Kite Runner is something of a veiled autobiography. Yes, it is Amir's autobiography since Amir is the narrator, yet it may reflect Khaled Hosseini's own life as well. This obviously gives way with Amir’s return to Kabul to save Sohrab, yet I believe the point stands nevertheless.

A Changed Baba: The Fall of a Saintly Figure

In this section of The Kite Runner, Amir remains the focus as the story follows his framing of Ali and Hassan, Amir and Baba’s flight from Afghanistan, and their subsequent resettlement in the San Francisco Bay Area. Throughout the section, however, Amir really doesn’t change. The section begins with the lowest of lows, as he devises a plan to rid himself of Hassan. Insofar, he has not discussed this treacherous act and has failed to really change. This is something that almost definitely will change when he returns to Pakistan to visit Baba’s old friend, Rahim Khan, a man on his deathbed.

Amir always seemed to feel a little out of place in Afghanistan. In the United States, he seemed to be more at home. For Baba, the reverse is true. Once a powerful and involved part of the Kabul community, Baba is a mere day manager at a gas station in the United States, the supposed land of opportunity. This much is evident on page 129 as Amir suggests returning to Peshawar. “Peshawar was good for me. Not good for you” returned Baba. This discussion follows one of Baba’s breakdowns, as he becomes furious at a grocery store that refused to accept Baba’s check on trust alone, instead insisting on seeing Baba’s identification. The relocation to the United States, coupled with his increased age, catalyzes a change in Baba. Still a hard-working man a strong moral compass, Baba seems to be something less than the god he appeared to be in Afghanistan, with the grocery store incident being just one example. An even more pertinent example is Baba’s experience dealing with cancer. Baba learns that his pulmonologist is Russian and he “lost it, threatening to break the doctor’s arm if he tried to touch him. This is not the god-like, welcoming Baba that I had grown accustomed to. Instead, it marks a departure--a fall from grace--for Baba. The contrast between Baba and Amir are clear: Baba had it all in Afghanistan, while Amir just wanted to run away and forget Hassan and Ali. In America Baba and Amir begin to switch roles, with Amir becoming the adult figure Baba, who becomes weaker with age.

Despite the lack of females in The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini still manages to address the gender equality of Islam and Pashtun society. Before choosing to marry Soraya, Amir realizes what immense power he controls, “and all because I [he] had won at the genetic lottery that determined my [his] sex”(148-9p). This mode of thinking goes against the ideologies expressed by the Pashtuns and Muslims insofar, and demonstrates the power of Baba’s liberal ideas on his son. Furthermore, it is a demonstration of the influence of western society on a still impressionable Amir.

It should be noted that the plot appears to be taking a strange turn. So far, Baba and Amir left the oppression of Afghanistan for the safety and freedom of the United States in a harrowing journey. Baba dies and Amir marries the girl of his dreams as he becomes, by all accounts, very happy. This would seem like the perfect conclusion to a book but for the fact that The Kite Runner is only halfway done. The second half of the book will necessarily have to deal with Amir’s relation to Hassan, the significant loose end of the story insofar.

Afghanistan and the World: The Development of a Theme

As far as the plot of the The Kite Runner goes, the United States and the western world have yet to play a major role. Upon deeper examination, however, it can be seen how Khaled Hosseini portrays the changing relationship between the West and the Islamic world. Very early into the book, Hosseini plays with our perception of Islam when Amir enters Ali and Hassan’s hut. “The walls stood bare, save for a single tapestry with sewn-in beads forming the words Allah-u-akbar”(6p). With that last phrase, my mind initially had the reaction desired by Hosseini: could Ali be a terrorist or part of the Taliban? Western culture strongly associates the “Takbir”, the name of the Arabic phrase “Allah-u-akbar”, with radical jihadists, a fact that Hosseini looked to juxtapose. That fearful reaction may have been what Hosseini wished us to have, yet he goes on to show how completely unbased that reaction is. As I would quickly realize, Ali and Hassan are no terrorists. They are honest and hard-working, yet Hosseini has quietly, sublimely, called Americans on their treatment of Islam. The relationship between Islam and Afghanistan, and the western world continues to be slowly developed as the novel progresses. At the beginning of the book, Amir and Hassan went to watch American westerns. Interestingly, they thought the actors were Iranian, an indication of how sheltered their culture was. This goes hand in hand with Afghani economics at the time, as The Kite Runner mentions how sheltered the economy was. As time progresses, the movies change from American ones to Russian ones. The switch to Russian movies is a significant one. The story takes place during the Cold War, where the Soviet Union and the United States vied for power. The change in movies indicates how Afghanistan is caught in no-man’s-land in between the two premier world powers at the time. Both these countries would eventually invade Afghanistan, with the Soviet Union doing so in the near future of The Kite Runner. The novel starts in the present with Amir in San Francisco, indicating a dramatic change in the future where the U.S. gets more involved with Afghanistan (no real secret as to what that could be). This tense interaction between Islamic Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union and the United States is a theme that must grow as the book continues judging from the approaching events yet to unfold in Afghanistan’s history.