To help you perform well on the writing assessment and other activities related to The Kite Runner, we have provided some materials to guide your reading. We hope you will both enjoy and benefit from reading this book.
Introduction
The American literary and social critic Kenneth Burke wrote once that stories are “strategies for dealing with situations.” Human beings share both a need and a capacity for storytelling. We tell stories about ourselves, about the people we know, about the natural and social worlds of which we are a part, and about the ordinary choices and experiences that make up a lifetime. We tell stories for many purposes—to craft a sense of self, to make sense of our experiences, to record history, to transmit cultural values and traditions, to teach, and to entertain ourselves. The stories contained in The Kite Runner fulfill those purposes.
First published in 2003, The Kite Runner chronicles the life of Amir, a young boy living in Kabul, Afghanistan. The son of a powerful and well-to-do man, Amir develops a close friendship with Hassan, his young servant. As young boys, Amir and Hassan enjoy movies, playing outdoors, and participating in “kite running” competitions. The narrative spans several decades—from the late 1970s, prior to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, to the early years of the 21st century—as Amir, now an adult, looks back upon his childhood and struggles with the choices he made as a young boy and young man.
“I became what I am today at the age of twelve.” This, the first sentence of The Kite Runner, sets the tone for the rest of the novel. The weight of destiny is there—or, if not destiny, at least the sway of a moment—a significant past event leading unalterably to the present. The Kite Runner encourages the reader to consider how the course of one’s life and one’s sense of self can change in an instant, the moment one makes a choice or decision. As you read, consider whether and to what extent human life is comprised of the choices that we make from moment to moment, from day to day, and from year to year. To what extent is it true, from your own perspective, that a split-second decision may haunt us and shape subsequent choices? How do human beings deal with choices that involve betrayal (of self and of others) and the search for redemption?
Stories of human life—and human choices—are anchored by notions of time and space. Human understanding is also shaped by other factors, such as gender, nationality, age, ethnicity, and race. As you read the stories, what images of Afghanistan, Kabul, war, family relationships, and other themes are evoked for you and by you? How does your own identity—gender, ethnic, national—and your own location in time and space shape your reading?
How to Develop College-Level Reading Skills
We demand that college students read actively and critically. Doing so means more than simply finishing the assigned number of pages: your professors and classmates will expect you to retain information and to respond to the complexity of the works you encounter. The following suggestions will help you read The Kite Runner actively, and will also introduce you to the critical reading practices you will need for your Hamline courses.
As you read, spend time summarizing, contemplating, questioning, analyzing, and engaging the book. The Kite Runner will be an important part of some early discussions in your First-Year Seminars, and the book will also be used to assess your ability to communicate ideas and interpretations in an essay assigned at the beginning of the semester. The active reading skills described below will be a crucial component of your studies throughout your college career. Retain these suggestions and keep this guide as future reference for college reading strategies.
Pre-Reading Strategies
Before we even open a book, we form assumptions that shape our reading. Expert readers recognize that books are judged to some degree by their covers. Use the following questions to help you think about your “pre-judgments.” The following questions focus your attention on some especially important ideas raised by The Kite Runner. The questions will give you practice in asking the kinds of questions you should ask of any reading that you do in college. Prepare written responses to all these questions: they are examples of topics that can emerge when one reads actively.
• What does the title suggest? What does it tell you about the book?
• How does the cover (the photo, the layout and design, the writing on front and back) affect your expectations for the book?
• Have you heard anything about this book, its author, or its subject before? In what context did you hear or read about the book? What did you hear? If you have heard or read anything about this book, author, or subject before, how does your prior knowledge affect your attitude toward the subject matter?
• What does the book’s formatting indicate about the text?
• How does having the book assigned for critical study, rather than chosen for pleasure, affect your approach to reading?
• How might your expectations about the book’s purpose differ from the author’s view, the views of other audiences, or the views of the people who assigned the book?
• Given your answers to the questions above, how might your assumptions and “pre-judgments” influence and affect your reading experience? Do you start reading with an open mind?
• What do you already know about the history of Afghanistan? How might this knowledge (or lack thereof ) shape your reading of the text?
• What knowledge do you have of Afghan culture and traditions? How might this knowledge (or lack of knowledge) shape your reading of the story?
• If you identify as an Afghan or Afghan American citizen, what stories of your own do you have to share? How might your own experiences shape your reading of the text?
• How might ethnic stereotypes influence your perceptions of the book and your reading of the text? How might your non-Afghan identify influence your perceptions? If you are a member of a cultural, racial, religious or ethnic minority in the U.S., how do the stories of the treatments of Hazara people compare to your own life experiences? What do your stories have in common? How do they differ?
• What experience do you have in living with, working with, or relating to Afghan American citizens?
• What do you know about life in contemporary Afghanistan? What do you know about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979? What do you know about the history of the Russian-Afghan war from 1979–1989? What is your understanding of the Taliban? What is your understanding of the current Afghan political structure (Afghanistan became a republic in 2004 and adopted a new constitution)?
Reading Strategies
Critical readers are active readers: they enter into a dialogue with the book. As an active reader, underline and highlight key words and sentences, or write notes in the margins. Look up unfamiliar words (like “ghazal,” “naan,” and “namaz”) in a dictionary, and write the meanings in your book for future reference. Take notes in a reading journal about what you’re thinking; mark and keep track of moments where people in the story (or the writer) raise a major point, question, or issue. Re-read chapters or sections, as the significance of some issues will evolve through the course of the book. Develop questions about passages, issues, and motives to ask your classmates in the fall; keep testing and re-evaluating your sense of the book’s purpose (and your own purposes for reading). As you read, try to develop a more focused response to the text, but keep your mind (and possible responses) open; don’t close doors with a conclusive thesis about the book after the first chapter. Active readers move constantly between an open-ended exploration of the text and a more purposeful evaluation of what the text means.
• What parts of the book did you like best? Why?
What parts did you like least? Why?
• How does the novel challenge, reinforce, disrupt, or otherwise alter your perspectives on Afghan history, culture, and traditions? How do the stories challenge, reinforce, disrupt or otherwise alter any stereotypes you (or others) may have of Afghan culture and peoples?
• To which character do you relate the most: Amir? Hassan? Baba? Ali? Rahim Khan?
• What are the various ways in which people’s lives in Kabul are depicted?
• In a letter to Amir, Rahim Kahn writes, “A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer” (302). His point seems to be that Amir’s remorse in some way proves his goodness, and offers him a chance at redemption. What are examples of Amir’s—or any other character’s— “guilt leading to good” (302)?
• How do you define redemption? Does it imply compensation? Is there anything Amir can do, for instance, to make up for what he has done to Hassan? If not, can he still be redeemed?
• There is much repetition in The Kite Runner: events, characters, even descriptions echo throughout the book. Amir ends up with a scar above his upper lip, just like Hassan. Assef, the psychopathic bully, must again be faced and stood up to later in the book. Hassan’s mother returns and is re-introduced with many of the same words about her youthful appearance. What are other examples of this repetition? What is the purpose of such repetition?
• Compare and contrast the first chapter of The Kite Runner to the similar passages on pages 191 and 192. How are they alike? How are they different? (What has been expanded or cut in the later passages?) If they’re so close, why did the author decide to include both of them? Since the rest of the book is chronological, why did the author include the first chapter at all?
• “… in America,” Amir explains, “you don’t reveal the ending… if you do, you will be scorned and made to apologize profusely for having committed the sin of Spoiling the Ending” (357). In contrast, he says, “In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered” (357). How does knowing this information change the way you read and understand the book? The narrator, after all, is constantly spoiling the ending. The fact that he’s telling the story, for instance, from the vantage point of 2001 indicates that he must have survived it. More specifically, he is frequently saying things like “It would be the last bit of solid food I would eat for a long time” (275), warning the reader of what is to come in the story. What are other examples of the book spoiling the ending? Why does the author do this?
• Early in the book, Amir claims, “I hadn’t turned out like [Baba]. Not at all” (19). Is he right? What are examples that would confirm this statement? What are examples that would refute this statement? How does discovering the exact nature of Ali’s relationship to Hassan affect the way Amir compares himself to his father?
• What are the effects of popular culture (western movies, Lollywood, etc.) in Amir’s childhood? How does it shape the way Amir (or Hassan) lives his life? What is the significance of popular culture being banned in the country in which he grew up? Look at the boy selling “sexy pictures” at the soccer game (268), perhaps, or the way Amir describes his doctor as Clark Gable.
• Baba isn’t very religious, and yet he is accepted, embraced and even revered in a community that is. Why? And why does he gladly, uncomplainingly go through the religious rituals and customs—of Amir’s wedding, for instance— if for him they have little religious truth behind them?
• Trace Amir’s religious path from ambivalence, to desperation (when Sohrab is in the hospital, for example), to devotion: he no longer has to look up prayers, he tells us, because the verses “come naturally” (364). Why does he end up choosing religion? (Does it have anything to do with his becoming more socially active?)
• Baba hates when Amir cries, yet Baba cries at different points in the story, including when Ali and Hassan declare they are leaving. What’s the difference between Baba’s tears and Amir’s tears? Is there a difference?
• Pay attention to laughter in the book, specifically at those times when you wouldn’t ordinarily expect it. Amir begins laughing uncontrollably, for instance, while he is getting pummeled by Assef, just as Assef had laughed when being beaten by the commandant (283-89). Later, he laughs again when he is told Afghanis are reckless (316). What’s the point of this laughter? What’s the cause of it?
• Look at the “Rostam and Sohrab” story (29). What significance does it have in the book? Who represents whom? Do the answers to the previous question change over the course of the book?
• “For you, a thousand times over.” This line seems to be a key refrain in the book. What does it say about the meaning of service? Can it both reveal the injustice of Ali’s and Hassan’s low status in Afghani culture and affirm the profound selflessness—that is, goodness—in serving another? Why does Amir say this line at the end of the book? Has he learned something?
• What is the role of women in The Kite Runner? Of Hassan’s mother, Sanaubar? Of Amir’s wife, Soraya? Can their role(s) be compared to Hassan’s and Ali’s?
Active reading also involves writing to reflect on and to organize your ideas. Successful college students pause periodically to create a more formal record of what they are thinking to use later in discussions, on tests, or for essays. Keeping a reading journal is essential for retaining information and ideas.
As various ideas in The Kite Runner capture your imagination, record both your personal and critical responses. Identify relevant pages that help you organize and define your sense of the book’s major issues. Copy down passages you find profound, puzzling, interesting, or beautiful—and write some reasons why those passages affect you in the ways that they do. Doing so will be especially helpful as you prepare your writing assessment essay at the semester’s beginning. Finally, you might ask general questions (suggested below) to begin meaningful, reflective writing in your journal:
• What parts of the text intrigue me, or make me skeptical, or seem the best written? Why?
• What would I like to know more about?
• What resonates with my own experience? In what ways?
• How does what I am reading relate to other books I have read, movies I have seen, etc.?
• What passages would I read to a friend? Why?
• What key passages would serve as effective evidence or ‘proof ’ for my own interpretations—so I can support my ideas about the text in discussion and in writing, particularly for the writing assessment essay?
• What ideas or issues raised by the book would I like to discuss or debate further with friends or classmates in my First-Year Seminar this fall?
Additional Readings
Aalund, Flemming. “Beyond Afghanistan and the Present: An Historical Overview of the Islamic Heritage of the Region.” Museum International 55:3/4 (Dec. 2003): 62–70.
Abdul-Rahman, Muhammad Saed. Islam [electronic resource]: Questions and Answers. London, UK: MSA Publication Ltd., 2003. Vol. 8 of Schools of Thought, Religions and Sects.
Adamec, Ludwig W. and Frank A. Clements. Conflict in Afghanistan: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2003.
Adamec, Ludwig W. Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Akbar, Said Hyder and Susan Burton. Come Back to Afghanistan: a California Teenager's Story. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005.
Canfield, Robert L. “Afghanistan: The Trajectory of Internal Alignments.” The Middle East Journal 43:4 (Autumn 1989): 635–648.
Ellis, Deborah. The Breadwinner. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2001.
Ember, Melvin and Carol R. Ember, eds. Countries and Their Cultures. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2001.
Esposito, John L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
___________. The Oxford History of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Estep, Erik Sean. “Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to Present.” Domes 15:1 (Spring 2006): 123–127.
Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock, ed. Children in the Muslim Middle East. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
Glasse, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
Griffin, Michael. Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan. London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2001.
Hensher, Philip. The Mulberry Empire: Or the Two Virtuous Journeys of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Official Site of Khaled Hosseini. http://www.khaledhosseini.com. N.d.; accessed 23 April 2006.
Jenkins, Everett, Jr. The Muslim Diaspora: A Comprehensive Reference to the Spread of Islam in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, [1999]–<2000>.
Jones, Ann. Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan. New York: Metropolitan, 2006.
Kalinovskiy, O.N. and V.A. Kulikov. “On the Combat Operations Experience of Soviet Troops in Afghanistan.” Military Thought 12:1 (2003): 213–216.
Khan, Rukhsana. The Roses in My Carpets. Toronto: Stoddart Kids, 1998.
Khandra, Yasmina. The Swallows of Kabul. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2004.
“The Kite Runner.” Directed by Marc Forster. Film to be released in 2007.
Kurian, George Thomas. Encyclopedia of the World's Nations. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2002.
Levinson, David and Melvin Ember, eds. American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1997.
Lipson, Juliene G. and Patricia A. Onidian. “Health Issues of Afghan Refugees in California. (Cross-Cultural Medicine: A Decade Later).” The Western Journal of Medicine 157:3 (Sept. 1992): 271–275.
Martin, Richard C., ed. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. New York: Macmillan Reference USA: Thomson/Gale, 2004.
Nanji, Azim A., ed. The Muslim Almanac: A Reference Work on the History, Faith, Culture, and Peoples of Islam. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1996.
“Osama.” Directed by Siddiq Barmak. [Santa Monica, CA]: MGM Home Entertainment, 2004. Chronicles the true story of a young girl in Talibanruled Afghanistan who must disguise herself as a boy to save her family from starvation. The first feature film made in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era.
Pattnaik, Jyotsna, ed. Childhood in South Asia: A Critical Look at Issues, Policies, and Programs. Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Pub., 2004.
Rasanayagam, Angelo. Afghanistan: A Modern History: Monarchy, Despotism or Democracy? The Problems of Governance in the Muslim Tradition. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003.
Religion Facts: Comparison of Islamic Sects. http://www.religionfacts.com/islam/comparison_charts/islamic_sects.htm. 17 February 2005; accessed 23 April 2006.
Roberts, Jeffery J. The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.
Salamah, Ahmad Abdullah. Shia & Sunni Perspective on Islam: An Objective Comparison of the Shia and Sunni Doctrines Based on the Holy Quran and Hadith. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Abul-Qasim Publication House, [1991?].
Sela, Avraham, ed. The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. New York: Continuum, 2002.
To find more materials yourself in a library catalog,
use the following Library of Congress subject headings:
Afghanistan
Afghanistan—History—19th century
Afghanistan—History—20th century
Betrayal
Islamic sects
Kabul (Afghanistan)
Kabul (Afghanistan)—Fiction
Male friendship
Shia
Shiites
Social classes
Sunnites
Taliban
Professor Julie Thompson, Director, Writing Center, Tutoring & Academic Skills Program and Director, Writing & Oral Communication Programs; and Librarian, Anne E. Herron, Bush Library, contributed to the creation of this guide.
