Kite Runner

The thing that stuck out to me the most was the role of suffering. In one of the most powerful parts of the book, Amir reads the letter that Rahim Khan writes him informing him that he knows about the secret he has kept for the past 15-20 years. This is in the midst of Amir's risky attempt to redeem his past by saving his deceased best friend's son (Sohrab), who has been abducted by the Taliban. The letter reads: "A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer." This epitomizes the conflict that Amir faces throughout the book - he has been privileged his whole life, and though he has not committed crimes to the degree of the juxtaposed Taliban criminals, his inaction eats away at him. After making the decision to save Sohrab, he begins a process of being liberated while his comoforts discarded. This allows him to share his past with his wife, which she embraces immediately because she has had a difficult past. The redemption is not perfect, which makes it seem real, but the story is hopeful overall.

The themes of violence and redemption are interesting to look at together too. There is certainly a conflict - Amir applauds Sohrab for violent actions toward the Taliban leader that oppressed him, but Sohrab doesn't seem convinced that it was the right thing because his father had told him that everyone can be redeemed and it is never right to hurt someone. It seems like Amir's opinion wins, which was disappointing - but Hosseini does a great job of painting that eternal question: Is violence necessary and permissive in cases of extreme oppression? My emotion was certainly bound up in that conflict.