The Kite Runner (2003) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters edit see section history

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• Amir agha: The main protagonist and narrator of the novel.The book is a tremendous achievement about the travails of Afghans who fled Afghanistan and relocated in the US - interwoven in the book is a poignant satire on the State of Afghanistan, a moving tale of Romance in the USA, a tribute to a saga of friendship, the tremendous power of love for a friend, and acknowledgment of human failings during the growing years of the chief protagonist in Afghanistan and repayment of his moral debt decades later to his friend ....The book is a classic tale of fidelity and being a "Mirror of its Times" - in my view - is Literature in the true sense of the word! Hassan's half brother SK
• Hassan: Close friend of Amir although Amir looks at him as more of a servant because he is the son of Ali and a Hazara. However, he shares almost everything with him. He grew up with Amir and when he was born, it was Amir' s name that first came out of his mouth. Hassan never found out the reality of his parents till his very end and dies along with his wife leaving behind his son. Hassan could be described as the epitome of love, forgiveness, friendship and loyalty. A close freind of Amir.
• Baba: Amir's father, very important in the beginning of the book. Baba exhibits several transformations in the novel. Baba feels anger towards Amir at times, but also feels very proud of his son at others.
• Ali: Baba's servant and childhood friend. Baba's father (a judge) voluntarily oversaw Ali's care when his parent's were killed in an accident and their case came before him in court. Baba and Ali have been friends ever since. He has polio and his right leg is useless. He is very loyal to Baba, like Hassan is to Amir. RJ
• Rahim Khan sahib: Baba's business partner and best friend in Afghanistan.
• Sohrab: Hassan's son.
• Kaka Farid: Driver in Pakistan who helps Amir and many others escape.
• Wali: Friend of Assef.
• Kamal: Another friend of Assef
• Farzana: Hassan's wife
• Dr. Kumar: The doctor who treats Hassan
• Dr. Faruqi: Add a description of this character.
• Assef Goshkhor: Amir's nemesis and Hassan's to.
• Sofia Akrami: Amir's mother, who died giving birth to him.
• Wahid: Farid's brother.
• Sanaubar: Ali's wife who leaves after giving birth to Hassan.
• Soraya Taheri: Amir's friend when he gets to America
• Clark Gable
• Tanya
• Betty Caldwell
• Raymond Andrews
• Rostam
• Toor
• Armand
• Zahir Shah
• Omar Faisal
• Khanum Taheri
• Kaka Sharif
• Mrs. Dobbins
• Khayyám
• Mullah Fatiullah Khan
• Saifo
• Dr. Nawaz
• Hãfez
• Homaira
• Hazara
• John Wayne
• Mother
• John Lennon
• Khala Jamila
• Ahmad Zahir
• Babalu
• Dr. Amani
• Martin Greenwalt
• Mr. Iqbal Taheri
• Mr. Nguyen
• Mahmood
• Kaka Homayoun
• Mullah Nasruddin
• Karim
• Kaka Faruq
• Sasa
• Kabir
• Dr. Schneider
• Padar
• Ziba
• Maryam
• Mr. Fayyaz
• Mrs. Nguyen
• Zaman
• Kaka Nader
• Dr. Rosen
• Aisha
• Madar
• Daoud Khan
• Rumi
• Hitler
• Del-Muhammad
• Ahmad
• John

Quotes edit see section history

• “There is a way to be good again.”

  Rahim Khan

• “For you, a thousand times over.”

  Hassan, Amir

• “The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck.”

• “In 1980, when we were still in Kabul, the U.S. announced it would be boycotting the Olympic Games in Moscow. “Wah wah!” Baba exclaimed with disgust. “Brezhnev is massacring Afghans and all that peanut eater can say is I won’t come swim in your pool.””

• “Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in her.”

• “If America taught me anything, it’s that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts’ lemonade jar.”

  Omar

• “Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life.Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it.”

• “We saw our first Western together, Rio Bravo with John Wayne, at the Cinema Park, across the street from my favorite bookstore. I remember begging Baba to take us to Iran so we could meet John Wayne. Baba burst out in gales of his deep throated laughter-a sound not unlike a truck engine revving up-and, when he could talk again, explained to us the concept of voice dubbing. Hassan and I were stunned. Dazed. John Wayne didn't really speak Farsi and he wasn't Iranian! He was American, just like the friendly, longhaired men and women hanging around in Kabul, dressed in their tattered, brightly colored shirts. We saw Rio Bravo three times, but we saw our favorite Western, The Magnificent Seven, thirteen times. With each viewing, we cried at the end when the Mexican kids buried Charles Bronson-who, as it turned out, wasn't Iranian either.”

  Amir

• “Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?...When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?...There is no act more wretched than stealing,...A man who takes what's not his to take, be it life or a loaf of naan...”

  Baba

• “Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

  Rahim Khan

• “A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”

  Rahim Khan

• “It wasn't meant to be, or, maybe, it was meant not to be.”

• “The building that hadn't entirely collapsed barely stood.”

• “They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.”

• “How much more do you need to see? Let me save you the trouble: Nothing that you remember has survived. Best to forget.”

  Farid

• “"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime..."”

• “"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too."”

• “"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."”

• “"it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place."”

• “"A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything"”

  Baba

• “"It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.”

  Amir

• “"Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand...well, God put a lot of thought into making you."”

• “"That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms."”

• “"Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself."”

• “"...there is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eyes of the people in this <hospital> corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is."”

• “"One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples."”

  Hassan

• “"War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace."”

  Baba

• “"There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood."”

• “"People say that eyes are windows to the soul."”

• “"I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away."”

• “"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."”

  Amir

• “"zendigi migzara!..." (life goes on)”

• “A boy who doesn’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”

  Amir

• “As an Afghan, I knew it was better to be miserable than rude.”

  Amir

• “Baba loved the idea of America”

• “lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty”

• “I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills”

  Amir

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Afghanistan: Kabul, Bamiyan, Jalalabad
• San Francisco, California
• Pakistan: Peshawar, Islamabad

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Hazara: A term describing the Hazara people, an ethnic minority originating in the mountainous region of Afghanistan called Hazarajat. Characterized by their mongoloid facial features, adherence to Shi'a Islam, and long history of persecution.
• Mujahedin: A term used to describe a group of Muslims engaged in a war or conflict. In this novel, it describes the Afghanistan Mujahedin Freedom Fighters Front, which challenged the Soviet forces and later lost against the PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan) government.
• Shi'a Islam: The second largest denomination of the Islamic faith. Shi'a Islam believes that the teachings of Muhammad were carried through his descendants and do not accept the caliphate.
• Shorawi: The Farsi term for the Soviets, who invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied the country for a decade.
• Sunni Islam: The largest denomination of Islam. Sunni Islam accepts the caliphate, meaning that it considers the Caliph or head of a Muslim state a successor to Muhammad.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Religion: Much of the book is deeply rooted in the religious customs of Amir's country, and how this religion is used by horrible people as a shield to do ghastly wrong with no remorse.
• Love: The Kite Runner tells the story of how love, truly unconditional love, exists, and can overcome the worst situations.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Khaled Hosseini (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Alex Awards (2004)
• Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (2004)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3608.O832 K58
• Dewey: 813.6

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › Middle Eastern

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Kite Runner (IMDb): Released in 2007.

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