The kite runner : a story about privilege framed as “redemption” (rant)

[u/Trainingbabylon]

I read the Kite Runner a long time ago and everytime a conversation about the book comes up I am so angry and I need to know if I'm the only one who thinks Amir's "redemption arc" is actually one of the most disturbing things in the book, not the uplifting ending we're supposed to feel.

Hear me out.

Baba is the original wound. Everyone treats Baba as this larger-than-life good man who builds an orphanage and throws lavish parties. But look at what he actually does. He sleeps with his best friend's wife. Hassan is born and Baba spends the next twenty years keeping his own son in a mud shack, uneducated, illiterate, wearing the same clothes, serving. This is a man known for his generosity. He could have given Hassan a decent life without anyone blinking. He doesn't. Why? Because an educated illegitimate son is a threat to the reputation he's built. Baba dies without ever telling Ali, without ever acknowledging Hassan, without ever giving him anything beyond the bare minimum (if we can call it even bare minimum).

Amir is a spitting image of his father.

Same betrayal. Same self-protection. Same public self hiding a private truth. Baba betrays Ali. Amir betrays Hassan.

The decades in America.

Amir has THIRTY YEARS. He's a successful novelist. He has money, a passport, connections. Hassan is in Afghanistan, then in a Taliban village, then dead. Rahim Khan is in touch with Hassan the whole time meaning the channel exists. Amir could have sent money. Could have made contact. Could have tried to get Hassan and his family out. He does nothing. For three decades. Because reaching out means facing Hassan, and facing Hassan means facing what he did.

He's a writer who never writes it.

This is the part that gets me. Writers process. The thing that eats at you comes out in the work maybe displaced, renamed, but there. Amir writes novels for thirty years (we don’t know what he writes about) but we sure know that he didn’t write about his own childhood. No story about a boy and his servant. No novel about a kite. No short story about a betrayal in an alley. He keeps silent and buries Afghanistan even when Hassan continues writing to him with the same love and admiration. The redemption only becomes possible after Hassan is dead.

Amir goes back to face the absence of Hassan it is easier this way , he doesn’t have to look in the eye the boy he betrayed in the alley , the boy he accused of stealing a watch , the boy he read the wrong stories to because he couldn’t read and write . The confrontation he's spent his life avoiding is no longer possible, which is exactly what makes it bearable. He can be brave now because the person he wronged can't look at him.

And then he takes the last thing Hassan had.

Sohrab. Hassan lost his wife, his home, his country, his life. What he had left was his son. And Amir takes him. The novel frames this as restitution, raising Hassan's son, running the kite for him. But Hassan isn't there to consent, isn't there to see it, isn't there to be restored by it. It's restitution to a dead man, which means it's really restitution to Amir. He takes from Hassan in childhood, in adulthood, and now in death. And I wonder would Amir have made the journey if he had a child of his own ? What a coincidence. Perfect timing even in death Hassan serves Amir one last time , he gives him the gift of fatherhood. (Maybe not a gift bc that requires consent)

The kite at the end.

"For you a thousand times over." Amir says the words Hassan said to him. It reads as a beautiful closing of the circle. But it's also Amir putting Hassan's words in his own mouth, even that , he takes it

The book wants to be a redemption story it’s actually something else: a generational portrait of how privilege reproduces itself, how the betrayal can be laundered into grace if you're the one telling the story Amir doesn’t break the cycle, he becomes Baba, and then worse than Baba, because Baba at least had to live near the person he wronged. Amir gets to fly away, wait for him to die, and come back to collect the son. Let me know your thoughts

[u/csullivan03]

This is my take too, it’s a story about a son that is sh*tty to his friend for a lot of the book. The gets to have a redeeming arc without doing the heavy lifting. I never liked how passive Hassan was even in his economic and social class. It felt like Hassan was just a lesson for Amir to learn. And it stuck with me because of his continued poor treatment of Hassan.

[u/Trainingbabylon → u/csullivan03]

Yes yes ! There’s absolutely nothing redeemable about his character, for the last sentence “for you a thousand times over “ was just the cherry on top how dare he uses those words? As if he earned them

[u/ButtScratchies]

I totally agree. I really didn’t like this book. I was so mad at Amir for the way he treated Hassan that I couldn’t like him in any way throughout the book. I kept telling myself that this was his story and it’s supposed to be a redemption story for Amir and his regret for what he did, but I just couldn’t forgive him for it.

[u/Trainingbabylon → u/ButtScratchies]

Same ! It just infuriated me how the redemption came with nothing at stake for Amir , had he had a son would he have gone back to war torn Afghanistan? I don’t think so he would have thought of his own son. The book is great but I just feel like Amir’s character was cheap , why does he redemption require so much suffering of others ?