Chapter 1-3

Chapter 1


I'm already a little confused. So far the speaker (who is the author) is looking at his past and realizes that his habits haven't changed. Now he is having a flash back, remembering when his friend, Rahim Khan called from Pakistan. When he says "I knew it wasn't just Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of unatoned sins," what does he mean? Did he do something wrong in his past and Rahim knows? Also there is already refrences to kites. He recalls them when he was walking along Spreckels Lake. The way he talks about them he wishes that he was more like them; soaring in the sky, high above the trees. Also he recalls the color of the kites; red with blue tails. Do the colors mean something? If only there was white then the colors would be the colors of the U.S. Who is Hassan? He says he hears his voice in his head. He calles him the "harelipped kite runner." What does his friends last words mean; "there is a way to be good again." What is in this guys past? Is he just refering to the horrible things he had to live through or is it something else?

Chapter 2

Oh, just made the connection, Hassan is his friend that called him; sorry, I'm a little slow. Still in his flash back, he remembers about his time with Hassan. Hassan has an almost perfectly round face like a Chinese doll. He has a flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes that looked like gold, green, or sapphire in the light. Also he has low-set ears and a pointed stub of a chin. All these features are common for the Hazaras people. Amir and Hassan are best friends, although they are closer than that, they are like brothers. They have always grown up together, Amir in his Baba's masion and Hassan in his father's, Ali, mud hut in the backyard of Amir's house. Amir and Hassan also both lost their mothers when they were just born. Amir lost his in childbirth and Hassan only six days after he was born. Amir is having a hard time understand what is going on around him. His father is always having grown-up time and Amir can't listen to any of that. Because his father is really not around he looks up to Ali, although Ali is Shi'a and Amir realizes that Ali and Hassan are not like him and his father. Besides Ali being made fun of for his limp, Hassan is called names because of his features. Also, Hassan has comments made about his mother and what she did before she married Ali. Sanaubar was a very loose woman before she married Ali. And also to top things off Ali is first cousins with Sanaubar. Ali didn't really want to marry Sanaubar, but his uncle made him to help his name gain so respect back for the bad reputation Sanaubar gained. Amir realizes that he doesn't really know that much about Ali and Hassan's background; about the Shi'a. The school that Amir goes to doesn't really talk about the Shi'a, his father doesn't talk about the Shi'a, and Ali and Sanaubar doesn't talk about the Shi'a. When Amir was in his father's study he finds one of his mothers history books and finds a whole chapter on the Shi'a culture. When he brings this up to his teacher, he waves his hand and says it isn't true. This sounds very similiar to what is going on in our school right now. Our school history has never really talked about the region around Afghanistan or even the history of Afghanistan until the United States went into war with them over thier oil. Why? Why do we not learn anything about their culture. At the end of the chapter the boys ask to her the song that the nursing woman would sing to both of them while she nursed them. Amir realizes that the realationship that he and Hassan have is more than just a friendship, it is a brotherhood. Ali tells them that because they have the same nursing maid, they are brothers. They boys have the same nursing maid because Baba hired the same one for Hassan. What I don't understand is why Ali Baba would do that? First, why would he hire a Hazara woman to nurse his Sunni son? And second, why would he hire the same woman for Hassan? Also does Ali's weak leg represent a sign a weakness?

Chapter 3

Baba is a very storng man. The story about him killing a bear shows the strength that he possesses. Although, the building of the orphanage for the little kids that have no parents, while leaving his son at home to eat with Ali and Hassan contraditcs itself. Does Baba not understand that while building the orphanage for the homeless kids, he is cutting down on the time he spends with his son? After all, Baba is building the orphanage because when he was little his father was killed by an entruder, taking his father away from him. Now he is removing himself from his son's life with other even realizing. This isn't the only example, also when Baba takes Amir to the lake, Amir tries to talk to his father although all he can do is grunt and go back to reading his speech for the opening of the orphanage. Although, Baba hasn't had the easist life either; besides his father being killed, everyone has told him that he will never be able to make it in the business world thus he should just become a lawyer like his father. But Baba has proven everyone wrong more than once. He has built the orphanage, built a successful carpet-exporting business, two pharmacies, adn a restaurant. Although the biggest thing he did was marry his wife, Sofia. Sofia Akrami is a highly educated woman universally regared as one of Kaubul's most respected, beautiful, and virtuous ladies. She taught classic Farsi literature at the university. And to top everything off she was a descendant of the royal family; that is why he always called her "my princess," just to rub it into everyone that never believed in him. Once Amir came, Baba started to build his empire, although he since he was so powerful, he was able to decide what was black and what was white. Like in fifth grade when Baba tells Amir that he'll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots. Amir has a big weight that he thinks he has to carry around because he thinks that he is the one that killed his "princess." Amir is a very smart child, but not very athletic. One day Amir comes home to tell Baba that he won against he whole class in a poem game, but the only response he got was a simple "good." Baba doesn't see the drive in Amir for poetry; all Baba sees is that Amir isn't like him. Amir can't play soccer and he doesn't have an interest in it to watch soccer either. In the end Baba tells Rahim Khan that there is something wrong with Amir; he has no fight. Even though Baba says that he watched Amir come out of Sofia, maybe he isn't his son; after all, Hassan is more like Baba than Amir is. I believe that Amir sees this too, and that it truely does hurt him that Baba doesn't love him the way he like Hassan.