I have never been to Afghanistan before (I imagine very few of us have) but this book paints such a vivid mental image of life in Kabul during the early 70s (before the Soviet deployment of their Army there) that I feel as if I have some kind of first-hand experience. I am not saying it is an accurate picture of the real Kabul at the time, just that the image and the imaginary atmosphere seem very real. Wild horses couldn’t drag me there now, but I imagine back then it was a nice place and time to grow up in (depending on your station in life there I guess).
“For you, a thousand times over”
Amir is the son of a wealthy, influential Afghan father, and he grows up alongside the son of their servant with whom he becomes best friends. The servants who serve their employers for many years tend to live in or near their employer’s home and tend to have kids of their own who grow up along with the boss’s children. The servants’ children often becoming their playmates if not exactly friends; a close friendship would require a more equal status in life. Amir lives in a mansion while Hassan and his crippled father live in a mud hut on the grounds. Hassan is Amir’s servant—has the fire going, has his breakfast ready before school with his school clothes laid out and his shoes polished. Amir is a bookish boy while Hassan is an unschooled Hazara.
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
I have never been to Afghanistan before (I imagine very few of us have) but this book paints such a vivid mental image of life in Kabul during the early 70s (before the Soviet deployment of their Army there) that I feel as if I have some kind of first-hand experience. I am not saying it is an accurate picture of the real Kabul at the time, just that the image and the imaginary atmosphere seem very real. Wild horses couldn’t drag me there now, but I imagine back then it was a nice place and time to grow up in (depending on your station in life there I guess).
“For you, a thousand times over”
Amir is the son of a wealthy, influential Afghan father, and he grows up alongside the son of their servant with whom he becomes best friends. The servants who serve their employers for many years tend to live in or near their employer’s home and tend to have kids of their own who grow up along with the boss’s children. The servants’ children often becoming their playmates if not exactly friends; a close friendship would require a more equal status in life. Amir lives in a mansion while Hassan and his crippled father live in a mud hut on the grounds. Hassan is Amir’s servant—has the fire going, has his breakfast ready before school with his school clothes laid out and his shoes polished. Amir is a bookish boy while Hassan is an unschooled Hazara.
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
Khaled Hosseini writes from a heart that remembers its homeland and remembers it well. While most of us think of Afghanistan as war-torn and weary, obsessive and restrictive, frightening even; Hosseini remembers what it was before all of that came to be. He gives the Afghani people a face, which can be a very powerful thing indeed.
He does not give us a narrator who is likable, admirable, or sometimes even excusable, but he does give us a narrator who is human, vulnerable, and who suffers for his shortcomings. For some trespasses, there is no atonement, only forgiveness.
“it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.”
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