The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner ranks as one of my most favorite books. The writing feels real, as if it is an autobiography rather than a novel. I guess, after reading What is the What I figured that such adventures and happenings occurred in the world. Naturally, I did not understand nor even tried to understand the circumstances of the Middle East. I always assumed that Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries are always at war, yet the writing of The Kite Runner completely changed my attitude towards people. I realized that people live normally and in their own cultural standards- feeling the same things that people all around the world feel and doing the same things that people all around the world do.
The novel, to me, is not just a weighty, AP literature-type novel, but also an eye-opener with the Afghan culture. Before I read the novel, I didn't even know that I had some form of Afghan racism, but I just knew that some unknown questions that I had towards the culture has all been answered.

The Kite Runner- Relationships and Selling Soul to the Devil

Khaled Hosseini perfectly captures the trauma of an unhealthy father and son relationship, and the deep friendship between separate castes that exists between his characters in The Kite Runner.

Amir's first word was Baba, or father, while Hassan's first word was Amir. Hosseini foreshadows the tangled relationship of the characters in his novel. Baba is the epitome of greatness, building orphanages, giving to the poor, and helping any or all those who are in need, yet Amir wonders about Baba's love towards him as he himself does not advocate Baba's characteristics. As a child deprived of parental love, Amir yearns to be accepted, yet finds that the unconditional love that he deserves from Baba is being given to Hassan, the Hazara servant that Baba has no connection to (or so Amir thinks.) Although Amir is the socially legitimate child of Baba and is therefore showered with materialism, Amir envies the servant boy in whom Baba devotes himself to. Hassan, on the other hand, serves Amir and always ensues his loyalty towards Amir. Both Hassan and Amir value the brotherhood they share, yet Hassan more so. It seems this way since Amir is constantly haunted by his envy towards Hassan for fatherly love while Hassan is dearly beloved by his own father Ali and Amir's Baba. And so Amir is separated by his needs and his loves, so metaphorically, he sold his soul to the devil.

The devil in this case is the sociopath, Assef, although not completely. In the winter of the kite-fighting festival, Amir is nagged by his overwhelming need to make his father proud and to be finally treated with love and affection. He envisions coming home with the last fallen kite and being warmly greeted by his father, and so sends Hassan to run for the kite. However, Hassan finds trouble with Assef and is then violated all for the happiness of Amir. Amir witnesses everything, yet chooses not to act according to a hero's action. At the moment he ran away, Amir sold his soul, being Hassan and friendship and love and innocence, to the devil, Assef and his demonic behavior, in return for the love and devotion of his father which only lasts for a while. If Amir chooses to stand up against Assef to save Hassan, he would have gotten the kite and the respect of his father, but like a typical person, Amir fears an encounter with the devil.

Throughout his life, Amir is haunted by his curse, signifying that the devil still holds his soul, and has a chance for redemption when Rahim Khan asks a 38 year old Amir to return to Kabul, Afghanistan to retrieve Sohrab, the spitting image of Hassan. Amir then has a face to face encounter with the devil, Assef, ironically dressed as a Taliban leader, a supposed man of God. One can think of an encounter with the devil as a similar story of an encounter with Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, in parts as Hercules or as Persephone. After a horrible encounter involving broken ribs, jaws, various body parts, and a split mouth like Hassan's cleft lip, Amir redeems himself from an encounter with the devil, gets his soul back, and saves a metaphorical Hassan (the clever author chose to make Sohrab look exactly like the boy Hassan) from the trauma that Amir could not do when he was a mere child.

The Kite Runner- Winter

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."

-Shakespeare's Richard III I.I.1-4

Winter. The season of snow, chills, and hot chocolate. Yet in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, winter signifies the end, whether they be of a smile, of friendship, or of innocence. Winter has always been associated with old age or even death. In The Kite Runner, winter is ironically the season that families and children get together to witness the kite tournament, an Afghan game involving kites battling until the last one is left standing. Even if the glass strings cut the hands of individual players, the excitement of the game in the middle of winter vacation becomes the talk of the remainder of the school year. The protagonist, Amir, envisions himself that this year he will be the winner, and in truth, he did, but metaphorically, he also lost. The end of the chapter five even states an ominous note that "that was the winter that Hassan stopped smiling."

After Amir's win of the kite-fighting tournament, Hassan serves to make him happy by running after the losing blue kite. However, Hassan encounters trouble with Assef, a sociopath, and his gang of ne'er-do-well's. Amir searches for Hassan, and witnesses the horrendous vision of Hassan's raping in a grimy alley. Amir is placed with two choices- to stop Assef or to run away, and being only a child, Amir escapes the sight. Everything changes since that point forward. Amir loses his innocence and like Richard III's speech, the guilt is "in the deep bosom of the ocean buried," and consumes the remainder of his life, affecting his choices and perception of himself. The spring and summer of Amir's childhood days are over, only replaced by the uninhibited loss of innocence, and overwhelming guilt which pervades all aspects of Amir's life. Hassan no longer smiles because Amir does not let him or rather because Amir does not nor cannot forgive himself. Their deep friendship is shattered by the image of Hassan being corrupted, an image so obscure and unthinkable that the only way to end the guilt is to shut down the normalcy of childhood infinitely.

Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng

Dave Eggers
and
Valentino Achak Deng

The authors of What is the What and the co-founders of the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation which aids the Sudanese people of Deng's hometown of Marial Bai.

What is the What- Miss Gladys and the Women of Achak's Life

The latter parts of What is the What becomes more of a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story which reflects on the road from youth to adulthood, and this thematic element is witnessed through the characters Miss Gladys, Maria, and Tabitha. The characters' overt behaviors as independent women, being questionable in the Sudanese culture, also challenge the the preconceptions about the roles of men and women.

Miss Gladys, a woman who works as a drama teacher in Kakuma, captures the eyes and taps the senses and emotional states of all boys and girls in the refuge town. Her behavior as an independent woman who seems in charge of her own sexuality and mentality electrifies the people around her, especially Achak. Achak, now entering manhood, is attracted to her independence and alters his ideas on women. Although Achak himself is not at all rebellious, often undergoing leadership, type-A positions, he no longer associates himself as a typical Sudanese after his encounter with the civil war and the African diaspora earlier on in life. The cultural uprooting of Sudan as well as being displaced in both Ethiopia and Kenya also aids in his indifference towards the cultural ideas on the behaviors of men and women. Before the coming of Miss Gladys, Achak's behavior towards a female friend Maria is strictly friendship. He doesn't fail to notice Maria's independent and feisty nature, but fails in witnessing her father's mistreatment of her. Maria's father only longs for Maria to be married off at the highest bride price and thereby chooses to stifle her into doing meager house chores and "womanly" duties to achieve his goal. However, once Miss Gladys enters Kakuma and Achak's life, she changes the thinking of Achak, though inadvertently. Miss Gladys creates a drama team which involves Achak and Maria, and through this, Achak notices Maria's finesse for the dramatic arts. Yet even with his realization of the stifling conditions on the roles of men and women in the Sudanese culture, Achak does not do anything about Maria's condition mainly because he does not understand his capabilities fully and has no fervent grasp on his own role in the community. But the seed of wisdom is planted.

Miss Gladys does not only attract men, she also attracts women in a different sense- women who, like Tabitha, is as strong-willed and independent as she is. Because Achak is enlightened by the grace and strength of Miss Gladys but knows he has no chance towards her, he becomes pulled by the energy and attitude of a similar person, Tabitha. If Achak begins to enter manhood while figuring out Maria's status, he finishes the mystery with Tabitha. In a way, Tabitha is the last checkpoint for Achak with his questions about coming of age. Through her, he searches within himself. The trip to Nairobi with the rest of the drama team does not only signify their accomplishments in the dramatic arts, but also serves as a quest to be alone with Tabitha for a few hours. Yet unknowingly, Achak does not recognize his true quest: to open his mind in terms of his own sexuality, and the aches of his life at Kakuma. The road to Nairobi is far from treacherous, but like Circe's allure towards Odysseus and his men, Nairobi seems far from harm. The drama team wishes to not go back to Kakuma, yet in their hearts going back is right. Tabitha, in this trip, serves as Circe in that she plants the idea of running away with Achak and staying at Nairobi and seals the idea to Achak with the couple's first (and very long) kiss. Achak, wonders whether to be selfish and stay, a symbol of childishness, or to be dutiful and leave, a symbol of maturity and therefore manhood. In the end, Achak chooses not to do Circe's pleas, thereby emerging as a man as the drama team drives back to Kakuma.

The What

I ask my brother one morning: Brother, what is the What?
the what?
the What.
God knows I have the cow.
Why do I need the What?
Only He knows why.
I leave.

I ask my sister one afternoon: Sister, what is the What?
the what?
the What.
why not
...the How?
...the Why?
...the When?
...the Who?
Surely more inquisitive than asking what is the What.
I leave.

I ask my father one evening: Father, what is the What?
the what?
The What.
Go ask your mother.
I leave.

I ask my mother after a dream: Mother, what is the What?
She didn't answer.
:Mother, what is the What?
Nothing.
:Mother, what is the What?!

I turn her around.
lifeless. cold.
and then I knew.

the What.
A thing. Unknown. Unseen.
Unforgiving.
the What.

What is the What- Rebirth

Crossing a river, like a baptism, is a sense of rebirth and the beginning of a new life. With birth comes the naming of the newborn of which Achak has many, all of which differ depending on his location- Valentino, Achak, Dominic, and Gone Far to name a few. The rivers and other bodies of water that are strewn around the geography of Africa which Valentino Achak Deng encounters in the novel represent the different changes in his life, his rebirth.

1. Baptism as a child in Marial Bai-
-Official Christian Name: Valentino Deng, but most often called Achak by the people of Marial Bai.
During this time, Achak lived in innocence as the young child of a businessman. Life was simple with school, family, and friends, and the village society moved in harmony. Achak enjoyed dreaming and imagining with his friends William K. and Moses as well as the attention of his boyhood crush, Amath. The Dinkas were no different than the Arab traders Achak's father welcomed, but there were still social issues concerning different races lingering in Sudan. Eventually, the SPLA caused trouble for Marial Bai, and the government of Khartoum vanquished all inhabitants of the village forcing Achak to travel with Dut among the Lost Boys.

2. The River Gilo to Ethiopia- Death opened the eyes of a tainted Achak, yet with his young soul, Achak still hoped for a land overflowing with wealth at Ethiopia. His name at Pinyudo is Gone Far, because he is one of the few that traveled coming from the other side of Southern Sudan and survived to Ethiopia. To get to the Dinka's land of promise and freedom, the Lost Boys must cross the raging, crocodile-infested River Gilo unharmed. At Pinyudo, a camp was set up and looked over by the SPLA and the UN for the refugees of the Sudan War. However, Ethiopia was infested with hatred similar to the race/civil war happening at Sudan. The Ethiopians longed for the Dinkas to leave their land, and after a year, they attained it by attacking the refugee camp and driving the refugees out of Ethiopia.

3. The River Gilo back to Sudan (and eventually Kakuma)-
-Name: Valentino, but Achak to some friends from Marial Bai, and Gone Far from Pinyudo.
Crossing the River Gilo and witnessing the malice and murders of his fellow Dinkas, Achak's eyes are further opened to the hatred of the world. He survived crossing the rushing Gilo river while being attacked by Ethiopians. He survived the rebirthing process. He no longer retains the naive hope of a brand new life with education and wealth at his next refugee camp, but becomes morose about how his overall life has been altered indefinitely. At Kakuma, Achak rebuilds a life, even feigning a pseudo family with people from Marial Bai and Achor Achor. He holds no fondness for fighting still, but has lost all sense of his old self- his innocent self- starting with forgetting his family's face. The transformation is almost complete.

4. The Atlantic Ocean to the United States-
-Name(s): Dominic Arou, Valentino, Achak, Gone Far
After living ten years in Kakuma, a refugee camp, the Lost Boys attain a chance to emigrate out of Kakuma and foster lives in other countries. Achak, sent to Atlanta, gets ready to move again, to flee and create a better life in America. Although he no longer holds hope for the country of Sudan, he is a man now, knowing better but still holding on to hope that the gleaming country of the United States of America will provide better opportunities for the refugees. No longer does Achak swim across a body of water, he flies over it, a symbol of hope, dream, and freedom. In aspects, he is not baptized (for he is not immersed in the Atlantic Ocean) because he retains his Sudanese/Kenyan/Ethiopian identity with him. He does not look to shed his life, but to better it with opportunities and accomplishments.