User:J.vyas1295/Draft of The Kite Runner

Plot Summary
a wealthy Kabul merchant who traces his ancestry back to the Pashtuns, Baba, each decision Amir makes is greatly influenced by his father's ideas and beliefs, as he doesn't believe Amir to be the sort of person he had imagined his son to be.

returns home in shame, guilty for not being able to help his best friend in a grave situation.

Amir, having witnessed the scene too overcome with fear to take action, cannot bring himself to tell anyone about it, nor can he face Hassan the same way again. Hassan, who knows that Amir was present and refused to help him, ignores this fact and continues in vain trying to be friends with him.

At the age of twenty, Amir finally graduates from high school

Character Descriptions

 * Amir - The main character of the book, Baba's son, Hassan's brother, Soraya's husband, the life story of whom the novel is centered around. An adolescent boy at the beginning of the book, his age increases as the book progresses.


 * Baba - Amir and Hassan's father, married Sofia Akrami (Amir's deceased mother). A tall, husky man that is well respected and greatly feared in the Afghan community, he doesn't believe in God, dies of cancer late in the novel.
 * Hassan - Amir's brother and childhood best friend. He is Sohrab's father. Brought up as a Hazara boy by a Hazara servant, Ali, he is the husband of Farzana and is shot in the head by the Taliban. He is a thin, lanky boy who had a harelip later fixed by surgery.


 * Sanaubar - Hassan's long lost mother who runs away right after she gives birth to him. Regretting this decision, she comes back 27 years later to meet Hassan for the first time. She is a beautiful young lady who almost everyone in her youth envied. She grows very fond of Sohrab but dies of old age four years after his birth.


 * Rahim Khan - Baba's best childhood friend. He treats Amir like his own son and takes care of their home after Baba and Amir flee to Peshawar and later, America. A very kindhearted, loving man, he dies of old age.


 * Ali - Baba's other childhood friend and servant later in life. He brings up Hassan as his own son. He is very loyal to his master, and is a caring, loving man to both Amir and Hassan.


 * Soraya - Amir's wife, the simple, yet nice and kind daughter of General Taheri and Khanum Jamila.


 * General Taheri - Father of Soraya, a coldhearted old man who cares about his family only. He is very hard to please. He dies of old age after countless illnesses.


 * Khala Jamila - A very sweet and loving woman who accepts Amir into her family as if a son of her own. She panics easily, but keeps her cool with the General.


 * Assef - Son of an Afghan and German. He is a tall, strong young boy in the beginning of the book with a cruel-minded approach to almost everything. He holds grudes and does not forgive easily, often taking revenge for each and every thing that plays against his wishes.


 * Farzana - A shy, Hazara woman. She is Hassan's wife.


 * Sohrab - Hassan's son and Amir's nephew. He lives a childhood plagued with sexually abusive caretakers so is a fragile, yet exhuberant young boy. He is orphaned and later kidnapped by Assef.

Reception
The Kite Runner was published in 2003 and in 2007 released as a major motion picture starring Khalid Abdalla (Amir), Homayoun Ershadi (Baba), and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada (Hassan). Directed by Marc Forster and with a screenplay by David Benioff, this award-winning movie has claimed numerous recognitions along with being nominated for an Oscar (2008), the BAFTA Film Award (2008) and the Critics Choice Award (2008). Manhola Dargis of New York Times states that "The back of my paperback copy of this Khaled Hosseini novel is sprinkled with words like "powerful" and "haunting" and "riveting" and "unforgettable". It's a good guess this film will be rolled around in a similarly large helping of lard."

Despite the reviews, the film has also sparked controversy regarding the role of the Taliban and the the Soviet-Afghan war. Dargis claimed that "David Benioff’s clumsy screenplay doesn’t broadcast its political naïveté as openly, but only because the filmmakers seem to assume that unlike the book’s readers, the movie audience doesn’t care about such matters." Dargis also believed that "Mr. Benioff gestures in the direction of Communists and mullahs, the Soviet invaders and the Taliban insurgents, but none of these players figure into the story in any meaningful fashion." There are some parts in both the book and the movie that are the source of great dispute over the display of the Taliban and the Russians in Afghanistan.