On the Shelf

In this week’s edition of On the Shelf comes the final post on Kite Runner. Amir, now happily married to his wife Soraya for over 15 years, receives a message from his old family friend Rahim Khan. Amir drops everything he is doing in his life in America and hastily boards the next plane to Afghanistan. When Amir finds Rahim he quickly discovers that the Afghanistan he knew when he was a kid was destroyed after the Soviet invasion years earlier. After the Soviets were driven out, the fundamentalist Taliban group seized control of the country and with it the freedom of its people. The Taliban were responsible for the execution of many of the ethnic minorities in the country, including Hassan. It turns out that Hassan had a son during the Taliban occupation of Afghanistan and after he and his wife were executed, the orphaned boy was placed in an orphanage. Hassan’s child, Sohrab, was then removed from the orphanage by a Taliban official who just so happened to be Assef, the rapist from earlier in the book. Amir goes to rescue Sohrab from Assef and the two fist fight one on one, Assef’s request to the Taliban guards. After Amir had his face physically reconstructed by Assef’s fists, Sohrab manages to blind Assef with his father’s sling shot. How fitting. The two escape the Taliban building and escape to Pakistan in their getaway car. Once Amir has his face fixed by plastic surgeons in relative safety, he begins the adoption process to adopt Sohrab and to bring him back to America. The U.S. international adoptions agency is less than accommodating to our beaten hero and Amir is forced to tell Sohrab that he will have to stay in another dirty, foodless orphanage “only until we can sort this out.” Later that night, Soraya saves the day by informing Amir that she found an international adoption agency that will assist them in getting Sohrab home now and adopted later. Amir tries to inform Sohrab of the turn of events only to find Sohrab lying in the hotel bathtub with his wrists cut in an attempt to commit suicide. Luckily, Sohrab survives the suicide attempt after Amir rushes him to the hospital and Sohrab recovers physically, but never in spirit. Amir takes him home to America where they live safely, but with an impenetrable barrier of silence holding the family apart. The novel does end on a happier note when Amir takes Sohrab to the park to fly a kite together and even fight another kite. His victory in this kite fight brings all of Kabul back to Amir and shows Amir and Sohrab how their love for Hassan has brought them together.