The Kite Runner

Perhaps it is time to present another important aspect of writing: believability. How much suspension of disbelief can an author require before a story falls apart? This can be very well demonstrated by The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s historical fiction novel. It tells the story of Amir, beginning with his life in Afghanistan with his servant and friend Hassan. Although he moves on from this life in many ways after his departure from the country of his birth and his marriage, the memory of Hassan never quite leaves him, a fact which becomes clear when he goes to meet an old friend of his father’s. But I am not here to discuss the plot of the book; I am here to discuss what, in this story, stretches my own suspension of disbelief.

In a previous essay (On the Nature of Being Qfwfq), I mentioned that character flaws are an important part of every story; that they are, at least in part, what makes a story readable. The Kite Runner’s Amir certainly has flaws, because the main character of a book is required not to be flat and boring. However, consider his friend and servant Hassan. There is something slightly odd about him as a character, which may not be obvious at first, but think: when does Hassan show that he is not “perfect”? He always takes the blame for things Amir has done, he never seems to get angry, he offers Amir endless encouragement and defends him when it becomes necessary. For example:

“...he never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbor’s dog, was always my idea.” (4)
“If he felt the sting of my tease, his smiling face didn’t show it.” (28)
“That was another thing about Hassan. He always knew when to say the right thing...” (37)
“Hassan held the slingshot pointed directly at Assef’s face. His hand trembled with the strain of the pulled elastic band and beads of sweat had erupted on his brow.” (42)

The last example is, perhaps, the most telling. Hassan is willing to defend Amir despite the fact that, as a Hazara, he is in more danger from Assef than Amir is. He is also quite obviously afraid of Assef, but he doesn’t allow that to stop him. All of this, as well as the later events that eventually cause Hassan to leave, make it clear that he is almost uncannily perfect; his arsenal of positive traits appears to have no end. This comes up again in Rahim Khan’s account of his reunion with Hassan: when first confronted with the idea of leaving, Hassan “said the village was his home now; he and Farzana had made a life for themselves there.” (206) But after Rahim Khan had spent a night in their house, Hassan informs him that they have decided to drop everything and go to Kabul to help him take care of the house. He gives no explanation, and nothing specific seems to trigger this change of mind--it’s simply another example of his lack of flaws. All in all, Hassan is not a very convincing character, simply by virtue of his virtues. This is not to say that it is impossible to have a believably selfless character, but Hassan isn’t it.

There is also an interesting correlation which I think may be more than just a coincidence. Near the beginning of the book, when Assef harasses Amir and Hassan, Hassan’s threat is as follows:

“‘...If you make a move, they’ll have to change your nickname from Assef “the Ear Eater” to “One-Eyed Assef,” because I have this rock pointed at your left eye.’” (42)

One might be a little confused by the decision to be specific about which eye, because it doesn’t seem to be an important distinction--at least, not until Amir again meets Assef.  Amir has come to retrieve Sohrab, and Assef forces Amir to fight him. Sohrab proceeds to defend Amir with his slingshot:

“Then Assef was screaming. He put his hand where his left eye had been just a moment ago.” (291)

Again, it doesn’t seem like much at first, just a bit of helpful detail. But when you examine the two statements together, you notice that in both cases it is the left eye that is threatened. Now, consider the fact that Sohrab is Hassan’s son, and that Hassan, from what we know of him, would probably have done the same thing to protect Amir if it became necessary. Besides being a reminder of Hassan’s unrealistic personality, this underlines how similar Sohrab is to his father. Take this with the fact that Sohrab is almost identical to Hassan, and you have a twist of fate that doesn’t quite ring true.

In fact, Assef seems to be a center of impossible coincidences. The most obvious of these by far is Amir’s meeting him while searching for Sohrab. Hosseini seems to realize how ridiculous this is, and makes an attempt to point it out while staying in character:

“The moment felt surreal--no, not surreal, absurd...My past was like that, always turning up...he was already here, in the flesh, sitting less than ten feet from me, after all these years.” (281)

Although this is an admirable effort to put the situation into perspective, saying that he, too, finds it difficult to believe, its real effect is to make the coincidence seem even more impossible. The way in which the revelation is structured leads the reader to wonder whether the author simply ran out of surprises; whether he constructed this scene just because he couldn’t think of another way to further the plot. A similar emphasis on unreality surrounds one of the direct results of Amir’s meeting Assef; Amir is in the hospital reflecting on his injuries:

“I kept thinking of something else Armand/Dr. Faruqi had said: The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip.” (297)

Here we have an example of an absurdity associated with Hassan, who had a harelip as well, though he was born with his. The situation seems to say that Amir has, in some sense, become Hassan--or at least, the two are now much more similar. Now, I must admit, fiction is not intended to be exactly like real life; if it were, we wouldn’t bother to read it. However, an author cannot insert something as bizarre as this and make the reader believe it. Even if it is accepted on one level, on another the reader will be thinking that maybe the situation is just a little too perfect.

The Kite Runner does not by any means fail to get its point across, mainly about the struggle to overcome one’s past and the difficulty of stopping a chain of lies once it has been started. The story itself is riveting and generally well-written. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it--but be prepared for an overabundance of impossible coincidences. Be careful of scenes that fall apart when given too much thought; they can be the downfall of an otherwise good book.