Melting Snowflake: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Part 5 (Chapters 23-25)

Hello, welcome to the Lit English Lit Podcast, a podcast in which I, and sometimes a colleague of mine, spend some time discussing the literature that our students are reading in their AP Lit class. Today, it's going to be the last three chapters of Khaled Hosseini's 2003 novel, the Kite Runner, chapters 23, 24, and 25. They are the chapters immediately after what I consider the climax of the novel, Amir's confrontation with Asif, getting completely beaten up and his rescuing of Suraab. And these three chapters deal with the evolution of the relationship between Amir and Suraab, the difficulties that Amir has himself in healing, and then in kind of gaining Suraab's trust, losing Suraab's trust, which precipitates Suraab's suicide attempt, and then, of course, when they finally get to the United States, we have this wonderful moment at the very end where Amir is able to participate in a little kite duel with Suraab and runs the kite that they defeat Suraab. Quick warning, this episode does discuss suicide, it does discuss things like the trauma suffered at the hands of sexual abusers, so just a word to those of you listening. Anyway, hope you've read, hope you're ready to learn, and thanks for listening, and hopefully, yes, we'll have some good times. So chapter three opens with a hallmark of Hussaini's writing, and that is this kind of present tense narrative where we get a much more kind of vivid and dramatic description of what is going on, and it's this description of Amir drifting in and out of consciousness in the hospital. We're not entirely sure how he gets, how he's got there, but the story is kind of filled in for him as we go, but this present tense narrative, which as I said, Hussaini uses a lot, really increases the sense of confusion. He's four times, he kind of fades in and out of consciousness, culminating with this kind of dream where he is wrestling with, where he's dreaming of Baba wrestling the black bear, right? He is the Baba of my childhood, the towering specimen of Pashtun might, and the bear roars, or maybe it's Baba, right? And then finally, it says, right, that the bear is defeated, but he looks up, and it says, he's me, I am wrestling the bear. And so obviously you've got this really symbolic moment where Amir has just kind of, as I think we discussed in the last podcast, right? He's taken on a lot of Baba's really good qualities, particularly the idea of kind of standing up for what is right. You know, Baba does this on a new number of occasions, and of course Baba's legend is that he's fought this bear, and for Amir to kind of see himself in that same role, I think is that indication that Amir has kind of inherited Baba's mantle in that sense, right? The idea of standing up for what is right. And you know, remember Baba said initially that he was afraid that Amir would never stand up for anything. And so, I think that's a very important dream. Once Amir returns to consciousness, then we return to the regular past tense narrative. So again, don't lose that kind of that author's choice of point of view and of setting and of kind of narrative voice. And every time Hosseini does this, it's usually something fairly significant and fairly vivid. Obviously Amir's body is almost completely broken, you know, he almost died. And then of course, on page 297 we have this kind of very, very symbolic moment where he's told that he has this wound on his upper lip, more than an upper lip, more than a wound if he cut his lip almost clean into, clean down the middle like a hair lip. And of course, that is very significant because that is of course the same scar that Hassan has. And so in just a couple of pages, we see Amir take on kind of Baba's role or inherent Baba's mantle. And now we get another sense of Amir becoming more like Hassan. And we're going to see this later on in the story. And you know, what did Hassan do for Amir while he put his body on the line, right, for him? With Hassan, no less, right? And so Hassan having put his body on the line with Hassan for Hassan's son, you know, the scar is very symbolic. And of course, it's a reminder that they are connected, right, that they are half brothers. What I find really moving is when Amir and Surab kind of first start talking to each other, their first kind of initial conversations, it's clear that Hassan has told Surab everything at all about Amir. He says on page 306 that Surab tells Amir that Hassan had told him that he was the best, Amir was the best friend he'd ever had. And, you know, I think that's a, it's difficult for Amir to hear, right? And Surab is quite, he's obviously traumatized, right? He shy, he doesn't shake Amir's hand. He looks down at his hands. And I like what Amir says when Farid asks him like, what on earth happened in the back on page 298? Because all he knows is that Amir kind of comes running out with Surab and then kind of collapses. And Amir says, well, let's just say we both got what we deserved. And I think that's a very apt way to look at it. Something else that's important in this chapter is the letter from Rahim Khan. And, you know, we've had a number of letters. And, you know, the letters from Hassan to Amir are very insightful, very important. But Rahim Khan's letter here is, is, is really important. There's some, there's some beautiful lines in it. And it's essentially Amir, if, if not apologizing, essentially kind of saying that he's ashamed for the lies that he and Baba told him. And, you know, I think Rahim Khan's letter really helps Amir understand that Baba suffered through those years. Rahim Khan says, a man who has no conscience, no goodness does not suffer. He goes on to say, you know, the Kabul we lived in in those days was a strange one which some things mattered more than the truth. So there's a great deal of kind of complexity, nuance, kind of moral ambiguity, which is something that we see a lot of in this story. And, you know, Baba is a complicated character. And, and he's become more complicated since we've seen this new, this revelation has come through and that he, but Rahim Khan really helps Amir understand that that Baba was really tortured by this, right? He longed to, he longed to love Hassan openly, which is what he says. And, and Amir is finally understands what Rahim Khan says. He says, when Baba saw you, he saw himself and his guilt. And, I think that helps Amir. And I think it's very similar to Amir, because later on Rahim Khan says, you know, good, real good was born out of your father's remorse. And, and I think that's exactly what Amir has done, right? Amir's, Amir has not made up for his mistakes. Baba could never make up for his mistakes. Baba had to keep the secret, all those years. He felt he had to, same with Amir. But, real good has come out of Amir's remorse. He's rescued Sarab. And, at this point, you know, we still have a long way to go, but it was, you know, clearly Amir has done something right. And then I, I find it curious because Amir, Rahim Khan says, what you need to do is, you need to forgive yourself. Forgive your father. Forgive me, but most importantly, forgive yourself. And, you know, I don't know how I feel about that. I think if you have been forgiven, I suppose, then I think it is time to forgive yourself. And Amir clearly has been forgiven by Hassan. I think that's the last, the very last step, I think, you know, and, and, clearly a mere has felt healed after his fight with SF. So I know I just found that part interesting. Again just worth noting as well, Rahim Khan's kind of devout devotedness, his devout kind of practicing of Islam, right? God will forgive. I leave you in the hands of God and I think that's significant given what happens fairly soon with a mere. And then I think as a mere kind of reflects on the letter, he's continuing to learn. He's continuing to demonstrate that he is becoming a better person. You know, and even though it's interesting, even though he's acted very, very courageously, I think he still feels at this time that he that he has, you know, he's still a tortured soul, right? And he sees himself in Baba and Baba in himself. We had both sinned and betrayed it says, but Baba had found a way to create good art of his remorse. What had I done other than to take my guilt out on the very same people I'd betrayed and then try to forget at all? What had I done other than becoming an insomniac? What had I ever done to write things? And then the nurse asks if he wants more of any injection. He says yes. But I think a mere has already started to make amends, right? He's changed since he arrived in Pakistan. He's changed since he's gone into Afghanistan and, you know, acted heroically. And page 30304, this interesting kind of description of Amir's new appearance and it looks very grotesque. And of course, it's highly ironic because on the inside, just like Sano Bar, right, whose face was all disfigured, the disfiguring on the outside, you know, is not reflected by the beauty on the inside. And I think Amir is starting to reflect that. So, let's see. What else am I going to talk about here? Yeah, we've got some attempts for Amir to bond with Sarab. It's clearly kind of going, going slowly. And then, of course, yes, there is this big, important revelation, right? This big revelation. Oh, that was the other thing I want to say. It's a beautiful moment, right? Page 305. And we're seeing this a lot from Amir. We'll see this a lot of these few chapters. Amir asks for Eid for more favor and for Eid says for you a thousand times over. And of course, I mean, it just loses it, right? It's just a beautiful moment where Amir just realizes gets another reminder of Hassan. But it's when he asks for Eid to go look for John and Betty, called all these two missionaries. And of course, they don't exist. Rahim Khan kind of played one more little trick on him. So, yeah, obviously Rahim Khan meant for Amir to get Sarab and to keep him. And then the last thing to look at in the chapter, I think, is that for one of the first times we see towards the end of the chapter is that Amir is dreaming of good things. He's dreaming of, you know, Baba, marinating lamb. He's dreaming of him and Saraya. He's dreaming of Hassan and him in a strawberry field in Jalalabad. And you know, so many of Amir's dreams have been tortured and nightmarish in quality. And this is a good one. And so I think that's again another sign that things are changing. And the chapter ends with, you know, a way to be good again. And yes, he's got lots of memories. And not all of them are good. Actually towards the end, it talks about, you know, Hassan's blood on the snow. But I think he realizes at that point that he has to take Sarab. And he has to take Sarab to the United States. So that is chapter 23. Well, chapter 24 sees the action shift to another city in Pakistan, Islamabad, which is the capital of Pakistan. And we are told that if Peshawar was the city that reminded me of what Kabul used to be, then Islamabad was a city Kabul could have become someday. And we kind of get a kind of another step closer to, I say, civilization that's not the right word, but a step closer to more kind of westernized society, a step further away from Kabul, a step further away from the world of adventure. You know, Pakistan really serves as this kind of the threshold, right, that the threshold over which Amir has to step between the two worlds that he's coming from, you know, the normal world, which for him is the United States, right? Because he's become an adult there. He's has a job. He has a wife. He has just a normal life. And then of course, going back to Kabul, he's become this hero, right? On this quest and doing the things he never thought he'd be able to do. So still in Pakistan, but we're getting kind of closer to more kind of united states or western civilization. You know, we have the U.S. Embassy, things are cleaner, the facilities are better, the hotels nicer. It's here we really get a sense of how Surab has been impacted by the trauma that he has, you know, that he's has been inflicted on him. He watches TV emotionally, right? There's this kind of repetition of kind of rocking back and forth. It's this kind of image of a traumatized child. And it says, you know, his face lit by the silver glow of the images flicking across the screen. It kind of reminds me of Ray Bradbury short story, The Pedestrian Way. It talks about people in the living rooms, just watching the screens, whether the images kind of touching them, but never really touching them, right? It's just kind of passively interacting rather than really kind of getting involved in what's going on. And Surab is very much like this. It's reminiscent of what it says in the last chapter, how he's sleepwalks, right? Amir again, demonstrates his generosity, showed his generosity in Afghanistan by putting the money under the mattress in Farid's brother's house. And here he gives Farid a huge amount of money as well. It's not much for him, but it's a huge amount for Farid. And we have Amir in this strange situation. Amir is living in a hotel while he recovers, trying to with this young boy, trying to figure out what to do, trying to figure out how to figure out how to get into the United States. And we have this moment where Surab gets lost or disappears. And the hotel manager agrees to kind of help him. Interestingly, the hotel manager says, I will drive you because I am a father like you. And obviously, I think this is one of the moments where Amir realizes what he has to do. I think he already knows, but interesting that the hotel manager calls him a father. And this is a wonderful moment as he's kind of trying to find Surab and trying to ask for help and the hotel manager helping him. You know, the guy, the hotel manager says, you know, the trouble with you, trouble with you Afghans is there. You're just, you guys, you're too reckless. You're crazy. And it just makes Amir laugh because even though he's tired, he's in pain, everything hurts. He just thinks it's really funny because Amir is not reckless, but he's obviously had to do some fairly crazy things. Curiously, you know, or curiously, interestingly, significantly, Surab is at the mosque. And like Hassan and Rahim Khan as well, you know, Surab is clearly devout. And this is a beautiful mosque. It says it sparkles like a diamond. And Surab is worried. He's worried about the consequences of what he and Amir, or particularly he did to, to Asif. You know, he says, well, God put me in health, what I did to that man. And, you know, most of us, I think with, well, no, like you did the right thing, you did what you had to do. And Surab remembers what his father told him, what Hassan told him, because Hassan said to him, he said, it was wrong to hurt even bad people because they don't know any better, because bad people sometimes become good. And I think that's a very moving way to look at things. It's a very moving way to apply the idea of turning the other cheek. And your Suraab has clearly been highly influenced by his father, even though he says that he's starting to forget their faces of his parents. But then of course he's always, he's also really concerned about being dirty. He's glad that the people that he, his family in Rahim Khan can't see him anymore because he says he's become dirty because of what Asaf did to him and the abuse he suffered at Asaf's hands. And again, it just seems like a very typical response from, not typical. But my understanding there is quite a common response. You know, that you're constantly bathing, constantly washing. That's what, that's what Suraab starts doing. He starts planning taking long, long baths. And, and Amir says, you know, you're not dirty. You're not full of sin. I won't hurt you. I promised, I promise. And, and, and and Amir and Suraab kind of have a moment, right? It says a kinship exists between people who've fed from the same breast. Now as the boys pain soaked through my shirt, I saw that the kinship had taken root between us two. What had happened in that room with Asaf had irrevocably bound us. And in that moment, where he says, with the bright lights of the house of God shining on us, he says, would you like to come and live in America with me and my wife? And Suraab doesn't answer right away, which is kind of interesting. We then have a, an interesting discussion between Suraab and Amir about kind of Baba and about Hassan. Suraab is clearly very innocent about this. You know, he asked, was he ashamed of my father? And Amir responds, no, I think he was ashamed of himself. You know, it's a very nuanced conversation where Amir is showing a maturity that I think he didn't have previously. He's not just kind of skirting around. He's being honest. He's being thoughtful. And I think that's significant. And then you have a promise, which he rather rashly makes that he is not going to send Suraab to another orphanage. Suraab, he's being traumatized. The last thing he wants to go to another orphanage. Of course, that's from the orphanage that he was taken, right? Remember that the guy around the orphanage would essentially sell children to the Taliban to Asf. And Amir promises, maybe makes a promise that he can't keep. I won't ever let that happen. He says, he said, come home with me. And then for the first time, Suraab seems to acquiesce. And then, of course, he tells Suraab everything. He says, you know, he calls her, she hasn't spoken to her for months, well, for several weeks. And then if he says for the first time in 15 years, he's really honest with her, takes about an hour. And to her great credit, Suraab, she doesn't really know what to say, but she does know one thing. Okay, she says that he needs to bring him home. Good old Suraab. I mean, she's awesome, right? I mean, she's such a strong woman, such a strong character. Then they go to the US Embassy. You've got kind of more signs of civilization and Western amenities. You've got lemonade, American flag, class top coffee table, magazines, pervster of Les Miserables. Interesting allusion to Jean Valjean and Javier. And kind of how Amir feels a little bit like Jean Valjean, which is kind of interesting because he's kind of this, well, anyway. I don't know what it's like. And the Embassy official, right, tells, he seems very impassive, very detached, very pessimistic. Raymond Andrews is his name. Amir lies about the story of how he got Suraab. Raymond Andrews basically sees through his lie. And Amir kind of finally kind of gets all kind of self-righteous and says, you know, do you have children? And he says, I will, I thought not. And then finally Amir, Andrews seems to help him, offers him a card for an immigration lawyer. And then as he leaves, he finds out that Andrews lost his daughter to suicide. And so, of course, Amir feels horrible. But a sign, you know, Amir is maybe not quite the finished article when it comes to his, his new good personality, right? He's still a little bit, he's still, you know, he's said the wrong thing. And it was not a particularly nice thing to say, very insensitive. And, but there is some hope, right? He's got this uncle with a connection to INS. There's this guy Omar Faisal, who is this kind of immigration, very jolly immigration lawyer. And while this is all going on, we've got quite a lot of foreshadowing, by the way, to what's how the chapter ends. We've got, you know, we've got the bath tub running, Sarab taking baths, it mentions the razor blades in the bathroom. There's a lot of kind of description of these kind of deep red sunsets. And, but Omar Faisal, he's quite jolly, right? And he says, you know, we're not going to give up. And, you know, he says, if America taught me anything, is that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts lemon nature. It's kind of a rather complicated and interesting metaphor. But, you know, make sense, right? And then, you know, we have this really kind of horrible choice that Amir has, right? And Amir realizes, well, probably the best opportunities, go back to America and leave Sarab. And of course, that is not the right thing to say. And, you know, we've got more red imagery. The sun was setting a flaming red number. So you've got lots of foreshadowing of the suicide attempt that's about to come. And, and Sarab's terror at the prospect of an orphanage is quite visceral and horrible. And, of course, the dreadful irony, just as things are looking up, you know, when he gets the phone call to say that his, you know, cousin in I.N.S., the immigration naturalization services, is, you know, be able to pull some strings. It's too late. And he pushes the door open steps into the bathroom and he sees Sarab there. And, interesting, he doesn't say what he sees. We infer it. It's very cleverly written, but we've got the repetition of the word screaming four times, which really gives us that sense of really naked terror that Amir must be feeling. And, just as things were looking up, you know, and I was talking to you, I missed you up about this. And, she just said that point. She just, she said she couldn't handle it. It was like another thing, really, Hussaini, you're going to throw this on top of everything else that's happened. But, yes, the road has been, the road is bumpy. So that was chapter 24 and the final chapter of the kite runner will continue in just a second. Oh, hello, everyone. I'm here with a very special guest today. And we're going to be talking about birds. It is, of course, bird migration season. And we want to give you some hints about how you can attract birds to your garden and to your backyard. You might see some very special ones at this time of year. So, with me in the studio, the studio, I'm very fortunate to have Rubeus Hagrid. He's the game keeper at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hello, Mr. Hagrid. Hello there. How are you? Oh, very well. Thank you. Now, tell me about some of the birds we can expect to see during migration season. Well, so, well, you're going to see lots of hummingbirds. They'll be coming in for the summer, but they'll be some that will be coming in migrating. You get off and get Anna's hummingbirds. Those are the ones that live here most of the year round, but you might get Rufus hummingbirds, Black Chin hummingbirds, Alan's hummingbirds, lots of different kinds. And they're wonderful to look at. They're usually quite tame, not the kind of creatures I like to generally frequent with, you know, the blast-ended scoops. They are certainly not. Oh, wonderful. Excellent. Yes. Well, we're not going to get too many blast-ended scoops. Obviously, oh no, I should hope not. Well, anyway, so how do we attract hummingbirds? Well, it's very simple. You need your hummingbird feeder, which you can get from a target, you know, go there, stock up on toilet paper, and get yourself a hummingbird feeder. And then you want to take about, oh, about two cups of boiling water, and then you'll want to dissolve about a cup of sugar in it. So, right, so two cups of water and one cup of sugar. Yeah, that's right. And now, now, don't go with any of this foolish, organic, highfalutin sugar cane sugar stuff. Just go with your bog standard white granulated sugar. from Target. Okay, very simple. The hummingbird don't like the organic stuff and then you certainly don't want to get that red horrible food coloring either. Just get the regular stuff. Okay, regular stuff. Now I always heard that it's four cups of water to one cup of sugar for the ideal solution. Well that's right because once you've dissolved the sugar in the water you're then going to add two more cups of room temperature water. You let that mixture cool and then you'll add it to your hummingbird feeder. Wonderful. Excellent. Now how often should we change out the the the water in a hummingbird feeder? Oh well really you should be doing it every day every other day but you could probably leave it about a week or so. Excellent. Wonderful. Any other suggestions? Well you might be attracting Orioles to your garden if you have a hummingbird feeder. They do tend to like that a little bit naughty. They shouldn't be on there for the hummingbirds alone really but you'll be getting hooded Orioles and maybe a Baltimore Oriole if you're lucky or a bullocks Oriole. Sounds fascinating. Oh yes lovely birds they are and beyond the lookout for the warblers. You've got some white crown sparrows coming through and some yellow rumped warblers. I saw this morning on my run. You run? Well what all really but you know they were but they're beautiful birds. Beautiful plumage. Very very bright and then spring plumage. Wonderful. Any further final hints? Oh yes I've probably good idea to get a kind of shallow bowl and fill up with water or you'll get all kinds of things. Maybe you've got blue birds or some scrub jay or a mocking bird or two gold finches around this time of year so good luck to you and I hope you get to see some lovely birds. Well thank you Mr Hagrid it's lovely to see you and what will you be doing during this spring? Oh well I've got to go see the unicorns in the forbidden forest. Excellent. I will leave you to it. Well that was a time with a little bird hour not an hour just a few minutes. I hope you enjoyed it and those are actually a real suggestions. Enjoy. Well the last chapter of the kite run of chapter 25 is a it's a pretty long chapter. A lot of things happen and it opens in true Husaini fashion with a kind of very vivid present tense narrative and in fact it's a present tense narrative that goes on for gosh several pages right I mean this is goes on all the way to 350 right well sorry 340 so it's about six pages of present tense and and like I said before you know when a when a narrative is in the present tense it makes much more vivid. Husaini uses really vivid auditory and visual imagery of the of the hospital talks about the humid summer night. His legs are blocks of concrete his lungs empty of air throat burning. I close my eyes my nostrils fill with the smells the corridor sweat and ammonia rubbing alcohol and curry on the ceiling moths fling themselves at the dull grade light tubes running the length of the corridor and I hear the papery flapping of their wings. I hear chatter muted sobbing sniffling someone moaning someone else sighing elevator doors opening with a being the operator paging someone an Urdu is it's you know it's that wonderful description of now it's just quintessentially a hospital I mean okay maybe not all hospitals look like that smell like that sound like that but I think they do the emergency rooms you know they're they're busy there's lots going on they're not particularly nice places to be and the first thing a mere does is he he prays and I I know for them to say always struggle with this part of the book it always struck me as a little cliched that in this moment he finds religion but I think it's it's quite moving because I think you know Hussein has set up the religious kind of the religiosity of people like Assef the Taliban the mullers that that that Baba would talk about and condemn for their hypocrisy right and that you know that Hussein is really kind of set that up as a big kind of very obvious drastic counterweight to you know very intentional and dignified and kind is the right word I don't know what the word is but you know honest religion you know the the the devout religion of Hussein and Rahim Khan and I think Amir really now that he is desperate and now that he's really sorry for what he's done because you know in the past he wasn't really sorry he he wanted just to escape the guilt and now now's Amir's honesty and remorse is really shining through this this moment I think becomes a little bit more comes a lot more meaningful you know he prays out of desperation you know he just finds some some sheet see he just you know finds you know wants to point in the direction of Mecca right and and does it right there in the open he doesn't care he has no dignity he just wants to get right with God you know it says Baba was wrong there is a God there always had been a God and the first thing is he asks for forgiveness and and and again previously I just that wouldn't have been in Amir's vocabulary he bargains with with Allah right he says my hands are stained with Hussein's blood I pray God doesn't let them get stained with the blood of the of his boy too and and it just right it's just too much for him after everything he's done and here he's been trying to do the right thing and it's still not worked out and so you can understand Amir's desperation um and then as he's waiting we have another kind of dream scape of of this kind of nightmarish kind of surreal daydreaming you know he's kind of visualizes kind of going into the the bathroom and seeing it you know there's the people around him in the in the in the emergency room waiting room you know it's just kind of very very kind of dark and and surreal quality we hear lots of crying lots of weeping um and but he's dry eyed when he sees Surab and um just like he did with Hassan he reads him the Shanama and it's I think his his way of trying to you know do what he had done with Hassan um Surab is just not really responding he talks about just being tired tired of everything um talks about kind of the old life um you know at least I think that five times um you know I'm there trying to wants to tell Amir you know wants to tell Surab that the old life has gone the old life is everyone's dead or dying it's just you and me just you and me and it's it's just just desperately sad conversation between someone who has lost all hope which is tragic right I mean this this is a young boy there's there's no way that that should be the case but he just wants everything to go away he wished that he hadn't you know being revived um he wished to be in left in the water kudos by the way those you spotted you know there as a failed baptism and but again I think Amir recognizes that in in a way he deserves this angst like he's soaking it in he's not trying to reject it he's not trying to um push it away he's not trying to escape it in some way he's taking it in and again this is more example of the new Amir um and and he says you he says now I was the one under the microscope the one you had to prove my worthiness I deserved this and once more just that recognition of um you know that he's got to work because it talked about this light in surround size that that was there had just started to be there but now it's gone and and now he's got to work to get it back trying to give him this idea of you know everything's going to be better when we get to the United States and and you know it's a great paragraph it says in the end Sarab never accepted my offer nor did he decline it but he knew that when the bandages were removed and the hospital garments returned He was just another homeless Hazara orphan. What choice did he have? Where could he go? So what I took as a yes for him was an actuality more of a quiet surrender. Not so much an acceptance as an act of relinquishment by one too weary to decide and far too tired to believe. What he yearned for was his old life. What he got was me and America. Not that it was such a bad fate, everything considered, but I couldn't tell him that. Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons. And then it says, so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm black tarmac. And I brought Hassan's son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty, that beautiful kiasmus of just a very simple description of return to the US. It's walking across the tarmac, coming out of the airplane. And in the sense, the story kind of ends there. I mean, it's because the very next page a mere starts reflecting on endings, right? He comments on the nature of endings. And he says he doesn't really know if this is a happy ending. Although he kind of gives us a little hint. He says, despite the matter of last Sunday's tiny miracle. So Sarab obviously really struggles in his life in America. He doesn't really speak. He doesn't really do anything. He's got this jeans and t-shirt, which don't really fit. Very kind of symbolic of his move to the United States. He's not happy. He's impassive. He's quiet. He's obviously traumatized. Amir talks about it as the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place. And he says, you know, mostly he slept, which is ironic, because Amir is obviously being in some yak all this time. And he's actually still having trouble sleeping. And there's a wonderful moment on page 359 as he kind of watches Sarab. Watches Sarab. And Sarab has had all this time the Polaroid, right? The Polaroid of Hassan and Sarab. And squinting in the light of the sun, smiling like the world was a good and just place. Like good and just place. And Amir looks at the photo and realizes that he thinks about how Baba saw Hassan. He says he had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. He was the unentitled, unprivileged half, right? But then he realizes that he doesn't resent Baba's feelings about Hassan. And in that moment Amir realizes that he's forgiven Baba. And he says this wonderful quote, "I wondered if that was how forgiveness but it not with the fanfare of Epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night." And we'll talk about meaning of the work as a whole, but later on, but I think that quote there really sums up some really important truths about forgiveness. Then, of course, we have the mic drop moment. I think it's one of my favorite lines in the whole book. Of course, having dinner with Sarai's parents, General Tahari, who was rather concerned about Amir adopting someone, particularly someone who didn't have the right blood. And he says, basically, what are people going to say? What am I supposed to say when people ask about this Hazara boy? And Amir, who has stuck up for Sarab, he's stuck up for Hassan in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. That the hero brings his, what he's learned on his adventure, typically back to the regular world, to make the regular world a better place. And here's a great example of that, because he turns on General Tahari. And very simply says, you know, you will tell them this, right? You will tell them that this is what Baba did. He, you know, you say, my father slept with his servant's wife. She bought him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead now. He's very short sentences, right? That boy sleeping on the couch is Hassan's son. He's my nephew. That's what you tell people when they ask. Very, very simple. And then he says, oh, one more thing, General Tahib, you will never refer to him as Hazara boy in my presence. He has a name, and it's Sarab. No one said anything for the remainder of the meal. Is that a failed communion or is that a successful communion? I don't know, but it's a wonderful moment. As one of my students wrote, slay, I'm here. And then we have the kind of, the miracle that a mirror refers to on page 357. You know, things should be happy, right? But they're not. And I kind of like this, actually. I mean, I like the way that Hussaini does this. You know, adoption is a really personal, difficult journey, right? It is not easy. It's not fun. It's not happy. I know several people who have adopted and it is a painful journey coming to terms with your own inability to have children. And all the way through to trying to raise someone that you love desperately, but who's not kind of, you know, your own flesh and blood. You know, Hussaini uses the add the similarly that Sarab is like dull wallpaper, blending into the background. But 364, right? You've got this symbolism. It's the first day of spring. So you've got this archetype, you know, it's New Year's Day, it's the Islamic New Year. So all this kind of symbolism of new life and new beginning. And of course, we have the kite. And you know, there's this, there's this, you know, there's a yellow kite, there's a green kite. And I don't know what these colors symbolize. I'm not sure. All I know is that there isn't the blue kite. And I think that's probably the most important thing. Interestingly for Amir, kite flying remains instinctual. And we know as Rahim Khan told Amir that Sarab and Hassan would fly kites and would run kites. They would do kite fighting competitions. And the kite flying moment in that park, in St. Petersburg, in San Francisco, changes Sarab, right? The glassy vacant look in his eyes was gone. Talks about him being awake alive. There's this kind of heavy breathing and then finally a smile, lopsided smile, but a smile. So for the first time, Sarab is showing signs of life. And the description of the kite fight is just full of these sensory details that seem to take Amir back to 1975. And I think it's, you know, it's beautiful. That, like I said, the kite flying comes back instinctively. He knows exactly what's happening. He's the first time he's really kind of bonding with Sarab. And he's coming alive and I love this part, you know, it says I, all of a sudden holding the spool, the hands holding the spool were this chip-nailed, callous hands of a hair-lipped boy. And of course, Amir himself is hair-lipped. So it's not entirely wrong, right? I heard a crow calling somewhere and I looked up the park shimmer with the snow. So fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes. It's sprinkled soundlessly from branches of white clad trees. I smelled turnip korma now, dried mulberry, sour oranges, right? It's beautiful images taking back to Kabul, 1975. And then this little smile, right? Would you like me to run the kite for you, okay? And you've got these, well, go back to the smile, right? I looked at, so they went, they defeat this kite, right? They cut it. He says I looked down at Sarab, one corner of his mouth had curled up just so and then you have four paragraphs, a smile, new paragraph, lopsided, new paragraph, hardly there, new paragraph, but there. Linkton, the smile's gone, but it'd been there, I'd seen it, right? Do you want me to run that kite for you, Amir? It says, and there's Adam's apples rose, Adam's apple rose and fell as he swallowed. I thought I saw him nod. And then of course, Amir says for you a thousand times over. And just beautiful, right? And then he ran and you've come full circle because in the alleyway, when he should have helped Hassan but he didn't, he ran. And now he's running and he's running properly. He's running, he's running the kite, all right? And in many ways, Amir is becoming the kite runner, right? He's becoming Hassan in that moment. You know, he has the scar, he's now Sarab's father, he's running the kite, and he says the line for you a thousand times over, because he's probably actually never said that line before. Because he's never had the reason to say that. Everyone has always given him everything that he wants. And now he's doing something for somebody else. It's beautiful. And, but I want to stress, we're not left with, oh, and happy ever after, because he says, he doesn't know, right? It didn't make everything all right. It says he didn't make anything all right. only a smile, a tiny thing, a leaf in the woods shaking in the wake of a startled bird. words flight, pieces I'll take it with open arms, because when spring comes, it melts one snowflake at a time. So that's the ending of the story. We're going to have one little final part, which talks about some of the possible meanings of the work as a whole. Well, thank you for joining me on this episode of the Lit English Lit podcast, and this concludes our podcast on the kite runner. We'll be starting one on Lord of the Flies next. And as I bring this to a close, you're one of the things that I teach my students or my students are required to do is to look at something called the meaning of the work as the whole, which is essentially, you know, what does the book mean? What is that? What are the themes of the story? You know, and there are a lot of, you know, important themes that you can trace, and a lot of important ideas. I think Hussaini has a lot to say about the importance of treating people with honor and dignity, and that's sometimes the way that we see honor and dignity, for example, the way that General Tahari sees it, and even Barbar sees it, you know, it can be myopic, it can kind of be shortsighted, and sometimes treating people with honor and dignity means treating people more like the way Hassan treats people. There's a lot about, you know, family and the ties that bind, right? The idea that once people are connected, it's very, very difficult to lose that connection, and even death cannot stop that connection. I think this is a very big, I didn't really realize this initially, but I think Hussaini is taking a very strong stand against discrimination and racism. I think when you look at the relationships between the Pashtun and the Hazara, and of course, you do have the way that, you know, you have ASF's approach with ethnic cleansing and they kind of inspired by Hitler, but the way that Amir, as a Pashtun, as a privileged person treated Hassan as a Hazara, was not right. And we can see that Amir has really grown finally when he kind of distains General Tahari's discriminatory attitude, and maybe it's being the United States helps him with that. Maybe the United States were, you know, tribal, ethnic boundaries are not quite as sharply drawn as they are in Afghanistan. Maybe that helps a little bit. I also think there's obviously a lot to do with the results of guilt, the impact of shame, how we are able to redeem ourselves. But I think there are two things that really kind of stand out to me. One is that, you know, you can't really ever make up for events or actions that you've done in the past. You can't change them, you can't take them back. But what you can do is you can take steps to create good. Baba does that, Amir does that, and they show that with the right attitude with with with real remorse, right? And that's what it takes. You have to have true remorse. It is possible to be good. It is possible to do good. You can't stop, you can't let's even fix necessarily what you did. But there is a way that you can be at peace with yourself. You don't have to make up for what you've done in order to be at peace. Amir finds a way to be at peace. And it's through sacrifice. It's through doing the things that he knows he can now can do. And it doesn't make everything perfect. As he says, it doesn't make everything all right. It says it doesn't make anything all right. But it's a start. But really stands out to me, I think, is what Hussein is saying about forgiveness. You know, one of the most moving things about the story is this idea that Amir, that Hassan had clearly forgiven Amir. And that in telling his son that Amir was the best friend he ever had in the letters that he wrote to Amir, that there is clearly a power of forgiveness that galvanizes something in Amir. And this idea that forgiveness can almost kind of come reach out from beyond the grave and impact you is quite startling. The fact that Amir is able to forgive Baba. Baba is dead. He's long gone. But Amir is able to realize at some point that, wow, yes, I guess I've forgiven him. And maybe it's not a moment. As Amir says, it doesn't come with a fanfare of epiphany. It kind of slips away in the middle of the night. So there you go. The kite runner. Hope you've enjoyed these conversations. Sorry, Miss Sharp was not here for this particular podcast. She'll be back next week for Lord of the Flies, I promise. And thanks for joining me. And yeah, I'll see you next time. Goodbye.