The Kite Runner Chapter 25 Quotes
The Kite Runner Chapter 25 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
Next to me, Sohrab was breathing rapidly through his nose. The spool rolled in his palms, the tendons in his scarred wrists like rubab strings. Then I blinked and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, calloused hands of a harelipped boy. I heard a crow cawing somewhere and I looked up. The park shimmered with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes. It sprinkled soundlessly from the branches of white-clad trees. I smelled turnip qurma now. Dried mulberries. Sour oranges. Sawdust and walnuts. The muffled quiet, snow-quiet, was deafening. Then far away, across the stillness, a voice calling us home, the voice of a man who dragged his right leg. (25.150)
We think this is one of the most beautiful passages in the book. Hosseini moves effortlessly between the past and present. Sohrab becomes Hassan, and the park in Fremont, California becomes a snow-quiet Kabul. The smells of Kabul mix with the smells of the New Year celebration in the park. Perhaps, at least in the space of this passage, Amir does find peace. America allowed Amir to escape his past for so many years; but, in this moment, the two homelands merge. Ali calls Amir home, and Amir doesn't seem to mind.
Quote 2
Soon after the attacks, America bombed Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance moved in, and the Taliban scurried like rats into the caves. Suddenly, people were standing in grocery store lines and talking about the cities of my childhood, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif. When I was very little, Baba took Hassan and me to Kunduz. I don't remember much about the trip, except sitting in the shade of an acacia tree with Baba and Hassan, taking turns sipping fresh watermelon juice from a clay pot and seeing who could spit the seeds farther. Now Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz, the Taliban's last stronghold in the north. That December, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras gathered in Bonn and, under the watchful eye of the UN, began the process that might someday end over twenty years of unhappiness in their watan. Hamid Karzai's caracul hat and green chapan became famous. (25.106)
We at Shmoop never thought about the weirdness Afghan-Americans must have felt when their country suddenly burst into the national consciousness. Before September 11, 2001 most Americans probably said things like Afghani-what? Now, Amir hears about his homeland (or, for those of you keeping track of the Dari language in the book, his watan) in Starbucks and in grocery stories. It has got to be weird. Just imagine that your hometown – for whatever reason – suddenly attracts (inter)national media coverage. People like Dan Rather are talking about the park where you used to picnic, strangers weigh in on the strategic advantage of the hill where you used to sled. Well, it wouldn't be exactly like that because Afghanistan is a lot bigger than your hometown. But you get the idea.
Quote 3
But as we spoke, I caught his eyes drifting again and again to Sohrab sleeping on the couch. As if we were skirting around the edge of what he really wanted to know.
The skirting finally came to an end over dinner when the general put down his fork and said, "So, Amir jan, you're going to tell us why you have brought back this boy with you?"
"Iqbal jan! What sort of question is that?" Khala Jamila said.
"While you're busy knitting sweaters, my dear, I have to deal with the community's perception of our family. People will ask. They will want to know why there is a Hazara boy living with our daughter. What do I tell them?"
Soraya dropped her spoon. Turned on her father. "You can tell them – " [...]
"It's all right." I turned to the general. "You see, General Sahib, my father slept with his servant's wife. She bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead now. That boy sleeping on the couch is Hassan's son. He's my nephew. That's what you tell people when they ask."
They were all staring at me.
"And one more thing, General Sahib," I said. "You will never again refer to him as 'Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab." (25.89-98)
On the one hand, The Kite Runner shows us extreme ethnic hatred through the character of Assef. But what about more common prejudice – the kind that doesn't necessarily result in violence but that still poisons a society? Even though General Sahib is a likable character, we see a nastier side of him here. (In Chapter 13, we already saw how violently the General defended his family's honor when Soraya left home to live with another man.) With the General, Hosseini depicts ethnic intolerance in the very fabric of a society. An otherwise good person, General Sahib asks, "What will respectable people say about my daughter's adopted son?" By having an unexceptional character question Soraya's living arrangements, Hosseini casts doubt on Afghan society. Here's a more or less normal guy, Hosseini says, and he is prejudiced. It seems that in many ways the problem is not personal but societal.