Journal---Chapter 13

This chapter is a sad chapter. Baba is dead.
The two family followed all the tradition but only cancel the "Eating of the Sweets" ceremony, because every one knew that Amir's father wouldn't live for a long time. Father spent all his money to prepare for the wedding. The wedding parties is fantastic. All the guest enjoy them. Soraya adviced to move to live with Amir and his father so that she could take care of him. A month later, father passed away in his sleep. Amir's so sad about his father's death. On the other hand, Soraya cared so much about the crazy and stupid thing she had done when she was young. Amir was very tolerant. He let her forget the past. The narrator's first novel was published in 1989. In the same year, the husband and wife decided to have a child. But unluckily, the fact was not so perfect as they hoped.

Journal---Chapter 12

Marriage
After the first time Amir met Soraya, every night meant a "Yelda" to him. He can't help thinking about her. Father, of course, New the secret in Amir's mind. ention hHe just gave me the playful smirk. He let Amir pay attention to his word and behavior. As a Pashtun, General Taheri cared about their honor and pride so much. One day, the narrator tooke heart of grace to speak to Soraya for the first time and what's surprised was that Soraya's parents had talked with her about him. She loved to read the stories Amir's wrote that was fantastic. However, there was a really bad thing happen on the narrator, actually it was on his father. He was dignosed the illness of cancer, but he declined to use chemo-medication. Later father's cancer became serious. He had to stay in homelieing in bed. One day, the narrator made a decision that he wanted married Soraya. Father was happy to ask General Taheri for his daughter's hand. And soraya's family accepted it. Then soraya told amir about the detail fo things she had done. It can't move Amir's mind of marrying her.
There is an quotation impressed me a lot inn the end of this chapter the moment soraya told him frankly about her secret.
"I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her now I'd betrayed Hassan,lied,driven him outm, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didn't. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them. "

Journal---Chapter 11

A new begining~~
They lived in the United States~
Amir found his love~
This chapter began with the life in the United States. Father was not so rich and famous as before. He got a job at a gas station to support the family. In addition, he reject the charity money from the government of US because of his proper pride. When the narrator was 20, he graduated from senior high school. Amir had decided to work for a year so that he can help father support the family, and his future study as well. But father insisted that Amir should keep on studying without any break. Father is so happy about Amir's graduation. But they have some big diffrence in opinion about the major in college. The narrator loved to study English, but father want me to learn something more useful to earn more money. There was another important thing. When the narrator sold the items at the flea market he met Soraya. She was the daughter of General Taheri. Amir had fallen love with her.

Journal---Chapter ten

The situation in Kabul became tenser. The father and son was ready to leave the place they lived for so long a time. Actually, they were fleeing from a calamity. They only carried a few personal items. On their way, the narrator faced a lot of poorness and death, which he barely met before. At the border, some russian soldiers stop them. The soldiers wanted a woman of the refugees as the cost to let them go. Father stood out. A young soldier was willing to kill father, but finally an old officer stop him. Meanwhile, the narrator saw his father's bravery with his own eyes again. No matter where and when, father always did the right thing at any cost, even it was as precious as his life. Compared with his father, the narrator really regret about what he had done.
"My mind flashed to that winter day six years ago. Me,peering around the corner in the alley. Kamal and Wali holding Hassan Down. Assef's buttock muscles clenching and unclenching,his hips thrusting back and forth, Some hero I had been, fretting about the kite. Somtimes, I too wondered if I was really Baba's son."
When narrator and his father had a ride in fuel track painfully. Baba asked Amir to think about something good and happy. All he thought about was the memoried between Hassan and him.
"I didn't remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray,barren canvas that our lives had become. "(P158)

Journal---Chapter nine

The narrator didn't like most presents except the notebook from Rahim Khan and the new "Shahnamah" from Ali and Hassan. In Amir's mind, he didn't deserve their present.
He trust that the best solution was to let them leave the house,becasue Amir could not stand the sufferance from his guity.
Here is a quotaion impressed me a lot.
And that led to another understanding: Hassan knew. He knew I'd seen everything in that alley, that I'd stood there and done nothing.
He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again,maybe for the last time. I love him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone,and I wanted to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass,the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on.
I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.
So he put the watch that his father gave him and some money in Hassan's room and told a lie to father that they had stolen them.
To Amir's great surprise, Hassan also told a lie. He admitted it. It shocked the narrator. At the same time, he knew that Hassan had seen him at that alley. Hassan was protecting him from father's blame.
Father forgave Hassan. However, Ali decided to leave the house. They were still protecting Amir. Father was extremely sad and did something that narrator had never seen. Baba cried,which shocked Amir a lot.
Whatever he did can't have them stay. It was the sin the narrator did.

Journal---Chapter eight

For a week, the narrator didn't have any talk with Hassan and nerly didn't see him. However, There were something good. It was that his father's attitude really changed a lot. But all that things made him guiltier. The narrator hope Hassan put the blame on him, even beat him, which would release the pain between them, but Hassan did't. The narrator also thought about change the servant, but was scolded by his father. In addition, the wonderful change ran away with it. On Amir's birthday, though father held a big party, there still were nothing happy for him except for Rahim Khan‘s present. He was thinking about tell the truth to someone. It would ease the situation. But the narrator didn't have the bravery. He was afraid that if he told the truth, he would lose everything, such as his father's love.
In this chapter, Amir thought about Hasson's dream that was mentioned in the last chapter.
I thought about Hassan's dream, the one about us swimming in the lake. There is no monster,he said,just water. Except he'd been wrong about that.
There was a monster in the lake.
It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom.
I was that monster.
That was the night I became an insomniac.
Amir felt much guilty for what he had done.

Journal---Chapter seven

At the beginning of this chapter, the narrator was told a strange dream about lake and monster by Hassan. Then It came to the kite-fight tournament.Atfirst, the narrator was so nervous. Hassan's encouragement made hime feel better.The narratorcared about the tournament somuch, because it would lead to the big change of his father's attitude to him which is of the greatest importance in his mide. With any luck,the narrator's kite became the only one remain in the sky finally and Hassan would run the last fallen kite back. With the gift he got, he always finished it well. No one, even the narrator, can't catch up with him. But Assef run after him this time. Unfortunately, when Hassan got the kite, Assef got him. He wanted Hassan give the kite to him. Hassan didn't, of course, Assef knew that. What he only wanted was to humiliate him. The narrator watched all the things happen but didn't do anything. He did not come out to stop them, protect Hassan like Hassan did before. He was so cowardly. To the narrator's surprise, Hassan didn't even say a word about it and just give the kite to the narrator. It made him guilty. This chapter, a beautiful sentence showed up for the first time when Amir asked Hassan to get the kite back.
"Hassan!" I called. "Come back with it!" He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "For you a thousand times over!" he said.

Journal---Chapter six

The kite-fighting tourment turned up for the first time, which lead out the kite runner---Hassan. This chapter is all about that winter. In winters most children in Kabul didn't go to school. It was their favorite thing. And besides, there was a kite-fighting tournament in Kabul every winter. Kites were the only interest the narrater shared with his father. Every time he made a lot efforts to do it well. He can do the kite fight and his assitant, Hassan, was the best kite runner in the distrit. I got the literal meaning of the book from it. In that winter, the narrator took on great stress in mind. Because his father really wanted him to win the tournament though he didn't express his hope so directly. The narrater imagined the love from his father and his happy life after win the tournament. It made him more nervous. In this chapter came the year of 1975 again: In the winter of 1975, I saw Hassan run a kite for the last time.

Journal---Chapter five

This chapter is divided into two parts.
It began with the gun shoot, which came out the political issue about the rebellion and the republic.
Then it decribes the conflict between narrator,Hassan and other three guys who like to bully people in the neighborhood, which is caused by the political factor. Assef agreed Hitler on the religion issue.
"Alghansistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pullute our homeland, our watan, They dirty our blood."
"To rid Afghanistan of all the dirty, kasseef Hazaras."
After hearing this, Hassan still protects Amir as before though he is afraid of Assef.

The second part is about the birthday present for Hassan from Baba. Baba always prepares surprising presents for him. That year, it was a surgery doctor who fixed Hassan's harelip, which caused Amir's jealousy of Baba's affection for Hasson.
After the surgery, Hassan was smiling as he had when he was born.
The ending of this chapter is an aftertaste, which raises my interest to read what happened at the winter of that year.
"The swelling subsided, and the wound healed with time. Soon, ti was just a pink jagged line running up from his lip. By the following winter, it was only a faint scar."
"Which was ironic. Because that was the winter that Hassan stopped smiling."

Here comes the IRONY again.

Journal---Chapter four

Ali is Hassan's father.
A interesting thing is that Ali and Baba grew up togerther as childhood playmates as the narrator and Hassan.
Another interesting thing is "In none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend.", which is the same way Amir did. Though Amir spent most of the time playing with Hassan, he never thought of Hassan as friend.
Two paragraphs explained these curious things.
"Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change. Nothing."
"But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that either."

The rest part of chapter is about narrator's interest in writting. He often read stories to Hassan. Once he read a story which was made up by himself, resulting the highly praise by Hassan.
Amir was inspired to write stories to make his father proud. However, his father showed no interest in reading his work. His father's best friend read his story and sent him a letter which said that" The most impressive thing about your story is that is has irony." Amir at first was not familiar with the word"irony", but after he read his story to Hassan, then Hassan pointed out a obviously stupid mistake he made in story. The narrator suddenly understood IRONY. Amir was taught by Hassen who couldn't read and had never written a single word in his entire life.
The last sentence of this chapter is an aftertaste.
"Because suddenly Afghanistan changed forever."

Journal---Chapter three

This chapter is mainly talked about the stories between the narrator and his father. From the words, I got the information that the narrator admired his father deeply and his father was a great and famous person. " At Parties, when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, attention shifted to him like sunflowrs turning to the sun.", which definitly expressed the great influence of his father. Another funny sentence to show his father's great is "Baba was impossible to ignore, even in his sleep."
Another point in this chapter is the relationship between him and his father. The narrator seemed to not inherit from his father. He was interested in the poems and books, which was opposite to his father who was keen on sports, politics and business. He pretended to like his father's hobbies, but failed.
The narrator was proud of his father while his father was disappointed by the son. The end of the chapter was a conversation between his father's friend and his father. His father said:" If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes. I'd never believe he's my son."
In a word, this chapter reveals the quite obvious differences between Amir and his father.

Journal---Chaper two

In chapter two, it began with the reminiscenece of their childwood---the naughty things they did.
This chapter also introduced their different family backgrounds. The narrator lived in the most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, which is in sharp constrast to Hassan who lived the mud shack.
The rest part of this chapter mainly depected Hassan's poor father life and his mother who lost him less than a week after he was born. Thougn Ali( Hassan's father), with a twisted, atrophied right leg, was rusluted by many younger children, even his wife Sanaubar who said that :" This is a husband? I have seen old donkeys better suited to be husband." Ali at last found his joy, his antidote, the moment Sanubar had given birth to Hassen. This is another contrast in this chapter,for Hassan's born disgusted his mother. (" There," she had said. "Now you have your own idiot child to do all your smiling for you!" She had refused to even hold Hassan, and just five days later, she was gone) Hassan was born with a cleft lip, which cause she barked a bitter laughter and said these words to Ali.
There are two quotations touched me a lot.
The first one is the description of the Hassen's born.
"It had been a simple enough affair. No obstetricians, no anesthesiologists, no fancy monitoring devices. Just Sanaubar lying on a stained, naked mattress with Ali and a midwife helping her. She handn't needed much help at all,because, even in birth, Hassan was true to his natrue: He was incapable of hurting anyone. A few grunts, a couple of pushes, and out came Hassan, Out came Hassan. Out he came smiling. "
Another quotation is in the end of the chapter.
Then he would remind us that there was a brother-hood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not enen time could break.
Hassen and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same lawn. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name.

In the end, the narrator mentioned the winter of 1975 for the third time. "Looking back on it now, I think the foundaion for what happened in the winter of 1975---and all that followed---was already laid in those first words.