SPOILERS***seriously do not read this if you do not want to know what happens!

     I started a new book last week called The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. The book is historical fiction. It starts off being set in 2001 as a flashback of the narrators childhood. The book is set in Pakistan, where the narrator was born and grew up. The narrator, Amir, and his father are well off in Pakistan. His father's childhood friend and servant, Ali, and his son, Hassan, live with Amir and his father. Ali and Hassan are of Hazara ethnicity which is frowned upon in Pakistan. They are servants of Amir and his father but they are also friends. Amir and Hassan grew up together and have been inseparable since they were born. Hassan has a unwavering devotion to Amir and would do anything for him.
     The story starts off light and fun and then the kite running competition comes up. Amir and Hassan win the competition but after, something happens that destroys their relationship forever. Hassan has always been picked on by a group of boys in the neighborhood because of his ethnic background and that night, those boys raped him. Amir had been looking for Hassan and saw this happening. Amir ran away out of fear and never talked about it again. Hassan and Amir's relationship was ruined because of one night. Amir even lied and said Hassan stole money to try to get Hassan and his father fired. While this did not work, Ali and Hassan moved away anyway.
     I have never hated a narrator as much as I hate Amir for what he did, or didn't do, the night of the kite running competition. What makes this worse is that even though Amir did not help Hassan and ran away, Hassan's loyalty to Amir never even faltered. Amir ran away from his problems and most of all his guilt. He wanted Hassan to leave because Hassan was a constant reminder of his cowardice and weakness. Amir wanted to ignore what happened and never have to think about it. This makes me so upset!!!

     Despite my hatred of Amir, the book is fantastic. It is very accurate and helped me understand more about life in Pakistan back then and the cultural references give a great background.


Passage depicting Hassan's devotion:

     "Baba came right out and asked. "Did you steal that money? Did you steal Amir's watch, Hassan?"
   
     Hassan's reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: "Yes."
   
     I flinched, like I had been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth. Then I understood:
This was Hassan's final sacrifice for me. If he'd said no, Baba would have believed him because we all know Hassan never lied ... He knew that I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved 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. 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.
   
     Except Baba stunned me by saying, "I forgive you." " pg 105

The Lemon Tree Blog Post 2

     I am a little further along in reading my novel, the Lemon Tree. To add onto what I mentioned in my first blog post, the story begins around the time that Bashir Khairi (a Palestinian) and Dalia Eshkenazi (a Bulgarian Jew) are born in the 1940's. It follows the major events in their lives throughout the book. The major events line up pretty well. There will be a chapter written from the Khairi perspective and then a chapter written from the Eshkenazi perspective. The two chapters will have some event in common. For example, the chapter after the Khairis were forced to leave, the Eshkenazis come to their town, Ramla (Israeli name) or al-Ramla (Arabic name). The book also references hardships of their ancestors and how history happened to put them both in the situations they were in, the events that lead to them both having a connection to the house with the lemon tree. 

     The significance of the title, the Lemon Tree, is that there is a lemon tree in the backyard of the old Khairi residence that the Eshkenazis currently live in. Both Bashir and Dalia make emotional connections to the Lemon Tree. Once, while Dalia was looking at the lemon tree, she was thinking "why would anyone leave this place." Her government told her the Palestinians left willingly, when in fact they were forced, and so she did not fully understand the situation at that time. 

     I have noticed that many conflicts in the world stem from a lack of knowledge. People do not often have the patience to hear another perspective or point of view on a topic. This book illustrates how much the two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, have in common. They both have faced many hardships, both have been discriminated against, and they are both wanting and searching for a place to call home. 

     This book, so far, has not made much reference to the extremists, both  Israeli and Palestinian, that we read about in the media. Tolan has instead focused on the majority of Palestinians and Israelis and their points of view, specifically the emotions and thoughts of these two families. He has broken down this massive and much debated conflict to a human and personal level. He succeeds because he, to my knowledge, has told this story according to the many interviews he conducted rather than inserting his own opinions into the mix. 

"The Lemon Tree" first entry

     The book I am currently reading is the Lemon Tree. I started reading it this summer when my cousin gave it to me. It is a very complex, in detail non-fiction book about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The author, Sandy Tolan, took on a huge burden in starting at the beginning and trying to remain unbiased. In the introduction he states "The key to this openness, I think, lies in the interweaving narratives: When someone sees his or her own history represented fairly, it opens up the mind and the heart to the history of the Other." In simpler terms, if a person hears their side of the story accurately, they will be more open to listening and understanding the other side. Understanding does not mean agreement, rather it means appreciation for the opposite view.

     Tolan demonstrates both sides in his book by following two families, the Khairis and the Eshkenazis. The Khairis were a powerful family in Palestine and were forced to leave their homes. The Eshkenazis who fled Bulgaria to find refuge in Israel during the Holocaust. It turns out that Bashir Khairi, when he goes to visit his old house, finds the Eshkenazis living there. I have not made it to that part yet but I am intrigued to see both of their reactions.

     The author does a fantastic job of remaining unbiased and I have teared up while reading about the situations of both. He is very particular about his language. For example, if that portion of the text is about the Khairis, Tolan uses the Arabic name of the town, "al-Ramla." However, if that portion of the text is about Dalia Eshkenazi, in the book the town will be called "Ramla," what Israeli's named the town.

     As I previously mentioned, the book is extremely comprehensive and there is politics, culture, religions, emotions, etc. While the politics of the surrounding countries and governments interest me, I love how deep Tolan goes to describe the emotions of both societies. It is abundantly clear how many interviews and years of research went into this novel to make it the factual, yet emotional, novel that it is. I am currently almost halfway through the book and I am looking forward to finishing it.