El Summary of Comets in the Sky, is the first work of this American writer of Afghan origin Khaled Hosseini. It is said that this work was written during the events of September 11 in the United States.
Summary of Comets in the Sky
This work that we will talk about in this summary of Kites in the Sky, It has sold millions of copies around the world.
Data about the Author
Khaled Hosseini is an American national, an English-language writer and Afghan-American physician. He was born on March 4, 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan.
He himself became famous for his following bestselling books: Kites in the Sky in 2003, A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2007, and The Mountains Spoke in 2013.
His father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught the Persian language and history at a Kabul high school.
This family received political asylum in the United States in September 1980. What brought this outstanding writer to finish his secondary studies at Independence High School in 1984.
Then he entered the University of Santa Clara where he graduated in Biology. And four years later she is still studying at the California College of Medicine.
Where he obtained his license in 1993. And that is when he began his internship as a resident at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
While he himself was doing these practices, he began to write his first work called Kite in the Sky. What is it that we will be talking about in this Summary of Kites in the Sky.
Characters
Among the characters that will develop in this story we have:
- Hassan
- sohrab
- rahim khan
- Soraya
- Jamila
- Kamal
- Sharif
- sofia akrami
- farzana
- Wali
- Amir
- Baba
- Ali
- Assef
- Farid
- sanaubar
Amir: The first character of this work, who is the narrator and protagonist of the story. He is the son of a wealthy man in Kabul.
Hassan: He is Amir's best friend and half brother. He also serves as a servant to Amir's father Baba.
Baba: Father of Amir and Hassan, he is a very rich and respected man in the city. He thinks that doing the right thing is the most important thing.
Ali: Hassan's father and Baba's servant. This one in the story plays the role of dad Hassan, but this is not true.
Sohrab: Son of Hassam and Farzana, in the course of this story he comes to take the role of Hassam as plot in the book.
Assef: He is a member of the community where Amir and Hassam live. He doesn't get along with either of them.
Rahim Khan: He functions as Baba and Amir's friend and is the person Baba trusts the most.
Farid: At the beginning of the story the relations between Amir and Farid are not very good, but in the course of the story. He changes because he helps Amir get Sohrab.
Sanaubar: She is Hassan's mother and Ali's wife for a while, as she runs away after giving birth to him.
Soraya: Amir's wife, she is the companion who constantly supports him in what he needs.
Kamal: He is a boy from Amir and Hassan's community. He helps Assef to rape Hassan.
Sofia Akrami: Amir's mother but who dies during childbirth. Which greatly misses the presence of her mother.
Farzana: Mother of Sohrab, but who appears very little in the course of the story. She like her is also Hassan's wife.
Wali: Another member of the community who also helped Assef to rape Hassan.
History
This story could be divided into three main parts: Amir's childhood in Kabul, Amir and Baba's years in Fremont California, and Amir's return to Kabul.
Amir's childhood in Kabul:
In the first years where this beautiful story unfolds, our protagonist lives in an elegant house with his father, who called him Baba just like his servants.
Ali and Hassan are father and son. Both children Amir and Hassan grow up without a maternal reference in their lives, since their mothers due to life circumstances are not there, one because she dies in childbirth and the other because she runs away after giving birth.
These children come to share the nurse mother who is the woman who breastfeeds the babies. In addition to this we must note that Ali and Hassan are part of an ethnic minority.
This situation makes Amir and Hassan not part of the same status. What makes the latter see himself degraded in such a way within the community and where he receives insults from the children.
Amir doesn't get much attention from his father, which makes him look for a way to relate to his father. In the book it seems that he dislikes Amir and that he has more affection for Ali Hassan's son.
This attitude of Amir's father causes that in the course of the play, envy on the part of Amir towards Hassan is noticed in a certain way because he feels that the affection they give him belongs to him, since he is the son of Baba.
One of the ways that both children devised to solve each of their needs is that they compete in the kite fighting contest in order to win their father's love in the case of Amir and Hassam considered that by winning this contest they could stop to disturb him.
This kite contest is based on the fact that they must cut the line of the rival's kite so that it falls and they can catch it. This is why Amir and Hassan set out to win the annual kite fighting tournament.
With a bit of luck Amir was the winner, the only thing missing was Hassan taking over the kite that was just defeated. But Hassan comes out after the losing kite.
He manages to grab her, but has the misfortune to get hold of Assef, Wali and Kamal who somehow have an idea about him because he is a member of that ethnic minority. Amir and Hassan had already had problems with them in the past.
Now Assef is the leader of the group and the others do what he asks of them. Assef thirsts for revenge and that is when he decides to rape Hassan in the alley to teach him a lesson.
Under the watchful eyes of Wali and Kamal, Amir arrives at the right time but doesn't have the courage to face them. The scene of this is horrible because of Amir's cowardice, Assef's cruelty, and Hazzan's victimization.
None of these ethnic communities were respected in the city, so for Hazzan she was part of them.
Hassan due to what happened is shocked with what happened in the alley, but does not talk to Amir.
They both act like nothing happened about it. But the feeling of guilt invades Amir for not helping his friend at such a strong moment. In addition, Baba feels a lot of affection for Hassan, which in a certain way causes him a bit of resentment.
This instead of telling what happened to his father and telling Hassan that he witnessed the rape. He decides out of revenge to take Ali away from Hazzan because in one way or another he feels separated from his father because he is more fond of Hazzan.
After his birthday party, he decides to place a wad of bills and a watch under Hassan's mattress and tells his father that he can't find the wad of bills.
Because Hassan has a heart of gold and because he knows that Baba would never forgive him, he decides to take the blame without being the one to blame. This causes Ali and Baba to leave the house, leaving Baba devastated.
Continuing with the abstract of comets in the sky, from here we will talk about when Amir and Baba had to leave the country.
The Fremont era:
When the war arrives in the city of Afghanistan, which is almost the same time as the time of the Kite Fighting Contest and there the situation worsens for Baba and Amir, so they had to decide to sneak through the border of Pakistan and from there fly to California.
When they arrive in America, the situation changes for both of them, since they couldn't bring anything from home. Baba had to work piecework at Fremont. But he struggles to make ends meet, so he has to sell second-hand items to earn extra money.
On the other hand, Amir falls in love with an attractive young woman named Soraya. The saddest part of the case is to see how Baba, after being such a successful businessman, is in that situation.
Since his immense fortune is in Afghanistan and he could not transfer it to the United States, so he is also forced to work inside a gas station. Her health is deteriorating.
Amir in one of those discovers that his father is spitting blood and that is when he decides to take him to the doctor and they diagnose him with terminal cancer. But before he dies he decides to prepare the wedding of his son with Soraya.
The ceremony is beautiful and both are very much in love. After the wedding they decide to have children but they don't get it.
Another important part of this abstract of kites in the sky, is when he decides to return to Kabul.
Return to Kabul:
When Amir was still in the United States, he is called by a friend of his father, Rahim Kan, who brings him up to date with everything that has happened in Afghanistan. Hazzan and his wife Farzana eventually move into Amir's father's house.
Hassan had a son named Sohrab who is orphaned because his parents were killed by the Taliban. And now Sohrab is somewhere in Kabul alone and without any protection.
Rahim Khan wants Amir to go to Kabul to find Sohrab. Amir does not agree with his father's friend's plan, but he convinced him when he told him that Hassan was his half brother.
That Sohrab was his nephew and that Baba slept with Ali Sanaubar's wife. And that Hassan was a product of this relationship.
Plus he betrayed Ali's trust as a friend and as a servant. Baba never told either of them.
Saving Sohrab from being alone on the street is a way of forgiving the sins they both committed with Hassan, one by never telling them that they were both half-brothers and the other by not helping him in the rape incident.
It is here that Assef reappears, who becomes a Taliban officer who is a pedophile. He takes Sohrab to the house where he is being held.
When Amir arrives in Kabul in search of his nephew, he learns that Assef has him in his possession. When he finds Assef, they go toe-to-toe.
Assef uses his iron fist to hit Amir, but Sohrab digs his nails into Assef. Which gave them the opportunity to escape.
Amir makes the decision to take Sohrab to America, but he has to meet a series of requirements in order to do so. First, there is no document stating that Sohrab's parents are dead.
But Amir promised Sohrab that he would take him to the United States with him. And that he would never put him in an Orphanage, but in order for Amir to complete the adoption he has to leave him in the Orphanage for a while, which Sohrab does not like.
Sohrab is so distraught at being in the Orphanage that he decides to attempt suicide. Although Sohrab survives he does not fully forgive Amir.
But on one of those days Amir takes Sohrab out to a park, where some Afghan children are flying kites. The two of them fly a kite together and even battle other kites and win.
It is there at that precise moment when the memories of everything lived in Kabul come to him. And that despite everything that has happened, the love they both have for Hassan leads them to be together.
Works of this Writer
Within the Khaled Hosseini works we have:
- Kites in the sky.
- A thousand splendid suns.
- And the mountains spoke.
- Plea to the sea
Characteristics of his works
To this abstract of kites in the sky, we can observe that within his works by Khaled Hosseini, themes such as the life of exiles are touched on, since it is a theme that he knows in the first person. And to which he attaches great importance.
Khaled Hosseini Quotes
Among the phrases that we can highlight from the author of the abstract of kites in the sky, we have:
In the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, there are sentences like this: But there are things that, well, you have to see them to feel them.
In the case of Comets in the sky we have:
- The rules were simple, no rules.
- You are a prince and I love you.
- For you I would do it a thousand times more.
- An antipersonnel mine. Is there a more Afghan way to die?
- Then I saw Baba do something that I had never seen him do before. He cried.
- It has never been my intention to educate about Afghanistan. My Books will be remembered for making people see the country from another point of view, and it is an honor for me.
We can say that his books tell moving, hard and very unjust stories about the wars that take place in Afghanistan. He also talks about religion and women.
These works have been translated into more than 50 languages in the world, which makes this outstanding writer one of the most renowned in contemporary narrative, thanks to the book we have been talking about and the subsequent ones.
In the case of the Thousand Splendid Suns Book, it is about two Afghan women of very different origins, and whose destinies come together in the course of history.
And The mountains spoke, touches on the theme of two brothers separated at birth, who lead with their personal experiences the ups and downs that these characters have over time and where they explore the various forms that love has to be expressed by human beings.
In Plea to the Sea, Khaled Hosseini tells us about a man's plea to the sea before setting out with his son before the war begins.
In conclusion, we can say that all of Khaled Hosseini's works try to give voice to all those people who, due to one or other life circumstance, have to leave their land and start from scratch again in a new country.
If you want to continue cultivating the intellect and the heart with other beautiful stories. We will leave you the following link to continue learning about other fantastic stories from other outstanding novelists The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife