Brace yourselves. Because I’m about to say something politically incorrect: I have issues with “The Kite Runner.” And the fact that no one does is further proof of how biased our culture is against the mentally ill.
The summer before last my friend lent me her copy. I’ve never been so pulled into a novel in all my life … The author, Khaled Hosseini succeeded at keeping me completely spellbound, unable to take pee breaks.
Until I got to page 176.
Take out your copies and see why I’m a little irritated. There he describes his father-in-law as an Afghan that did nothing about the Taliban or asserting the rights of the Afghan people, a man who would hide out in his room for a week due to migraines, a coward who preferred to check government-issued checks than to degrade himself with unsuitable work, a petty husband who would take bites of a dish his wife prepared for him, sigh, and push it away. And right after that sentence is this one: “Soraya [Amir’s wife] told me he took antidepressants.”

NO! I mean, I can take the whole government-handout stuff, the disrespectful tone towards one’s wife, the selfishness of someone who waits around for things to change in his country, so he can go back and be the esteemed general. BUT ANITDEPRESSANTS???
Tell me, Hosseini, how do you really feel towards we weaklings that pop happy pills??
Granted, I know in your culture there is no understanding of mental illness. So challenge it! Don’t give into it!
Right after the massacre at Virginia Tech, I remember an interview with Sang Lee, director of the Asian American Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was very honest in explaining the stigma of mental illness in the Korean community, and why Seung-Hui Cho, or any Korean immigrant for that matter, wouldn’t seek help for a mood disorder.
“Korean immigrants would feel shame,” he said. “There would be some reluctance and some hesitancy in admitting [a mental illness] and openly seeing a doctor.”
So now we have over 30 grieving families.
If you think I’m overreacting, let’s swap the “Soraya told me he took antidepressants” line with “He used a wheelchair and parked in handicapped parking spaces.”
Now the paragraph reads something like this:

He did nothing to advance the causes of Afghanistan; he kept his family on welfare because he was too proud to perform a job that was beneath him; he was nasty and rude to his wife; and he used a wheelchair and parked in handicapped parking spaces.

Don’t you think there might be just a few people with physical disabilities that are offended by that?
And yet when you throw in the antidepressants no one notices. BECAUSE WE ALL AGREE THESE PEOPLE ARE WEAK.
And guess what? Mental illness doesn’t stay within the boundaries of the US. In case you think it’s a disease for rich people, guess again. As I wrote in a prior post, a dear Indian lady I met in Calcutta suffers tremendously.
I applaud your cause, Hosseini, for a freer Afghanistan, and I respect your exquisite writing style. But on the way to your dream, please be careful not to persecute. Treat the mentally ill with the same compassion as you treat those politically oppressed. Until then, I’m going to save the money that I’d spend on your flick and give it to NAMI, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.