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Tragical but wonderfull.. ( )

picks up speed at end ( )

This book is a 180 degree change of pace for me. It is the story of two couples, Atiq Shaukat and his wife Musarrat and Moshen Ramat and his wife Zunaira set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban.
The setting is so foreign it could be science fiction. The poverty and misery of existence between the covers of this book is appalling. Moshen and Zunaira had good jobs and were respected educated people before the Russians invaded and the world turned upside down. Now we watch as their inner lives become distorted and destroyed.
Atiq is a jailer. He fought as a muhjadeen and after being wounded in the war was nursed for months by Musarrat who he then married. They were not able to have children and now she is dying from a disease that is beyond the skill of the doctors available. His soul is in constant torment and only she who truly loves him can see it.
The book is a depiction of misery and tragedy equal to the ancient Greeks. Everyone suffers in a primitive world run by the Taliban who are barely human and abuse everyone in the name of God.
There are brief moments of beauty such as Atiq watching the moon and remembering his father tell him where it came from.
Those brief moments only emphasize the bare, hot and dusty world that everyone moves in. To describe the story would give it away. Suffice it to say that the book ends in tragedy piled on tragedy until there is nothing.
It is not an uplifting book but this is life as it is lived by people I will never know. The people in the camps stayed alive so that there would be a memory of what happened. This book is that type of memory and it should be read if only to acknowledge how circumstances beyond our control can inflict ghastly misery on life's innocents. ( )