A Thousand Splendid Suns

*If you attempt any political or religious comment, you’re in trouble. Trust me, you don’t want to mess with one of my rants…’’

‘’Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter. Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.’’

‘’This is what it means to be a woman in this world.’’

It is difficult, so difficult to read a book you don’t want to touch. A book that gnaws at your heart and spits out the pieces with glee. Because even though you know the truth, you don’t want to face it. You are not ready, you are not prepared. You refuse to ‘’live’’ in a world that jumps from the pages, so eloquently depicted, so horrifying and tangible. You refuse to believe show more that there are still parts in the world where women’s value is lower than a speck of dust, a drop of urine. You refuse to face the reality of a world where Rasheeds and Jalils exist instead of being torn apart and thrown to the dogs.

Words are cheap when it comes to this novel. Every literary remark is void and pretentious. Read it and feel privileged that we live in lands where women are respected, equal to men, even though the road is still long. Political correctness be damned. This is living Hell…

‘’Where I come from, one wrong look, one improper word, and blood is spilled. Where I come from, a woman’s face is her husband’s business only.’’

‘’You will not, under any circumstances, show your face. You will cover with burqa when outside.
If you do not, you will be severely beaten.
Cosmetics are forbidden.
Jewelry is forbidden.
You will not wear charming clothes.
You will not speak unless spoken to.
You will not make eye contact with men.
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten.
You will not paint your nails. If you do, you will lose a finger.
Girls are forbidden from attending school. All schools for girls will be closed immediately.
Women are forbidden from working.
If you are found guilty of adultery, you will be stoned to death.
Listen. Listen well. Obey. Allah-u-Akbar’’

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"Devastating" and "beautiful" often sound cliché when they are paired together, but in the case of A Thousand Splendid Suns, these words are more than apt. Part of the power of the book is to that there are many Mariams and Lailas all over the world for whom this story is not a fiction. Hosseini manages to passionately advocate for them without hyperbole or an excess of drama, spinning a tale that is tragic, but so human. The horrors in the book are at times almost unreadable, but Hosseini compels you to read further because you feel you owe it to the characters who persevere. Ultimately, you realize you owe it to the many people in the world for whom bombs are a daily reality, and the frightening relativism of terrorism inside a house show more vs. outside a house is perhaps the sharpest edge of the knife.

In a book with so little that is redemptive, I was startled by the ending. It is perfect--not happy, nor sad, but the perfect way to let us know that the story goes on well beyond the last page of any book. show less

A captivating book. From the outset, like Scheherazade, Khaled Hosseini neatly punctuates each step of this harrowing story with an enticement to read on. Only sleep, made me close this book. My heart is wrenched not just for what these women (and children and men) had lived through, but for what is to come, for what unfolds after 2007, when the book was written.

Khaled Hosseini is not just a fine writer

Everyone – the guards, the inmates, the children, Mariam – burrowed their faces in the hook of their elbows, but the dust would not be denied. It made homes of ear canals and nostrils, of eyelashes and skin folds, of the space between molars. Only at dusk did the winds die down. And then if a night breeze blew, it did so timidly, as

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if to atone for the excesses of its daytime sibling. P.326.

but a skilful storyteller. Curiously, having just finished George Orwell’s 1984, I can’t help but contrast the similar deaths of Winston and Mariam. Both accepting the inevitable totalitarian bullets but Winston perversely accepting oppression and Mariam finding and giving Laila some freedom from oppression. There are many other parallels to think on.

She had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold. p. 229.

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Wow, a really emotional rollercoaster. Intriguing, horrifying, upsetting, tragic, it shows the tenacity of life and how even in its horrors there can be love and compassion.

This is a story about two very different women, Mariam and Laila, who learn to trust, love and care for each other. It portrays the power struggles seen in Kabul and Afghanistan during one woman’s lifetime. The resilience and bravery shown by these two women in the face of the changes and the cruelty and injustices they suffer is amazing and humbling. I was aware of the Taliban’s strict enforcement of Sharia law but hadn’t really appreciated what the effect on normal Afghans might be, so was quite horrified at the strict rules and the punishments meted out. It show more seems so inhuman, to obliterate the freedoms of any part of a society as the Taliban did with women, and I cannot imagine how people managed to survive under such a regime.

The characters were beautifully portrayed, they felt real so I became immersed in their world, thinking about them during the day as though they were people I knew. I found Mariam’s life extremely sad but I liked and marvelled at the person she became. Her’s is an amazing portrayal of a ‘regrettable accident’ who has never been wanted, but who finds her place, where she can be of use. It is really heartrending, the ultimate sacrifice she makes, the love she shows despite all she has suffered. Laila, brought up in a loving family, has her world tragically ripped apart, but her determination, hope and strength feel formidable and you know she will fulfil her destiny, just as her father predicted. The end of the book feels like emerging from a long dark tunnel, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

My feelings about this book are reminiscent of those I experienced when I read Apeirigon by Colum McCann. Delving into other worlds, completely different from my own, is shocking and leaves me feeling ashamed at not only my own ignorance, but also what humans are capable of doing to fellow humans because they are deemed different in some way. This is not a comfortable or easy read, but like Colom McCann, Khaled Hosseini’s writing is informative and thought provoking and stays with you long after the book has been read. show less

An intense read from a true storyteller (not in the sense that the author made up everything in the book - although I also cannot claim complete understanding of the history of Afghanistan beyond what I have heard about on the news so I take the author at his words). The book is about relationships, predominantly the one between Mariam and Laila, and the inevitable, intertwining paths they are sent upon, set against the turbulent backdrop of Afghanistan.

I am actually not sure if I enjoyed the book as I spent more than half of it completely frustrated by the situations Mariam and Laila inevitably find themselves in for the sole reason that they are women. Lately, there has been more exposure on issues that women face (domestic violence - show more the why-I-left/stayed stories, anti-feminism - which means anti-equality, by the way -, female education - Malala Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just a few days ago, etc) which are especially compounded in cultures where women are regarded as inferior than men. This environment made it a perfect - or at least extremely relevant - storm to read this book published seven years ago. (Also, I only recently got up to The Sopranos episode, The Knight in White Satin Armour which somehow convinced me that the same thing was going to have to happen in the book and I could not stop getting extremely anxious because neither Mariam nor Laila have mob-boss-brothers which meant something else inevitable had to happen.)

Sometimes when books use ongoing controversial issues/settings to frame their stories , I feel like I am being manipulated into viewing the book in a good light, i.e., I cannot condemn the book without condemning the important points they are bringing up. However, I appreciated the awareness that the author is raising for these issues and I appreciated the Afghanistan that the author illustrates with his words, so rich with history and culture beyond what we unfortunately only see now on the news.

(In light of the number of times I have used variations of the word "inevitable" in this review, I can only defend it by saying the book is very well plotted. The only bit of storytelling that I was not convinced of was how quickly Zalmai seems to have taken to Tariq afterwards but the scene where Zalmai inevitably rats out Tariq's visit, unaware of its larger implications and only realising when it was too late was just so well done)

Recommendation: Read between two light-hearted books. show less

This book was a gut-punch.

I have to admit I didn't do as much decompressing with this book as much as I would have liked, but I'm totally chalking it up to the mild depression this book left me with. I can't remember the last thing I read where an overriding thought was "we're all just meat" floated about, and for better or for worse I'm fine with that.

This book was a lot, but I'm glad I read it. It strengthened my outlook on the urgency of women's rights and not to take them for granted, and made me realize everything I should be thankful for. Having so many experiences written in such detail to characters I grew to care about made me remember that people go through this to this day and that even though that reality is in the back of show more my mind, it's a fuzzy entity away from real thought. This definitely woke me up to it though.

I really liked the parallels between the two women's lives and the arc for them both as well. It was a bit of clarity in the chaos of these people's lives and I could feel the power in that. The stark reality of having a life without a clean cut meaning is real and often neglected in literature–hell even I'm afraid to write anything like that–but that discomfort you're left at worked wonders with the story. Anyways I really liked this book and totally recommend, but beware of a lot of uncomfy stuff. It's an important story that's worth your time. show less

I think the most important skill that reading imparts on readers is the ability to discern an author's intentions when writing. One learns to constantly question why a phrase is put a certain way, why a plot reaches a certain conclusion, etc. in a never-ending string of interrogations. Of course, readers bring their own biases into the fold; their preconceptions may warp their idea of what a novel or an author are trying to say, and their analysis of a story isn't as critical as they'd want it to be. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini's deep love and reverence for the women of Afghanistan is embedded in every passage. You are meant to feel perpetually outraged at the suffocating world the resolutely ordinary female protagonists are show more subjected to by an aging, stupid, patriarchal tyrant who lacks any of the two's finer qualities but has complete authority over them as decreed by the anachronistic, religious military rule established by the Taliban. Even prior to their rise to power, however, the cultural norm of rural Afghan was the same oppressive, patriarchal rule that deprived women of their right to self-determination. As the author, it is Hosseini who subjects his protagonists to their daily terrors; as the reader, I got it in my head that he absolutely hated to nudge his characters to the doom you knew they would inevitably face—like when Mariam and Laila finally try to escape into Pakistan via train, where you knew that no matter which man they turned to for aid, they would be given up and sent back to the minuscule prison in which Rasheed kept them. Yet it was his lived experience, his understanding that the women of his home country went through horrors that he could never, that prompts him to remain steadfast in his depiction of the lives Mariam and Laila ended up living. What's really important to me, as an audience member, is that the trials that characters go through in realistic or true-to-life settings are able to be believed, especially so in a historical fiction. I'm sure Hosseini had the same doubts when he went about writing this novel—that while he wanted to do justice to the hellish lives Afghani women led in this time period, he would not want the experiences he wrote to appear contrived. Inevitably, as with most well-written stories subject to the possibility of this oversight, I become pliable as a reader by the reality the author demands me to expect over the course of their novel. It's why Mariam's execution is every bit as sorrowful and full of love as Hosseini would hope it to be. I think that's the real sign of a good fiction writer—the ability to coax readers towards accepting situations that may seem larger than life in order to get a good idea of how life can be in the real world. The extents of horror and beauty are stretched thin as life in the patriarchal hell Hosseini reconstructs from the lived experiences of Afghani women, and the tender yet resolute desire in Mariam to wish for more life in her last moments instill in you a respect and deep appreciation for a woman's claim over her right to live, no matter how torturous her life has been. show less