Friday, May 8, 2009

Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author:       Khaled Hosseini

Publisher:    Riverhead Books

ISBN:          978-1-59448-385-1

Website:      www.khaledhosseini.com

Type:         Fiction

Pages:        420 Trade Paperback

Purchase:    $10.40 @ Amazon.com (HERE)

The Story

“A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love—a stunning accomplishment.”

(Excerpt is from www.khaledhosseini.com)

The Review

Last year, I read and reviewed The Kite Runner  (both the book and the movie).  I absolutely loved this book and rated it a 5 out of 5.  I wasn’t sure how A Thousand Splendid Suns would compare, however I was more than pleased to discover that my book club had chosen it for the June selection.  Months ago I ordered it and it waited patiently on my bookshelf… calling out my name!  I couldn’t wait a moment after the May book club meeting was over.  Now I could read the next selection… and see if Khaled Hosseini would provide an equally wonderful book.  He did!

This is the story of two remarkably strong women.  Mariam is born the illegitimate child of a wealthy man, already married to multiple wives with many children.  Mariam’s mother, Nana, was a worker in their home and was quickly cast out one the wives determined that she was impregnated by Mariam’s father, Jalil.  However, Jalil and his men build a small dwelling on the outskirts of town for Nana and Mariam.  Faithfully, each week Jalil visits his daughter.  Nana suffers from extreme depression and a seizure disorder.  She doesn’t treat her daughter with the love and tenderness that you’d expect from a typical mother.  She insists that Mariam always stay with her in this small hillside home.  However, one day Mariam ventures out to Jalil’s palace to visit her father and his other family.  Unfortunately, she is cast out and not allowed to visit their home as she is a disgrace to their family.  Upon her return to her home, Mariam discovers Nana hanging from a noose in a tree.  Mariam is briefly taken in by Jalil, but is soon shipped off to Kabul to marry a much older man, Rasheed. 

Rasheed is a nightmare of a husband and eventually Mariam is a victim of domestic abuse.  After several failed pregnancies and beatings, Mariam lives a dark, lonely life in Kabul.  Her neighbor, Laila, is born.  In this duration, there are wars emerging and their beloved city is under siege.  The novel shifts gears over to Laila’s life and you learn about her story until her parents untimely death when she is a teenager.  The death was due to a bomb that exploded in her home while she was outside of it.  Mariam comes to her rescue and their lives are intertwined thereafter permanently.

This book was so utterly heartbreaking, however I just could not put it down.  Learning about what this country went through, politically and religiously, was overwhelmingly sad.  As stated in the Afterword of this book:

“For almost three decades now, the Afghan refugee crisis has been one of the most severe around the globe.  War, hunger, anarchy, and oppression forced millions of people – like Tariq and his family in this tale – to abandon their homes and flee Afghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.  At the height of the exodus, as many as eight million Afghans were living abroad as refugees.  Today, more than two million Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan.”

One of my favorite quotes from this book:

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

On Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale:”

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