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 A Thousand Splendid Suns :: 1594489505
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| After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival. A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love. Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
Normally I'm more of an action-adventure type reader when it comes to novels and recreational reading. But I was given the chance to read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner), so I decided to try something out of my normal genre. I am *so* glad I did. This is a stunning and moving novel of life and love in Afghanistan over a 30 year period.
The story covers three generations of women who were born and raised in Afghanistan from the early 60's through the present. These three women tell their story of being raised in a culture that those of us in the West can hardly imagine. Mariam was born in 1959, a child of a rich businessman and his servant. As the child would be a major embarrassment to him and his three other wives, the servant is moved to a small shack outside of town. Mariam worships her father, who visits her every week. But her mother tries to convince Mariam that she's really a nuisance and inconvenience in his life, and should remember that all men are inherently bad. The reader has to wonder which side of the story reflects the truth. As the story progresses, Mariam grows up and is given to a stranger, Rasheed, in marriage. Terrified by the whole prospect, Mariam has to adjust from a life of relative freedom and western culture to existence under a burqa and total subservience to her husband. Rasheed changes from a kind, tolerable man to one who is a tyrant, as he is furious over Mariam's inability to produce a son for him. Her suffering only increases with the arrival of Laila...
Laila is a child down the street from Mariam and Rasheed, and she also lives a life that is less than wonderful. Her mother is afflicted by an illness that leaves her in what we would call a clinically depressed state all the time. Laila is falling in love with a boy by the name of Tariq, but cultural norms prevent her from making that love known to him. She is crushed when he leaves to fight in the ongoing war, but a passionate good-bye leads to a pregnancy. Shortly thereafter, her home is hit by a missile, killing everyone but her. She's taken in by Rasheed and Mariam, but soon finds another world of pain and suffering when Rasheed takes her as his second wife. Like Mariam, she's plunged into the dominance and abuse of a male-dominated Islamic society. She must conceal the true parentage of her child, Aziza, from Rasheed, knowing that her daughter (as well as herself) would likely be killed. Life becomes harsh as the Taliban takes over Kabul, and the strict Islamic rule makes Mariam, Laila, and Aziza little more than second-class citizens that are used and abused by the men around them. The story concludes with a turn of events that offer an escape for all three women, a way to release themselves from their life of hell. This "escape" means different things to each one, however.
This story affected me on a number of levels. Many of us have no concept of what it's like to live in a war zone, never knowing whether each day or each hour will be your last. Hosseini's been through that in Afghanistan, and he paints that experience into his story in a way that's hard to forget. It was also sobering to see just how some governments, when applying their form of Islamic rule, utterly obliterate the personhood of women. The will to survive and persevere under crushing oppression from men left me speechless. It's hard to remember that this "story" is just normal existence for millions around the world. Finally, the concept of love and duty portrayed here is beautiful. Love isn't a mushy feeling that comes and goes depending on whether you happen to feel good about the person you're around. Often it means sacrificing everything (including life) for them. While there wasn't much that was lovely in their lives, these women learned the true meaning of the world through their devotion to others.
I have no doubt that this book will debut at the top of the best-seller lists, and it has every right to be there. Besides being a story that will keep you up far past your normal bedtime, it will open your eyes to cultures and emotions that affect and drive the lives of a vast number of people. It's not a book that will quickly be forgotten...
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Author: Guest
With his second novel, Khaled Hosseini proves beyond a shadow of doubt that "The Kite Runner" was no flash in the Afghan pan. Once again set in Afghanistan, the story twists and turns its way through the turmoil and chaos that ensued following the fall of the monarchy in 1973, but focuses mainly on the lives of two women, thrown together by fate.
The story starts decades before the Taliban came into power in 1996, and ends after the era of Taliban rule. The main character begins life as a "harami" - the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy man and one of his housekeepers. Forced to live in a small shack with her emotionally disturbed and possibly epileptic mother, Mariam lives for Thursdays, the day her father comes to see her, bearing small gifts and showering her with the affection she craves. Naturally, Mariam wants to be a part of her father's life and fit in with his legitimate family, but when she attempts to force his hand, she is rebuffed and feels betrayed by his reaction. Her impetuous actions bring an end to the life she has known for fifteen long years, and lead to an arranged marriage to a much older man, a shoemaker, whose views on the rights of women mirror those that the Taliban would soon enforce.
During the time that Mariam is dutifully enduring her unhappy marriage, a neighbor gives birth to a baby girl, whom they name Laila. By her ninth birthday, Laila has grown up to be a beautiful child with blonde hair, turquoise-green eyes, high cheekbones and dimples. Unfortunately, her mother lives only for the day her older sons will return home from fighting the jihad, and is consumed by the vision of a free Afghanistan. Laila's best friend is a boy named Tariq, her confidant, defender and co-conspirator, and by the end of communist rule in 1992, Laila is fourteen, and beginning to see Tariq in a different way that she does not quite understand.
The enthusiastic rejoicing at the end of the jihad is silenced by the internal battles of the Mujahideen, and when the bombs start falling on Kabul, Laila and Tariq are forced apart. Circumstances can make strange things happen, and Laila soon becomes a part of Mariam's husband's household, by necessity rather than choice. The rest of this unforgettable story reflects the heart-rending sacrifices of these women, and allows the reader a peek behind the burqa, to the heart of Afghanistan.
There are parts of this book that will have grown men surreptitiously blotting the tears that are on the verge of overflowing their ducts, and by the time you get to the middle, you won't be able to put it down. Hosseini's simple but richly descriptive prose makes for an engrossing read, and in my opinion, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is among the best I have ever read. This is definitely not one to be missed.
Amanda Richards
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