A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
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Book Reviews of A Thousand Splendid Suns
Book Review: battered women in war-torn Afghanistan
Summary: 4 Stars
In this novel two wives of the same man become unlikely friends in turmoil-ridden Afghanistan. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a rich man and finds out the hard way where she stands with his family. Laila is twenty years younger with an educated father and seemingly bipolar mother. Both women end up married to the much older Rasheed, who is virtually the devil incarnate. I enjoy books in which there is a moral dilemma and shades of gray where right and wrong are concerned, but most of the characters in this book can be divided into clear groups of good and evil. For that reason, I think The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini's better book, but a lot of women disagree, perhaps because A Thousand Splendid Suns is primarily about women. Only Jalil, Mariam's father, straddles the line between good and evil. He is conflicted as he tries to balance his love for Mariam with his desire to protect his good name. His biggest flaw, like that of the protagonist in The Kite Runner, is that he is a coward, and this weakness has tragic consequences. Also, The Kite Runner has an event that defies reality, whereas this book is almost too real. The brutality that dominates these women's lives is unimaginable, although I don't doubt for one second that their situation was common in Afghanistan under the Taliban. The ending is fairly predictable and sentimental, but at least Hosseini's books offer some degree of hope.
Book Review: A very moving story which could change your life
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a work of fiction which is beautifully woven using many threads of both harsh and loving reality. I cannot believe that it could be possible for any reader to get through this book without shedding a tear. I shed many.
It is about the collision of the life-paths of two women who come from very different family backgrounds, but become the wives of the same, cruel husband in Kabul. They form an unlikely, strong, and loving, alliance.
The story takes us through over three decades of recent Afghan history, through the many ruling regimes and conflicts during those times, and the consequences of what is termed as collateral damage suffered by many during the battles between the many factions involved.
You must read this book. For those who are familiar with many of the cultural and individual personality variations to be found in all the peoples of the world, you will still discover more amongst these pages. For those who believe the single, simplistic view of Muslim society that the western media portray, this book will be a huge revelation. However, many of those people would rather bury their heads in the sand. Those people should overcome their fear, and drag themselves into the opening pages of this book. I can guarantee that they will be quickly captivated, and they will soon be shedding tears with the rest of us.
Book Review: Profoundly moving
Summary: 5 Stars
The story of modern Afghanistan differs little from that nation's long history: war and war and war again as invading armies marched in to suffer defeat at the hands of tribesmen and geography. It is that region's misfortune to lie between glittering prizes desired by the world's tyrants and then, in wars' wake, to fall prey to religious zealotry. This compelling novel comprises the lives of two modern Afghani women shaped by the personal violence of sharia and the impersonal desecration of war. Khaled Hosseini has also delivered a tale of heroic loyalty and love that extend across miles and mountains and generations.
Along the way one gleans a good bit of information about the region's recent history and gains a South Asian perspective on the outside world which has supplied the armaments with which Pashtuns and Tajiks and the Northern Alliance and the Taliban have butchered each other of late. Hosseini's most telling achievement, however, is to give the reader a horrific picture of the cruelty and mindlessness of modern warfare and then exceed that horror in his depiction of marital brutality. No matter how ghastly the effect of rockets and land mines and Kalashnikovs, it is the battering and dehumanization endured by women and sanctioned by a religion and culture and law that will cut to your heart.
A brilliant novel.
Book Review: Too much and too little
Summary: 2 Stars
After reading and thoroughly enjoying Kite Runner, I was excited to read Husseini's next novel.
I was really disappointed.
He deftly illustrates the systematically inhumane and tragic treatment of women in Afganistan, a worthy and important goal, but there is little else to the 400+ pages that is interesting or engaging.
I can understand that the immersive, numbing suffering that the reader experiences is a small representation of the persistent oppression that women in Afganistan must endure, but I expected more than just that. The private and restorative moments of interaction between the women in the evenings is lacking in detail and underdeveloped, many of the events and characters seem overly theatrical and shockingly one-dimensional.
The events at the beginning of the book are so compelling and intriguing, then the middle 350+ pages are just a relentless collection of sadistic montages, and disappointingly, the 'payoff' or resolution of the book felt rushed, and a bit careless.
This particular book was an unecessarily soul-crushing way to gain exposure and impact of important issues regarding women's rights in Afganistan, under 30 years of shifting ideologies, war and chaos. I wish the author would have just written a magazine article instead.
Book Review: Would be 5 but made me so un-empathetic!
Summary: 4 Stars
This story, really one of the plight of Afghan women over the last 30 years or so, is really, really well written. The two main characters are described from their girlhoods (which are very different) to their achingly mirroring adulthoods.
The plot lines fly and tie in all of the recent history of Afghanistan, which is utterly horrible.
It is a captivating, fascinating, emotive read.
But the thing that really, really gets me about this book is that there is only one male character who I didn't absolutely want to reach in and strangle. Most of the men are monsters; the few who aren't are weak, lily-livered fools.
Through the book, I kept asking myself WHY? Why didn't we just let the soviets do whatever? I do have sorrow for the women, but it just seems like they understand that the men who are left know of nothing but brutality and war, and that they will never care to know anything else.
It makes me ill, knowing that these fictional characters are really too true to life. It makes me sad, knowing that they achieve power all through that part of the world. It makes me angry that I can do absolutely nothing about it, but I have been made to care about it. Futility pisses me off. Which is why this book got 4 instead of 5 stars from me.
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