A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The story of A Thousand Splendid Suns is mainly about maternal longing and love to me.
It tells of Mariam, harami (an illegitimate child) and Laila. Mariam was born in a deserted part of town, placed there her father, a man too absorbed by shame to do the right thing and admit his mistake. Week after week, her father, Jalil, visits her. And her world revolves around these weekly visits. She trusts entirely in her father and that he truly wants and loves her, despite her mother's obvious scepticism.
On her fifteenth birthday, Mariam asks her father to take her to visit her 'other family' . Jalil dodges this. The end result was such that Mariam runs away to town to visit her father, but entry was denied to her at the gate.
She is sent home after one night of sleeping at her father's gate and sees her mother hanging by her neck on a tree. She believes that her abandonment of her mother caused her suicide. She is soon married off by her step mothers at 15 to Rasheed, 40ish , a friend of Jalil's.
Laila, however, is much different. She is well educated by her father, a former school teacher. But she soon finds her life destroyed by war and she is left without her parents and love interest, Tariq. Laila is rescued from the bomb that killed her parents by Mariam and this is how their path crosses. Things take a sour turn when Laila ends up marrying Rasheed, Mariam's husband.
But all is not blind happiness for both the women.
This story appeals to me because of the highlight of the rights of women, the suffering and the endurance that abused women have to go through. Reading about the war and the oppression of women by the ruling regime in Kabul and Afghanistan, I sincerely wished that it wasn't so. Education of women was not allowed, no singing, no dancing, no tv, no adequate hospital for women. Much depressing it was that such things exist in a modern world. Is it truly an unfathomable thought that women are intelligent and are able to contribute to society as well?
Nonetheless, what I feel when reading the book... The Kite Runner was written by the same author. Having read The Kite Runner before A Thousand Splendid Suns perhaps did spoil the experience for me some what as I am sure that if it had been the other round, I would have enjoyed A Thousand Splendid Suns so much better. Not that it was a good read, it was. It is just that some how it did not pull me in like The Kite Runner did. The whimsical games that children play in The Kite Runner really connected with me, whereas A Thousand Splendid Suns only managed to grip my heart by that little bit. I did not feel a substantial amount. Which leads me to think:
Are we really so jaded and numbed by the happenings of current society that we are unable to feel empathy for those less unfortunate?
The story of A Thousand Splendid Suns is mainly about maternal longing and love to me.
It tells of Mariam, harami (an illegitimate child) and Laila. Mariam was born in a deserted part of town, placed there her father, a man too absorbed by shame to do the right thing and admit his mistake. Week after week, her father, Jalil, visits her. And her world revolves around these weekly visits. She trusts entirely in her father and that he truly wants and loves her, despite her mother's obvious scepticism.
On her fifteenth birthday, Mariam asks her father to take her to visit her 'other family' . Jalil dodges this. The end result was such that Mariam runs away to town to visit her father, but entry was denied to her at the gate.
She is sent home after one night of sleeping at her father's gate and sees her mother hanging by her neck on a tree. She believes that her abandonment of her mother caused her suicide. She is soon married off by her step mothers at 15 to Rasheed, 40ish , a friend of Jalil's.
Laila, however, is much different. She is well educated by her father, a former school teacher. But she soon finds her life destroyed by war and she is left without her parents and love interest, Tariq. Laila is rescued from the bomb that killed her parents by Mariam and this is how their path crosses. Things take a sour turn when Laila ends up marrying Rasheed, Mariam's husband.
But all is not blind happiness for both the women.
This story appeals to me because of the highlight of the rights of women, the suffering and the endurance that abused women have to go through. Reading about the war and the oppression of women by the ruling regime in Kabul and Afghanistan, I sincerely wished that it wasn't so. Education of women was not allowed, no singing, no dancing, no tv, no adequate hospital for women. Much depressing it was that such things exist in a modern world. Is it truly an unfathomable thought that women are intelligent and are able to contribute to society as well?
Nonetheless, what I feel when reading the book... The Kite Runner was written by the same author. Having read The Kite Runner before A Thousand Splendid Suns perhaps did spoil the experience for me some what as I am sure that if it had been the other round, I would have enjoyed A Thousand Splendid Suns so much better. Not that it was a good read, it was. It is just that some how it did not pull me in like The Kite Runner did. The whimsical games that children play in The Kite Runner really connected with me, whereas A Thousand Splendid Suns only managed to grip my heart by that little bit. I did not feel a substantial amount. Which leads me to think:
Are we really so jaded and numbed by the happenings of current society that we are unable to feel empathy for those less unfortunate?
Rating: 3/5
"Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami."
"Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami."
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