A Thousand Splendid Suns

I read many books in a year. Some I read for entertainment and others to increase my knowledge. Then there is the rare book that does both of those things, plus touches your heart as well. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini does just that. Hosseini's The Kite Runner was a magnificent book, and I enjoyed A Thousand Splendid Suns even more.

Splendid Suns follows the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, as they move from children to adults. The book spans 30 years, beginning with the Soviet invasion and ending with the overthrow of the Taliban. It's difficult to explain more of the story without spoiling the plot, but these two women go from being enemies to unlikely friends. A Thousand Suns is a moving story about the power of love, the bonds of friendship, the love of country, and the struggle to survive. I hated to see it end.

I like books that teach me something, and there is a lot to learn in Splendid Suns. Previously, I didn't know much about the political turmoil in Afghanistan and the various factions vying for power. I knew women had an appalling time living under the Taliban regime, but I didn't realize how horrible conditions really were. The childbirth section will fill you with horror. I also learned of the natural beauty of Afghanistan and her fascinating history.

I was especially moved by Hesseini's eloquent writing and observations. In writing of friendship, "Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly." There aren't too many writers who can produce back-to-back masterpieces. Khaled Hosseini is one of those rare talents who can pull off such a feat.

This is not a book for the timid, this is a melancholy story with four parts that eventually overlap. This emotional rollercoaster ride of a story covers the period from 1964 to roughly the present day in the hardluck country of Afghanistan. It centers on the lives of two women, Mariam { a harami= illegitimate} raised in a hut by her mother, the only highlight of her destitute life is the Thursday visits from her father. When her fathers family rejects her she is forced into a marriage with the brutal shoemaker Rasheed. A devout follower of the Taliban's cruelty towards females. Laila lives down the street from Mariam in very different circumstances. She is raised in a modern family, by a loving father & depressive mother.

The book covers the issues of class, religion, work, education, sexual roles, & raising children. All are highlighted by the tumult of Afghanistan's history. This is a very descriptive, well written story, you can feel & sense the characters lives. The first half was a little slow, & it is clear that this will be a "blue journey." The sacrifices these two women gives the reader a slideshow of the harshness of their lives. Part three, is the peak of the story. This is where the two women's relationship truly meshed. The fourth part sees Afghanistan opening to modernity & is less traumatic. A very good & poignant read.

Khaled Hosseini follows his best-selling debut novel "The Kite Runner" The Kite Runner with a sequel that is every bit as splendid as the title suggests. The tone is set early: this is a story about the hardships women face in Afghanistan. Mariam is the daughter of a well-to-do man. Her mother had ended her own life, and Mariam feels a great shame about her life...is married-off to a much older man named Rasheed. Rasheed believes women are the property of their husbands and forces Mariam into a degrading life. This causes the young lady to live a fearful existence...for his temper can result in punches, slaps, and kicks...only to be followed by insincere apologies.

Laila is the second heroine in the story - she becomes Rasheed's second wife. Her life, though a bit brighter, also finds sudden tragedy. She was raised by an intellect who encouraged Laila to follow her dreams. One day, a wayward rocket fired by a warring faction lands on her house and kills her parents. Tariq, her boyfriend, had fled with his family only to become refugees in Pakistan. So now poor Laila, who once had a promising life, finds herself alone. When she discovers she is pregnant with Tariq's child and learns Tariq has been killed (supposedly) near the Pakistani border, she agrees to marry Rasheed.

Once Laila and Rasheed get married, Mariam becomes jealous of Laila, that is, until Aziza )Laila's child) is born. Mariam eventually becomes a second mother to Aziza, and the two woman become friends...and later allies, protecting each other from the abuse suffered by Rasheed. Some have mentioned that this book starts slow...and yes, it does. But eventually Khaled Hosseini's impeccable writing talent shines through and the emotions these two women must tolerate makes the reader forget about the early flaws. His ability to convey daily life for women in this harsh reality is something truly special and evident as to why Mr. Hosseini is a well-renowned author.

....for me to read The Kite Runner.

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns in six.

This book is less disturbing than The Kite Runner. There is more quiet desperation. A bit less personal story, and a bit more history.

But, it is no less gripping. The story and the history are beautifully woven together. The author holds nothing back in painting a stark picture of what it means to be a woman in a culture where they are valued only for how well they keep a house, and how many sons they produce. A culture where they are subject to the whims of men. Those that value them as worthwhile human beings are welcome oases - they seem to be the exceptions in their world, rather than the norm.

He also paints a stark picture of how much harm religious fanaticism and intolerance can do.

But, it also paints a picture of hope that the winds of change can blow cool and refreshing.

It also shows us the rich history of Afghanistan, a country that has endured, much like Nana said that women must. It shows a country and a people with much potential.

My eyes welled in a few places. At one point, I had to stop reading, close my eyes, and gather myself as the story hit close to home. I even laughed (Islamic flamingos.) By the end, tears were streaming down my face, and I was once again left feeling immensely satisfied.

It is rare that you find a writer who, with their first novel, shows that they are an immense talent. I had previously only ever read one such author in my life. From the first chapter of The Kite Runner, I knew that Khaled Hosseini would be one of them. A Thousand Splendid Suns is more proof of it.

I am already looking forward to what he produces next.

Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a genuine instant literary classic, and one destined to be remembered as one of 2007's best novels. It should be compared favorably to such legendary Russian novels like "War and Peace" and "Doctor Zhivago". And yet it is ironic to compare Hosseini's latest novel to such classic works written by Tolstoy and Pasternak, especially in light of their country's recent sordid history with Afghanistan, Hosseini's country of birth. However, I believe that this comparison is most apt, since he joins them in recounting most vividly, an intense, horrific period in his homeland's recent history, which shows no immediate prospect yet of a peaceful resolution. Hosseini also demonstrates that he is both a literary master of exquisite detail and dialogue which so easily reminds me of Salman Rushdie's extraordinary literary skills; these are demonstrated most notably in his great early novel "Midnight's Children". Indeed Hosseini, like Rushdie, is yet another South Asian writer committed to writing great novels in the English language, demonstrating once more the Indian subcontinent's rapid ascendancy as an important source of original first-rate English language literature. Fans of "The Kite Runner", his critically acclaimed literary debut, will rejoice after reading his second novel, and share my observation that he has become one of our most compelling writers of contemporary fiction.

Afghanistan's tumultuous, tragic recent history is told in riveting, exquisite detail by Hosseini, which is seen through the eyes of two extraordinary young intelligent women. We are introduced first to Mariam, the harami (bastard) daughter of wealthy Jalil Khan, a prominent Herat businessman, and his servant, Nana. And then later, but still early on in the novel, we will meet Laila, the youngest child of Babi and Fariba, both members of Kabul's early 1970s educated middle class. Mariam's heart-wrenching efforts in trying to gain her father's acceptance as his legitimate daughter lead unexpectedly to personal tragedy and a new life as the wife of Rasheed, an elderly Kabul shoemaker. Against her own free-spirited will, and inquisitive nature, Mariam reluctantly submits to age-old Islamic Afghani customs even as she realizes that some fellow Afghani women - Khan's legitimate daughters from his three wives - are acquiring a Western-oriented educated lifestyle in the provincial city of Herat. In Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, the relatively illiterate, young Mariam soon finds some solace in a brief, tenuous friendship with the older Fariba. Fariba's husband Babi is a Kabul University-educated former teacher fully conversant in both traditional Afghani literature and Western civilization. When Kabul erupts into a bloody civil war soon after the fall of its Communist regime, Babi will teach their daughter Laila both modern Western mathematics and medieval Afghani poetry at home; its war-ravaged streets permanently ending her attendance at a local Western-oriented primary school.

Hosseini has cleverly compared and contrasted traditional Islamic Afghani customs with Western civilized values, especially with respect to women, through the unexpected metamorphosis of Laila's character from a free-spirited, intelligent school girl to a tradition-bound Afghani bride, as Rasheed's second wife, forced into this arrangement by both a romantic farewell tryst with Tariq, her childhood best friend and lover, and a personal tragedy brought on by a vicious civil war on the streets of Kabul between rival Afghani tribal warlords. Eventually she will find a soul mate and a friend in the older Mariam, both realizing that they've become virtual slaves to their older husband, who is all too willing to hide behind fundamentalist Islamic tradition as he makes their lives within his household a living embodiment of Hell.

Nearly fifty years of tumultuous, often bloody, Afghani history are described in graphic detail via Hosseini's elegant, poetic prose. The 1973 coup d'etat against the Afghani monarchy, led by a member of the royal family, is followed five years later by another coup against the self-proclaimed president for life, leading inexorably to a Communist regime and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The relatively tranquil Soviet occupation, and then later, evacuation of Kabul is succeeded by the bloody civil war amongst warlords, and the subsequent rise and fall of the Taliban regime. All of these events are interwoven neatly by Hosseini into the tragic lives of his two heroines. And yet, as readers will find out eventually, not all is lost in the mutually entangled lives of torment and pain for these two women, since Hosseni does end his novel on a hopeful, indeed triumphant, note. A triumphant note that is most worthy for a novel which successfully carries through the ambitious literary scope of Hosseni's fictionalized recent history of Afghanistan, much in the same fashion as his literary predecessors Tolstoy and Pasternak. A splendid 21st Century novel that is most worthy of comparison to "War and Peace" and "Doctor Zhivago".

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

"The Kite Runner" was an elegant example of modern literature; with a new author writing fiction surrounded by the chaos and difficulty of the tribulations of Afghanistan. I learned so much from reading it.

Imagine my surprise when Hosseini's second novel, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" tells the tale of two unfortunate women, truly second class citizens of Afghanistan, caught in the maelstrom in the decades when the Soviet Union invaded; were defeated by the Mujahadeen; who were in turn displaced by the Taliban...the Taliban backing the forces of Al Quaeda, which brought the wrath of America down on Afghanistan after 9/11/2001.

With this backdrop, Hosseini describes the entwined lives of women of two generations, Mariam, born in the 50's, and Laila, born as the Soviets invaded. Brought together in a neighborhood that is destroyed by warfare, held together by a misogynist husband, Rasheed, Mariam and Laila are raised in diametrically different ways, but share a loss of hope and deprivation that will deeply affect most readers.

It is a story of love and faith in each other, in sacrifice and bloodshed that will stay with you long after you close the cover. And as you learn more about a world far away, a world that has been torn apart on the other side of the globe, you can't help but draw the parallel to what has and will happen to Iraq. Hosseini's love for his homeland, and his superb prose and characterization should keep this book on top of the charts, in line for many distinguished fiction awards, and in our memories for months and months to come.

Best book I've read this year!

"In the case of "Splendid Suns," Mr. Hosseini quickly makes it clear that he intends to deal with the plight of women in Afghanistan, and in the opening pages the mother of one of the novel's two heroines talks portentously about "our lot in life," the lot of poor, uneducated "women like us" who have to endure the hardships of life, the slights of men, the disdain of society.'MICHIKO KAKUTANI

'A Thousand Splendid Suns' will be forever compared to 'The Kite Runner' even though they are two totally different books, in style, substance and
synchronicity. This is the story of two women who were born and grew up in Afghanistan. They lived world's apart from any culture that I have known. Miriam and Laila also lived world's apart as young children. Miriam in the country, born the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy man. She and her mother scraped for their existence, even though Miriam's father provided for them. Miriam had weekly visits from her father who did love her, but for his own reasons could not acknowledge her existence publicly. She lived with this knowledge for the rest of her life. Laila was born of a professional man who shared his love and knowledge openly with his daughter. Shw was wanted and loved. Her mother was prone to depression and spent much of her life in a dark room. Both Miriam and Laila lived their lives of quiet desperation within the same walls; that of their country, Afghanistan and in the same home. Both were pledged to the same man. Both suffered from this man but from inborn strength they endured. Miriam and Laila are examples of women who have lived under dire circumstances and in their own way have overcome.

Khaled Hosseini has shown us the wars with Russia and the Taliban and Afghanistan up close so that we can better understand a culture that has come to our shores. We were introduced via terrorists and a war that we do not totally understand and accept. 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' brings us closer to the people that are in the midst of these wars. We should be able to share some realization of their suffering. Khaled Hosseini has paved the way, the rest is up to us. The women in this novel are to be admired as are the peoples we are fighting for and against. It is important that we understand the struggles of these women and men. We are sending our own to protect and defend them. 'We Are The World', as the old song goes.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 11-23-07

The Kite Runner

Mariam's life revolves around her father's visits. While she lives in a hut with her mother, it's the weekly visits from her father that are the light of her existence. All that changes when she turns fifteen and is forced to marry an older man she has never met. Rasheed lives on the other side of the country, so Miriam leaves behind the only people she has ever known to live with a stranger. Rasheed is a strict man, and Miriam finds herself with restrictions on her new life.

On the day the Soviets invade Afghanistan, another woman is born. Laila is raised in a progressive family. Her father encourages her to learn as much as she can in school. Her mother suffers from depression and leaves her alone most of the time. Her best friend is a neighbor boy, Tariq, who lost a leg to a land mine years earlier.

Laila lives just down the street from Mariam, yet they hardly interact until the struggle for control in Afghanistan brings tragedy to their street. Then their lives become irrevocably linked. Despite the 19 years age difference between them, a strong bond of friendship is formed. Will it be enough to endure the hardship ahead?

I tend to stick to light entertainment and rarely read the more serious works of literature. However, several friends I respect loved Khaled Hosseini's first novel, so I decided to give this one a try. And I'm glad I did.

This book isn't light entertainment by any stretch of the imagination. The writing style produces an almost melancholy air right from the start.

I tend to read plot heavy books, so this character study was a definite change of pace for me. I found the first half slow going at times, mainly because I knew where the story was going. Once I got into the second half, things really picked up. The ending was very bittersweet. I couldn't think of a better way to end it.

Not to say I wasn't interested before then. Mariam and Laila are two very real, interesting characters. I felt for them and became a very real part of their struggles over the course of the book.

Adding to the book's richness is the historical background. The novel covers 40 years of Afghani history. While that is never the focus of the novel, it is an ever present backdrop to the personal struggle of the two women. We in the west often forget how much we truly have to be thankful for. Here, we get a picture of life in the midst of a civil war and under an oppressive regime.

I can understand why my friends were so taken with Hosseini's first novel. I know I will read it at some point. This new book comes highly recommended.

To say that Khalil Hosseini had a challenge ahead of him when he started A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS is an understatement. His novel THE KITE RUNNER has been one of the best selling novels of the decade, could one day be regarded as a classic, and was his debut work. How can anyone match that kind of success? Well, by returning to the familiar while also telling a different story, Hosseini may have accomplished just that feat in his follow-up to THE KITE RUNNER, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS.

Once again Hosseini takes readers to modern day Afghanistan, mentioning events that take place between 1959 and 2003 as he did in THE KITE RUNNER, but to a large extent this is where the similarity between the two books ends. Unlike its predecessor which was more a plot driven story, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS focuses more on characters. First we meet Miriam whose life is marked more by tragedy and loss than anything else. At first she's too young to understand what is happening in her world, but as she grows and begins to understand the cruelty is that is much a part of her existence, we feel pity for her. In the second section, we meet Laila, the free spirited daughter of a father who is a teacher and lover of literature and a mother who at once was a spirited woman ahead of her time until losses that seem inevitable in that part of the world overwhelm her. Laila's family lives near the adult Miriam though there's hardly any contact between the neighbors, but Laila's life is far different from that of Miriam. Laila lives in a limited world, but even in its limitations it's a world of possibilities. Her father has hope that Afghanistan's troubles are temporary. Laila has a childhood friend Tariq who was injured by a landmine and the two grow from platonic childhood friends to would be lovers. It only changes when a series of tragedies then enter the picture. Giving more than a description at this point could ruin the power of the book, but in the hands of a writer such as Hosseini, readers can be assured it will be powerful and heart wrenching.

As a writer, Hosseini made wise choices by returning to Afghanistan or the setting of his story. He knows the country well and knows there are many stories that can be told. He also made a wise choice in writing a less plot driven novel. By focusing on the characters, he's still able to tell the story in an exciting and engaging manner. In the end, we don't find this work to be the same story as the first, the only difference being the gender of the main characters. We also see some writing techniques that Hosseini seems to love. He's masterful at slight but significant plot twists, occasional slimy characters, and characters that are genuinely emotive

I think that fans of THE KITE RUNNER will enjoy A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. Book clubs will again choose this novel as a selection and I am sure there will be many conversations comparing the two works. If people reading this review have not read THE KITE RUNNER yet, I would recommend doing so. I think the first book does give us a good understanding of modern Afghanistan and its problems and where the first story consists primarily of male main characters in a male oriented world, it does give a reader a frame of reference that makes it easier to read A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. If anything, my only criticism of the book, and it's a very slight criticism at that, is that Hosseini may be relying on readers who are familiar with THE KITE RUNNER prior to reading this work, which can be a danger since it's not a sequel. Still, it's an excellent novel and worthy of the many wonderful reviews it has received.