Have you ever come across a book that you just don’t want to stop reading and yet are afraid to continue reading, for fear of how much more there is to come? A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a book that makes you feel just like that. It is a hard hitting, graphic in a non-gory manner, emotionally charged story that makes you want to put down the book and yet read on, with every chapter, especially if you are a mother.
The story is about two women, Mariam and Laila, married to an abusive and dominating man, Rasheed, and explores their lives amidst the backdrop of the Taliban assuming control in Afghanistan. Mariam is the illegitimate child of a wealthy businessman, who is given in marriage by her father to a man thirty years her senior when her mother dies. Unable to produce a son for him, she becomes victim of domestic abuse and confinement at the hands of Rasheed. Laila is a young girl, with hopes, aspirations and a love life; all of which is shaken up by a Taliban bombing. Orphaned and alone, she is given shelter by Rasheed, only to be married to him, in the hope of providing him with the son he still hopes to have. Mariam and Laila’s lives intersect and most of the remaining story focuses on the mother-daughter bond that they develop.
The story in itself is a simple one, with nothing extraordinary about the incidents it strings together. What sets “A Thousand Splendid Suns” poles apart from any other book, is the way the story is narrated; one can practically visualize every incident as it takes place, can actually feel the pain of each character as they play out their parts. There is something to make every reader cry; the friend who waits endlessly, the lovers who are separated with the blink of an eye, the daughter who is ostracized for no mistake of her own, the wife who is beaten and abused, the mother who helplessly watches her infant die at her feet, the father who spends his whole life unable to express his love for his daughter.
Every character is etched out perfectly. Mariam specifically stands out; the author creates her such that, instead of evoking sympathy, one ends up admiring her for her strength of character. Another character who stood out, in my perspective was Mariam’s father, Jalil. A man who was forced to ostracize his own daughter, due to the norms that society imposed upon him, and thus set off the chain of events that made the book; it’s a character we all encounter everyday in our lives, but little do such people realize the extent of outcomes that their actions may cause.
Pick up this book if you want to read good writing, but be warned that you need to arm yourself with a box of tissues, and some time to contemplate what you have read. Because you will definitely need both.
Goodreads rating of A Thousand Splendid Suns – 4.3/5
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