Book review- A thousand Splendid suns- by Khaled Hosseini
pages: 372.
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roof,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.It’s a book about Living with the endless hope and desire to come ALIVE. It opens a different world to me as it talks about a society, a country and a religion which is completely unknown to me. It’s about realities the common people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and similar countries are living and dealing with every day since decades.
On face it is the journey of two little girls whose lives take a drastic turn with the events, where reality strikes them hard on their faces and how they deal with it. Deep inside it’s a wonderfully layered story of every individual of that country.
Khaled starts with the story of Mariam as a little girl who cherishes her dreams as small as to go and live in the city of Pakistan with her father, even after her mother’s sincere warning of how crude things are outside the small place in the hills where they lived. It moves on to the hard stricken realities of the world of adults, their hypocrisy which creates a dent in a child’s mind. The story moves from Pakistan to Afghanistan where Mariam is married to a man double her age. Khaled with his elaborate expressions describes Mariam’s feelings as she acquires womanhood. He interweaves it with the changing rules in the country. Mariam witnesses Laila’s birth and here Khaled tells us a parallel story of Laila - a bright, young child who is blessed to learn and go to school. Her beauty, cheerful, and go get it attitude is set for the future narration. He intertwins the stories of Laila and Mariam with an incidence that makes their stories one. Laila, whose birth Mariam had witnessed has no choice but marry Mariam’s husband.
Mariam and Laila are the faces of hundreds and thousands of women who individually face sever atrocities, bans in the Muslim ruling world. But their lives do not stand in isolation it is entwined with how families have seen the overthrowing of various rulers and how the situation has gone from bad to worse with no hopes for years. Mothers have lost their sons in the name of Jihad, daughters have been repeatedly raped by the so called soldiers, the belongings are looted and there is ban on music, women walking alone, and attending schools, almost everything which is important for an individual’s growth.
I as a part of a liberal country can not imagine a life full of do nots and have nots.But what Khaled beautifully brings out in the book is that life doesn’t stop you from learning , growing as an individual, dreaming, pushing yourself even in those extreme situations and come out ALIVE.
His writing has a simplistic yet elaborate way of story telling.He makes you taste every emotion of innocence,womanhood,love, hatred and bitterness.In all its a story of realities, hope, determination, conviction, courage which doesn’t make some heroic saga. But it touches you inside with splendid feelings and emotions about relationships, their complexities and simplifications.
I liked it!
