Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is at it's core a story of survival. Hosseini's protagonists are two women, Mariam and Laila, who suffer tragedy and must endure the assorted brutal forms that the culture of violence against women in Afghanistan has assumed. Mariam and Laila are treated as 2nd class citizens, as property even, with every attempt made to dehumanize them and strip them of their dignity.
For those readers who aren't up on the history of Afghanistan and the culture of tribalism there, Hosseini does an adequate job of showing the impact that changing regimes has had on Afghani life. I found myself mentally going back and trying to remember where I was when I heard about this so-called Taliban and their destruction of the Buddhas, of this group called the Northern Alliance, of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Suddenly, this story that felt far away became much more immediate and real.
Hosseini is a talend storyteller indeed. He's able to take heavy "doom and gloom" topics and insert windows of light and peace and hope. I wonder, though, if he could have pushed this story a bit more. If he could have dug deeper into the psyche of the women and the men who loved them and hated them, what direction could this story have gone in? This guy writes so well, I wanted more from this story! I've put the Kite Runner on my reading list when this little reading project is all over.
This book is recommended for those readers who may be seeking some insight into what's going on in Afghanistan today, for readers who love a good story, and for fans of love and revenge tales. This is a good one.
No comments:
Post a Comment