Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Once in this life we come across something which totally changes our perception about life, about our values about our whole system of thinking.” A Thousand Splendid Suns”, by Khaled Hosseni, is this something for me. It gave a whole new perception and direction to my thinking about women, Muslim women in particular. It awakened my sleeping mind to the plight of other women and to refocus my thoughts on the whole point of life in general.

“Harami”, this word, which is how the novel begins, sums up the almost the entire novel. Set in 1974 it is a story about friendship, love, trust and the promise of hope. It tells the tale of two totally different Afghani women, Mariam and Laila. Mariam is the illegitimate child of a local cinema owner Jameel and his maid, whom Mariam refers to as “Nana”. Jalil builds a modest house for them on a hilltop away from the prying eyes of the village and his four other wives. He is successful in convincing Mariam that one day he will accept her openly. Nana correctly warns Mariam to be wary of Jalil’s promises, but Mariam’s innocence leads her to believe him. One tragic day nana commits suicide and leaves Mariam to discover her father’s true colours, when he quickly gives in to the demands of his wives and marries her off to a much older and authoritative man, Rasheed, who subjects her to inhuman treatment.

Rasheed quickly makes it clear to Mariam that it embarrasses him “to see a man who’s lost control of his wife.” He wastes no time in commanding her to wear a burqa and mistreats her in every possible way, subjecting her to rudeness and insults, “walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat.” Mariam becomes vary of “his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies and sometimes not.”

The story then moves to the other character, who is the strength of this novel, Laila. The daughter of an intellectual man, who wants his daughter to get a good education and a woman obsessed with her sons, Laila suddenly finds herself orphaned when a rocket shatters her home, killing her parents. In da midst of this destruction, Rasheed saves her and offers to marry her. She accepts his offer after learning that the man she loved, Tariq, is dead and she is pregnant with his child. She sees no future outside Kabul for her and the baby and hence decides to take this step.

These two characters, Mariam and Laila meet at time in life when both of them have lost a great deal. Mariam at first sees Laila as an enemy and despises her but slowly a bond of friendship and trust forms between them when Laila’s daughter, Azizia, is born. Meanwhile Rasheed eventually realises that Azizia is not his daughter and the same treatment, meted out to Mariam, is put on Laila. Soon Laila gives birth to Rasheed’s son, Zalmai, who is doted on by Rasheed.

The story begins to take a turn when Tariq returns and claims his undying love for Laila. On learning about this Rasheed flies into a fit of rage and beats Laila up, upon realising that his anger will not subside Mariam hits him on the head with a shovel, killing him. She then aids Laila and her children to escape to Pakistan with Tariq and gives herself up to the Taliban and is sentenced to death.

Laila and Tariq stay in Pakistan for a while and return after the American forces attack Afghanistan after 9/11. They try to make a happy life thereafter with the promise of a better future.

The back drop of this novel is the terror, which the Taliban create in Afghanistan. The violence, the gruesome crimes and the horrible scenarios, create a vivid picture in the readers mind about the life of the people in Afghanistan. Khaled Hosseni takes this novel from a slow narration to faced paced pitch which manages to excite the reader but also makes them feel the pain for the characters in it.  By narrating their day to day routine he helps us in identifying with the characters. His first novel “The Kite Runner” had its basis on the Father-son relationship and the guilt of a character and his atonement for his cowardice to save a friend, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” tells the story of the Afghani women and throws light on the bitter relationship of an illegitimate daughter and her mother, it highlights one woman’s sacrifice to save another and the friendship that they form.

The angle through which Hosseni forms and moulds the story is what has made this novel such a delight to read. He has managed to capture the beauty of Afghanistan and also the scars left on it by the wars. His stark portrayal of the white and black characters is somewhat hard to believe but he more than makes up for it by inducing a sense of humanity in them. The basis of Hosseni’s stories, are always the Islamic laws, and although he gets it right in his own way, he fails to explore their positive side. His portrayal of characters is always from his point of view of the Islamic world but, there is always not just one story.  Maybe he wants to give the readers what they want to read.