There can’t be many novels that make you want to hit one of the main characters. But this one did. It wasn’t caused by mild irritation; it arose from deep-seated personal animosity for a vile contemptible abusive man. It’s perhaps the one occasion where you feel that a bit of domestic violence might actually be justified, which is perverse because it’s the occurrence of that despicable lack of self control that provoked such a strong reaction. But we’ll come to that.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is Khaled Hosseini’s follow up novel to The Kite Runner. It’s a really good read, though because of the subject matter I can’t quite bring myself to say that I enjoyed it. But I’m glad I took it on holiday even though it was a hardback, it weighed too much and took up too much room. This is a book to ‘enjoy’ in paperback.
As with The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Kabul, Afghanistan though the geographical and historical context is much more integral to the second novel than it was to the first. Whereas The Kite Runner told the story of two young men, A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of two young women. They come from very different backgrounds. One is the abandoned illegitimate uneducated daughter of a spineless man from rural Herat whose mother commits suicide when she is young. The other is the daughter of an educated teacher who grows up in a stable liberated middle class urban home. They are thrust together by their common marriage to Rasheed, an unpleasant shoemaker from Kabul. Initially hostile to one another the novel charts the development of their affection and loyalty to one another, their courage in the face of an abusive husband and their devoted loyalty to their family.
As you’d expect, it’s a favourite with Richard and Judy. WH Smith has been promoting the paperback relentlessly. And the book clubs of middle England will be awash with opinions of the relative merits of this novel. What follows are my thoughts.
1. It’s a depressing story
What do you expect when religious extremism, domestic violence and military occupation are three presenting issues? The novel makes no attempt to hide the abuses inflicted upon women during the turbulent time between the withdrawal of the Soviet forces and the recent attempts at liberation by the NATO Alliance. The majority of the novel is set during the chaotic period of the 1990s when the Mujahadeen turned from fighting the Soviet insurgency and turned to fighting one another. This novel gives a view of Afghanistan from a woman’s perspective. It takes the iconic image of the burqa clad Afghan women and lets us view life from inside the veil.
In an interview posted on his own website, Hosseini gives his analysis of the conditions endured by women during those years of tribal war and the subsequent oppression caused by the religious extremism of the Taliban. He says,
‘It is undeniable that the treatment of women in some Muslim countries – including my own - has been dismal. The evidence is simply overwhelming. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, women were denied an education, the right to work, the right to move freely, access to adequate healthcare etc’.
Later he says,
‘With the outbreak of civil war, women in Afghanistan were subjected to gender based human rights abuses, such as rape and forced marriage. They were used as spoils of war. They were abducted and sold into prostitution. When the Taliban came, they imposed inhumane restrictions on women, limiting their freedom of movement, expression, barring them from work and education, harassing them, humiliating them, beating them’.
In the same interview he reveals his motivation for writing the novel when he says,
‘As an Afghan, I would like readers to walk away with a sense of empathy for Afghans, and more specifically for Afghan women, on whom the effects of war and extremism have been devastating. I hope this novel brings depth, nuance, and emotional subtext to the familiar image of the burqa clad woman walking down a dusty street’.
But it wasn’t just empathy I felt; it was outrage. The plight of the women in this novel is outrageous. It left me seething. It’s an utterly depressing situation and for much of the novel I craved some sort of redemption, yet feared it would never be forthcoming. Presumably that is but the merest inkling of the unimaginable misery experienced by women suffering under similar regimes.
2. It’s a moving story
Because it’s so depressing it’s also especially moving. Laila and Mariam are helpless victims caught up in a situation beyond their control. And yet, in the midst of this dismal account of war torn Kabul there is nevertheless the depiction of love, friendship, loyalty and courage. And that’s what Hosseini was after. He says,
‘What intrigued me about this new book were the hopes and dreams and disillusions of these two women, their inner lives, the specific circumstances that bring them together, their resolve to survive, and the fact that their relationship evolves into something meaningful and powerful, even as the world around them unravels and slips into chaos‘.
And so, it put my own struggles and frustrations in some sort of perspective. I have yet to endure anything that comes remotely close to anything equivalent to the plight of many Afghan women. But it also made me think about my own family relationships. It made me wonder what it’d feel like to lose my two sons in a war. It made me wonder whether I’ve taken for granted the equal rights that men and women share. It made me wonder whether I’m guilty of mistreating my wife. It made me check I was valuing my girls.
3. It’s a redemptive story
Wonderfully the book moves towards a redemptive ending. Though the story of how Afghanistan will end is still an open book, Hosseini’s novel concludes with shafts of light hinting at the end of a tunnel. But the focus is not so much on national transformation but on personal transformation. It’s the redemption of Laila and her family that captivates the reader. For all our concern about the plight of this war torn country, it’s the plight of her inhabitants that arouses our sympathy. I won’t spoil the experience of reading by giving away the resolution.
Conclusion
If you’re wondering whether to read this book read Hosseini’s own ambitions for his novel,
‘I hope that readers discover in this novel the same things that I look for when I read fiction: a story that transports, characters who engage, and a sense of illumination, of having been transformed somehow by the experiences of the characters. I hope that readers respond to the emotions of this story, that despite vast cultural differences, they identify with Mariam and Laila and their dreams and ordinary hopes and day-to-day struggle to survive’.
To my mind, it did all that and more. Not bad for a paperback.
For a brief video interview with the author, Khaled Hosseini, see here and for the interview on his website go here.
