A Thousand Splendid Suns

I finished reading this book last week. The title of this book comes from a line in a poem "Kabul" by the 17th century Iranian poet, Saib Tabrizi.

Khaled Hosseini, the writer, is an Afghan who has fled to America during the war, and have stayed there since. You can tell from his writings that he is still passionate about his country. His first book, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller. I haven't read it though I have it in e-book form. I don't really like reading e-books on my iPad. Nothing replaces actually holding and flipping a real book.

This book is mostly about Mariam, born in 1959, an illegitimate child of a wealthy man. To save her father from shame, Mariam and her mother lives far away from her father and her father's family (his wives and their legitimate children). Her father visits her once a week and it was quite painful reading how she adored her father and how the adoration was betrayed and turned to hate. That was the first painful read in this book. Apparently, this book is full of sadness and sorrows. Full of it.

Sigh.

But it's beautifully written. That's why I read it till the end. 

The second main character is Laila, born in 1978, a beautiful and educated girl whose life becomes tied to Mariam when she becomes Rasheed's (Mariam's husband) second wife. The book is mainly about the struggle of these two women - during the war, facing an abusive husband, oppressive ruling of the government, lost love, and so much more. A few of the events that happened (in this story) were predictable but most of them took really surprising turns. Interesting indeed.

The character I liked most was Mullah Faizullah, a very old man who teaches Mariam (and previously her mother too, Nana, when she was a child) the Quran and cared much about Mariam. Somehow he reminds me of my late grandfather.

It's 384 pages and priced RM35.50. It's really worth the pages and price and much more.

Again, my sister has introduced me to a very-interesting-but-depressing book. Perhaps she does love tragic tales but anyhow, it does remind me to be thankful and feel fortunate compared to the characters in the books. Despite them being fictional characters, you know the hardships they face exists somewhere by someone real.

After looking at how much the people of Aghan have lost due to the war, how beautiful Kabul was before the war, how staggeringly different it is today (to the point I could not believe the country could have looked so beautiful once upon a time), you can feel the sadness and the lost the writer and the elder generation of Afghan felt... Here is one picture of Kabul before and after the war... Heartbreaking... Let us pray that something like this never happens to our beloved country.

Kabul before (left) and after (right) the war