A Thousand Splendid Suns

Every book I've read so far has been written by white middle-class men, with the exception of Rachel Joyce, and Lionel Shriver (is she pretending to be a man, or is that her real name?) and Siobhan Horner's co-authorship of For Better, For Worse. So, time to redress the balance with Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. 

I really enjoyed his first novel The Kite Runner, and
this, according to the blurb on the back is better. The Times writes "If he cut his teeth writing about his countrymen, it is the plight of Afghanistan's women that has brought him to realise his full powers as a novelist."
Accordingly, the book is dedicated to the women of Afghanistan.

If Richard and Judy and their viewers, plus Isabel Allende and Mariella Frostrup are anything to go by, it was one of the great reads of 2007. All I know so far, is that, unlike my last read, which had no chapter breaks at all, Khaled has been very kind to me, and written in nice, short chapters!     

Short chapters means fast reading for me, and I finished this wonderful novel in two sessions over a night and a day. Here is yet another man who writes women amazingly, and what strong women. Nothing really prepared me for the harsh reality of life for a woman under the rule of warlords and the Taliban, and the restrictive controls of extreme Islamist teachings, enforced by a male-dominated society. 

The dynamic of the plot revolves around the two main female characters, Mariam and Laila, almost a generation apart, who have suffered at the hands of such men. Through their shared suffering, they forge a gradual admiration and friendship for each other that develops into a mother/daughter relationship, and acts as a buffer against the outrageous violence and injustice that is meted out to them. 

In the Postscript he writes that "For me, writing has always been the selfish, self-serving act of telling myself a story." What makes this book magnificent, is that it tells just such a powerful, emotive story, populated by unforgettable characters. Mariam, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy business man, stands like a giant, quietly dignified in the face of domestic tyranny and humiliation. Laila later describes her surrogate mother as being " like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washes over her." 

It is an incredibly powerful book, which I really enjoyed, even though it left my emotions totally shredded!