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A Thousand Splendid Suns |
Average User Rating: 90% (186 Reviews) | |
| 5 / 5 | haunting, harrowing, compelling
Diana Pen (Spain) - 22 January 2008 Beautifully written with restraint and understated power. This book moved me by its content - the story of two women living through times of great upheaval in Afghanistan who struggle to retain their dignity while at the mercy of a world controlled by men - and by the language used. Hosseini transmits to us the utter dependance of the women on the whims of the men in their lives be it father, husband or the authorities, and the degradations they suffer at their hands, without resorting to descriptions of gratuitous violence. The very matter-of-factness of his descriptions makes them more effective and moving. I must confess that I wept with rage and despair as I read some of the passages. As a student I visited Afghanistan in 1970 and Hosseini's descriptions brought it all back to me; the heat, the dust, the mountains and the endless plains with the huge sky; the bustling markets and the houses with the blind walls which in this story conceal lives of at times unbearable sadness. The book ends on a cautiously optimistic note as the characters work to build a new and better world in their small sphere of influence. A book to be recommended.... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | The Sins of the Fathers Are Visited on Everyone
Donald Mitchell "a Practical Optimist" (Boston) - 22 March 2007 A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS tells the wonderful, intensely moving story of how two modern Afghan women overcome the great challenges that have faced women in Afghanistan and rise above their victimization. Khaled Hosseini has succeeded in capturing many important historical and contemporary themes in a way that will make your heart ache again and again. Why will your reaction be so strong? It's because you'll identify closely with the suffering of almost all the characters, a reaction that's very rare to a modern novel. In Part One, you meet Miriam at age five as she learns that she is a harami (an illegitimate child). Miriam's wealthy father, Jalil, had seduced a housekeeper, Miriam's mother, Nana, six years earlier and now provides for both of them in a remote shack where he can keep a low profile. Despite his concern about his reputation, Jalil adores the attention that Miriam devotes to him. All proceeds in an artificial and harsh way until one day Miriam decides to demand her father's attention. The consequences shape her world for the rest of her life. In Part Two, the story moves to focus on Laila, who was born to Miriam's acquaintance, Fariba, at the end of Part One. Laila's rearing is almost totally the opposite of Miriam's. Laila is loved by both her parents with whom she lives and has many chances to develop her knowledge and skills. Laila lives in Kabul while Miriam grew up in the countryside outside of Herat. Laila is beautiful while Miriam is plainer. They also grow up in different times: Miriam is old enough to be Laila's mother. Miriam never had a male friend while growing up, while Laila is fascinated by the one-legged Tariq. All is going well for Laila until the war intrudes to send her life off into an unexpected direction. In Part Three, the two women begin to share a destiny and develop a relationship. Their lives are more fundamentally changed by this relationship than by anything else that has happened to them. The magic of the story is most evident in Part Three. In Part Four, we come into the present, when Afghanistan is once again opening itself to possibilities. The time span of the book is from 1964 to the present. In the background, you are kept up-to-date on political events that shake the entire country. In some cases, those political events turn into revolutions and wars. In many cases, the violence intrudes into the lives of the book's characters. It's like reading War and Peace as adapted to modern Afghanistan. The book also deals with issues of class, religion, sexual roles, child rearing, work, education, and community. These issues are highlighted in terms of the different regimes and attitudes of the controlling male characters. For Afghanistan was a world where the men called the shots, unless they chose not to do so. Although the issues that are raised and the way that they are raised are pretty predictable, it's a tribute to Mr. Hosseini that you won't see them coming. He moves his characters and action around in such a way that you won't see much foreshadowing of what's to come. Part of that skill comes in making each page so interesting and engaging that you are pulled away from thoughts like "I wonder where he's going next with this plot." I found myself deeply inside the story throughout. That's rare for me, especially in a story that focuses on female characters. It's early in the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS turns out to have been one of the very top novels of 2007. I highly recommend this book and encourage you to discuss it with your friends. This novel would be a great choice for your book club.... Read Full Review » |
| 3 / 5 | Enjoyable and enlightening, but ...
R. Creer (Cumbria, UK) - 21 May 2008 I had read and enjoyed Hosseini's first novel, "The Kite Runner" and was really looking forward to reading this. You can see immediately the similarities with the previous book in the setting, Afghanistan, and style - teaching the reader about Afghan life and troubles through very personal and powerful stories of individuals. But the are are many differences too. The main characters this time are two women and the historical period is longer, from the 1970s to 2003. So, we learn about Afghan life under the tribal wars, fighting the Russians, the arrival and dominance of the Taliban, and much later the arrival of the Americans and their allies. The characters are strongly, if not always fully, drawn and we are made very much to empathise with Mariam at first as she is taken to be the wife of a much older man, Rasheed, who turns out to be very cruel, and later Laila, the second, younger and more passive heroine, who is tricked into marrying the same tyrant. The relationship between the two women grows and their suffering and tribulations are described in great detail, so we are drawn into their lives very much. My response to the book changed as I read it. At first I was thinking I was was reading a book for teenagers as first Mariam and later Laila were young and we were led to empathise with them. This changed, however, as they aged, and the violence increased. Later I felt the characters were too simply drawn: both heroines were too good and Rasheed too evil - I wanted to know what made him like that. In fact most characters were black or white. Mariam's father was the one exception [could we have a spin-off about him?] - a weak man who could not make a stand for his principles and loves. The ending was the biggest disappointment. Not what happened to Mariam [I won't give that away] but the return of another character was just too neat, too pat a way to end the story. It just convinced me of one feeling I had frequently during the reading, that I was being manipulated a little too obviously into feeling specific things about specific people and events. The epilogue was the final straw, pointing you to a website where you can make contributions to work done in Afghanistan. Was the whole story leading to that? I feel Hosseini is an excellent story-teller but not a great novelist. He knows exactly how to spin a yarn and pull in the reader to that world and the people in it. He has done excellent service to his country [although, unlike Laila, he does not seem to want to return there from California] in using his narrative skills to point us to their situation. When he starts to write about other places and other issues, then it will be interesting to see if has the same popular appeal. Meanwhile, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" has cemented his growing reputation and good luck to him.... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | Book club pick
Snappy Witherspoon (I'm not telling) - 12 December 2007 Our book club recently picked three great books: "Fried Green Tomatoes" by Flagg, "Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil" by Berendt, and this one, "A Thousand Splendid suns" We loved all, but "suns" hit some nerve (the setting and general world conditions now?)and we weren't able to shake it. We've not yet read "Kite" but will take that one up next. Would also recommend that you try Flagg's FRIED GREEN TOMATOES if you haven't already read it. /> Cheers!... Read Full Review » |
| 1 / 5 | If you watched CNN these past 20 years, you know as much as the author about Afghanistan
Zeynep CB (Monaco) - 31 March 2008 I had high hopes for this book after reading so many glowing reviews, and was surprised at how dull and badly written it is, not to mention devoid of any information about Afghanistan. To anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the Middle East and Islam (like myself), this books feels phony. Farsi and Turkish words are scattered throughout the first half, seemingly to impress the Western audience and exuding a mystical aura. If you understand the words being used, it just looks silly. Why say 'bulbul bird' when you can say 'nightingale', and would never say 'nightingale bird'? Why say 'namaz prayer' rather than 'namaz' or 'prayer'? Why say 'tasbeh rosary', since those two words mean the same thing? How can the author not know the call to prayer (azan) is not once a day but five times a day? And what on earth is 'la illah u ilillah'???? (It should be written 'la ilaha illallah' - There is no God other than Allah. It is only The Most Important Phrase In Islam!) The book (the author?) has strangely spotty knowledge not only about Islam but also about Afghanistan itself. The only monument ever mentioned in this book are the two giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban, the only Afghan monuments known to most Western people. Cultural references to Hemingway's 'Old Man And The Sea', Pinocchio, and Titanic just further reduce the credibility of the book, which appears to be written for a foreign audience. All this felt bizarre until I read a bit about Khaled Hosseini and found out that he had left Afghanistan for Paris with his family in 1976 (when he was 11), and moved on to the US where he lives to this day. So he wasn't even there when the Soviets took over, or when Mujahideen fought them, nor when Taliban took control. He learned about all this the way we all did - from TV and newspapers. The author sadly does not remember much about life in Afghanistan, aside from things like most of the Western world is aware of - women are mistreated and Taliban blew up the Buddha statues. And that is painfully obvious when reading this book. ... Read Full Review » |
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date
22 May 2007
Format
Paperback (384 pages)
ISBN
9780747582977
Price Range
£6.49 - £6.49
List Price
£11.99
