A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
There is no perfect way to describe this book. No words can do justice to the amount of love and heartbreak this book holds that even talking about it makes your eyes tear.
You understand things better or only when you have gone through them. Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American novelist best known for his debut novel, The Kite Runner which is currently a book on my TBR. This is Hosseini's second book and some critics claim that it is better than The Kite Runner.
What is a thousand splendid suns about? It's about the women of Afghanistan, what they have gone through, and what they are enduring still. It gives you an idea of how strong a woman can be. How much she can tolerate and still smile. How she always loves no matter what. How far a woman can go to protect her children and how helpless she can be.
Looking for an adventure? Read this:
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS BOOK SUMMARY:
Mariam is a girl that lives on the outskirts of Gul Daman. She was a child out of wedlock but loved her father dearly. She loved him more than she loved her mother who was rude, upsetting, and could be cruel. She called her nana. She lived with her for the first fifteen years of her life and didn't believe anything she said about her father.
A cruel, rich, and selfish man who gave them up for his three wives and nine children. Jalil used to visit Mariam every Thursday. He used to bring her gifts and stories from all over the World. From poets to new inventions, Mariam knew it all. Jalil used to live in Herat with his wives and would describe to Mariam what it look likes. Mariam could only dream of visiting the place her father lived in with the rest of her family.
And when she saw the possibility of her dream coming true, she latched onto it. For her fifteenth birthday, Mariam told Jalil that she wanted to see a film in his cinema with the rest of her siblings. Jalil and Nana both thought that it was not a good idea but when Mariam insisted, Jalil agreed. Only if Mariam had known that her one wish is going to change the course of events in her life.
When Jalil didn't come on the promised day, Mariam set off to visit her father in Herat. When she reached his house, the driver told her that he is out and will visit her when he comes back. Mariam refused and sat on the doorstep all day and then all night. When the driver came again in the morning to take her back, she rushed in the house only to see her father in his room from the garden.
And then came back and find her mother hanging by a tree who was insistent that she should not go with her father.
Mariam couldn't believe that everything that her mother had said about her father was true. And if she had any doubt it was going to go away when her father got her married within three days of her living in his house to a forty-year-old man. Mariam swore to never speak to her father again.
A little warning: If you think that this is heartbreak and the book is ruined, it's not. You can think of this as the trailer of what this book holds. You can think of Mariam's life as something that couldn't get worse but it still manages to surpass your expectations.
Mariam's life gets meaning and hope when Laila comes into her life. A bond she never knew she needed. Laila had gone through her own hell but still managed to stay alive somehow. They develop a bond thicker than blood.
Indeed, it's a beautiful heartbreak.
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS BOOK REVIEW:
I am at a loss for words for describing this book. What it makes you feel is unexplainable. It's a feeling that is explained when one experiences it. While reading reviews, I often thought why would people read something that has so much sorrow. But once I read it, I knew why people read it. When it's this beautiful, you cannot resist.
Mariam's life can give you the motivation or maybe a reality check that you might need. She persisted through it all with patience and trust in Allah Almighty.
The book teaches you what war has done to people over the years. How their life is different from ours. When we do our daily activities like it's nothing. When we take everything for granted. Books like A Thousand splendid suns teach you the importance of small everyday things and with what ease we do them.
It teaches you the importance of your loved ones and how you can lose them in a blink. How some bonds are stronger than blood and how some bonds ruin you forever even though they promise to protect you.
And after everything that has happened or may have happened, one never loses love for his homeland. It's always special no matter what you have to endure while living there and you'll always come back to it.
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS BOOK QUOTES:
1. "What rich lies!" Nana said after Jalil left. "Rich men tell rich lies. He never took you to any tree. And don't let him charm you. He betrayed us, your beloved father. He cast us out. He cast us out of his big fancy house like we were nothing to him. He did it happily."
(Chapter 1; Page 5)
2. Nana said, "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam."
(Chapter 1; Page 7)
3. It was Mullah Faizullah who had taught Mariam to read, who had patiently looked over her shoulder as her lips worked the words soundlessly, her index finger lingering beneath each word, pressing until the nail bed went white, as though she could squeeze the meaning out of the symbols. It was Mullah Faizullah who had held her hand, guided the pencil in it along the rise of each alef, the curve of each beh, the three dots of seh.
(Chapter 3; Page 16)
(Chapter 3; Page 17)
5. She remembered a verse from the Koran that Mullah Faizullah had taught her: And Allah is the East and the West, therefore wherever you turn, there is Allah's purpose... She laid down her prayer rug and did namaz.
(Chapter 13; Page 88)
Looking for a read like this one?
A special quote:
“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
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