A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

This book, by the same author as The Kite Runner, caught my eye several months before it was published. Sara Coe gave it to me on my birthday; Web had bought me a copy that day too in case nobody else gave it to me. I really enjoyed the book, probably as much as Kite Runner, although the plot was more predictable.

The story follows an unusual friendship between Mariam and Laila, two women living in Afghanistan from before the Russian occupation through today. The narrative follows them through their early lives as brides through child-rearing and into middle age. It was interesting to read about women this time (in contrast to in Kite Runner) and compare it to other books I had read recently on women in Muslim countries. Life changed drastically for women during the 30 or so years during which this book is set, and I learned a lot about Afghan history. I also enjoyed the contrast between the two women: Mariam, raised poor, ending up obedient and bitter, and Laila, raised in a more reasonable household, always hopeful and deceptive.

In some places, the description of women and their struggles was striking, like in this scene from a hospital:

"They want us to operate in burqas." the doctor explained, motioning with her head to the nurse at the door. "She keeps watch. She sees them coming; I cover."

She said this in a pragmatic, almost indifferent, tone, and Mariam understood that this was a women far past outrage. Here was a woman, she thought , who had understood that she was lucky to even be working, that there was always something, something else, that they could take away.

However, in other parts of the book, the voice that Hosseini gives Mariam sounded a little preachy to me. "And the burqa, she leaned to her surprise, was also comforting. It was like a one-way window. Inside it, she was an observer, buffered from the scrutinizing eyes of strangers. She no longer worried that people knew, with a single glance, all the shameful secrets of her past." I couldn't tell if it was his being a man writing a woman's character, his desire to defend some parts of Islam, or just bad writing.

Plenty of the book, however, was good writing. Mariam grows up as the illegitimate child of a local aristocrat, and she is abruptly married off when her mother dies. Hossieni's descriptions of her confusion in growing up were brilliant. He writes in her voice: "Husbands who doted on their mothers and wouldn't spend a rupiah on them, the wives. Husbands who gambled. Mariam wondered how so many women could suffer the same miserable luck, to have married, all of them, such dreadful men. Or was this a wifely game that she did not know about, a daily ritual, like soaking rice or making dough? Would the expect her soon to join in?"

Overall, I'd recommend this book. It had some great descriptions and unusual scenes which I'm sure I'll confuse with movie scenes over time. I also enjoyed learning more about Afghanistan given how much attention it has received in the media since 9/11.