A Thousand Splendid Suns is yet another wonderful book written by Khaled Hosseini after his debut with the ‘Kite runner.’ This book first of all paints a very realistic picture of Afghanistan before and after the war (i.e. after the fall of the Taliban,) and cultural customs of the Middle-Eastern world.
This novel tries to illustrate and demonstrate the fallout that Afghanistan’s brutal and aggressive history has had on the characters of the book. Broadly, it means the passing away of one character, executed by the Taliban, and the guarantee of a fresh life for the other.
The novel starts pragmatically unlike the Kite Runner, and then gains emotional strength as it goes, sucking the reader into the story so much that after finishing the novel, it seems as though one has been through that whole story himself as-Mariam, the main female protagonist.
Unlike the ‘Kite runner’, this novel also includes some explicit scenes that seem to be have been picked up from some other, rather distasteful movies, but some of the parts of the book contain sequences that really play with the readers’ emotions and this makes the overall novel a very interesting read and also assist in redeeming by and large the entire novel.
The novel also explores the position and capabilities (if there were any) of the middle-eastern women. The novel describes an complicated, and abusive relationship between Mariam and her husband, a friendship between women, betrayal and fear of death.
Just as the reader starts to wonder what is going to happen next, the novel switches from Mariam's life to the life of a neighbour, the young Laila, who is growing up in a open-minded family.
As The Guardian put it, Hosseini vividly brings home what life is like for women in a society in which they are valued only for reproduction. He also paint a clear picture of what kind of power men had over women at that period of time, and how much women were pressured into literally everything.
According to The New York Times, Mr. Hosseini, who was born in Kabul and moved to the United States in 1980, writes in straight-ahead, utilitarian prose and creates characters who have the simplicity and primary-colored emotions of people in a fairy tale or fable.
In conclusion, the glance in to how everyday life in Afghanistan is like, a state recognized by almost all foreigners simply by news reports of conflict and violence — that craft this novel, in to a really good read, and that sidetrack consideration from its innumerable faults and errors.
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