With his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini’s transition from physician to novelist proves to be well-founded and long overdue. This book follows suit with its predecessor,The Kite Runner, in becoming a bestseller. Hosseini’s tale of the tragic events that befall two Afghan women, coupled with themes of love, turmoil, misogyny and deceit, make A Thousand Splendid Suns an unforgettable novel.
Hosseini takes the art of storytelling to a new level as he vividly depicts the lives of two women from separate pasts who use their unlikely friendship to initiate change.
The story opens with Miriam, a young girl whose birth shamed her father and embarrassed her mother, a servant in her father’s house. Miriam’s desire for acceptance by her father fuels a sequence of events that leaves her without both parents. Forced to marry Rasheed, a man 30 years her senior, Miriam’s life rapidly transforms from bad to worse as she finds that she cannot please him. His continued frustration with Miriam produces nothing from their union but strife and abuse. Hosseini develops Miriam into a woman who embodies her husband’s and the Taliban’s ideals of Afghan women during this time period. Her voice is silenced — she wears a burqa and does not resist her husband’s beatings.
Laila, however, is characterized as a liberal who comes from a family with a love for education. Her progressive parents encourage their daughter to pursue higher learning while her friends think about marriage. Lalia’s relationship with a neighbor, Tariq, grows from innocent friendship to physical attraction. Their desire to be married becomes unattainable when Tariq and his family flee Kabul because of the war. Laila’s life is shattered not only by Tariq’s absence, but also by a rocket that strikes her home and kills her family. Rasheed’s deceit and his lust for Laila coerce her into becoming his second wife at age 14. Laila’s marriage to Rasheed, a Taliban sympathizer, signifies a turn in the war. Liberal thinking, like liberal women, has no place in Afghanistan. Laila’s intellectual capacity is despised by her husband, and he asserts authority over her through physical violence.
Hosseini challenges the notion of women in Afghanistan by pitting the heroines against each other. The characterizations of Miriam as a conservative woman and Laila as a liberal who represents the changing times eventually force the women either to compromise or overthrow each other. Miriam sees Laila as an enemy who garners more attention from Rasheed because of her beauty and ability to bear children. When she notices that Laila has everything she wants, Miriam’s hatred for her increases and reveals itself on a daily basis. The women become friends when they put their differences aside and realize Rasheed treats them both cruelly. The two friends become determined to survive and escape Rasheed’s wrath and the rule of the Taliban.
Hosseini’s description of a war-torn Afghanistan draws empathy from his readers — an aspect that makes this novel a truly heartbreaking page turner. His descriptions of the Taliban’s cruelty, women giving birth by Cesarean section without anesthesia, families’ inability to financially support their children, and violence against women allow his readers to have a better understanding of life during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and life before and after the reign of the Taliban. While most Americans know little of this country, A Thousand Splendid Suns serves as a mechanism of education on the history of daily life in Afghanistan.
