A Thousand Splendid Suns. People in the west have a fundamental difficulty in understanding the religious fundamentalist movement in the Islamic areas of the world. While most people in the west are exposed to Christian religious fundamentalists, the differences between the Christian and Islamic are generally in kind rather than in degree. That difference is most pronounced in Afghanistan, where the extreme group known as the Taliban ruled the country for several years until overthrown in a military action backed by the United States. However, they were not completely defeated, and there are signs that they are once again gaining strength, which is where this novel ends.
“A Thousand Splendid Suns” is the story of two women living in Afghanistan during the last three turbulent decades of that nation’s history. In Part One we meet Mariam, the illegitimate daughter of Jalil, one of the wealthiest men in Herat and the owner of a cinema. Jalil has three wives and nine legitimate children, all of whom are strangers to Mariam, while Mariam lives with her mother in the “kolba” that Jalil and his sons built with sun-dried bricks and plastered with mud and straw. Laila is introduced in Part Two, the young daughter of the university educated Babi. Laila’s mother is in mourning for the death of the two sons who joined the jihad against the Soviets and were killed. The paths of Mariam and Laila cross but once in these early parts before their lives become irrevocably linked in Part Three. There is really no need to tell you more, because your ability to anticipate the joining of these two threads will not allow you to guess what is to come in this story and all I really have to say is that those of you who loved “The Kite Runner” will not be disappointed by “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” See details
