A Thousand Splendid Suns - Literary Analysis

Love is a great feeling. Nestled deep, forbidden, secret, it is going to pick its moment any way. That is what the novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini (2007) is about.
     In the book the author tells us about his homeland that is both beautiful and doomed to destruction. This is the second novel by the author. The first one was a world’s bestseller “The Kite Runner”, where Hosseini shows Afghanistan from men’s perspective. This novel shows us how the life is for women there. Love and war, hope and despair, cowardice and courage – all these themes are in the story.
    At the heart of the novel there are two women who became victims of the turmoil that destroyed Afghanistan. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman. Since childhood she has known what misfortune is, from an early age feeling her own doom. Laila, on the contrary, the favorite daughter in the close-knit family, is dreaming about the interesting and beautiful life. They have nothing in common; they live in different worlds which will not cross, if it was not for the Afghan Civil War. From now, Laila and Mariam are bound together. They don’t know themselves, who they are - enemies, friends or sisters. But alone, they will not survive the medieval despotism and cruelty flooding streets and homes in a once flourishing city Kabul. Together they are to go through suffering, to catch unintentional nuggets of joy, to dream of happiness which they once try to break through to.
     The two women are both squeezed to an unwilling marriage with the violent man Rasheed. After years, they make an attempt to run away from him but Taliban stops and returns them back to the hell. When Laila’s first love Tariq appears suddenly from many years of supposed nonexistence, enraged jealous Rasheed pounces at Laila to murder her. To save Laila, Mariam kills Rasheed. As a result, Laila is free to marry Tariq and Mariam is put to the death penalty.
     First, the story takes us to Afghanistan of 1964, to the place where Mariam has spent her 15 years of childhood. Then we follow the narrative told story by the perspectives of the two women characters through all of their lives.
     Mariam was brought up by her mother Nana in a cabin that her rich father Jalil built out of a village just to get them off his house. Nana was just a servant to his legal family. Mariam is a smart girl who misses to go to school because her parents do not want her to. Jalil seems not to care, and Nana considers, that out of the village Mariam unavoidable becomes a laughingstock. The only friend she has is her old religion tutor Mullah Faizullah. He even asks Nana to let the girl go to a public school:

“If the girl wants to learn, let her, my dear. Let the girl have an education.”(…) “Learn? (…)” Nana said sharply. “What is there to learn?” She snapped her eyes toward Mariam. (…)”What’s the sense schooling a girl like you? It’s like shining a spittoon. (…) There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life (…). We endure. (…) Besides, they’ll laugh at you in school. They will. They’ll call you harami.” (Chapter 3)
    
     Harami means bastard and the word follows Mariam the rest of her life. From early age, Nana blames her for her own unhappiness. First at the age of ten, Mariam understands the injustice: “It is the creators of the harami who are culpable, not the harami, whose only sin is being born.” (Chapter 1). Such an attitude gets Mariam to leave the home at the age of fifteen in the hopes that Jalil takes her in to his large family and she will become just as one of his ten children. Instead, the family marries her off to a forty year old shoemaker Rasheed. Jalil’s family will turn Mariam back home to her mother but Nana commits suicide the same day the girl leaves her so there is no way back.  The daughter was obviously the only meaning of Nana’s life. All the following years Mariam suffers. She endures taboos, violence, fear, habitual abortions and, over and over again, the sense of guilt for leaving her mother that day. She harbors no more hopes until Laila accidentally comes to her life.
     Laila’s family, a teacher and a housewife with their three children, live in Kabul, on the same street that Rasheed with Mariam do. Laila is nineteen years younger than Mariam, but she is more intelligent. The family is free from prejudice and they are happy until the two older brothers leave for the war. Mammy, the mother of Laila, becomes depressed and never recovers from it because her sons die in an explosion after some years, without calling on home. Little Laila has now to take on all the homework herself while Mammy lies in bad. Nevertheless, she is still happy: her loving father talks to her a lot and helps with school lessons. She has some friends, the best of whom is her neighbor Tariq. At the age of fourteen, when Laila loses all the precious things she ever had in the war – her home, friends and parents, - she is yet capable to take severe adult decisions to survive. The agreement to become a second wife to sixty year old Rasheed is such one.
     Rasheed is the most interesting and contradictory character in the novel. On the one hand, he is barbaric, cruel and malicious; on the other hand, he is an attentive and happy father to his little son. At the same time, I can guess the deep sadness of his existence: losses of his first son and wife, a primitive job, no education and no love for decenniums. Through all these he is a proud man – and never a coward. He is as proud as the worthiest men from his birth place are supposed to be.

“Where I come from, one wrong look, one improver word, and blood is spilled. Where I come from, a woman’s face is her husband’s business only.“ (Chapter 10)

That is why he puts burka on his wives; that is why he beats Mariam and Laila to a pulp when they try to escape from him; that is why he neglects to have a daughter. He believes he is doing his best: prejudices get him to react this way for the family’s honor. And when Laila invites Tariq while the husband is absent, she leaves Rasheed no choice, in his mind. He must kill her, even if he doesn’t want to: that is the law of the honor, his forefathers’ law.
     Rasheed’s dignified death is so unlike Mariam’s father’s death. First, the personality of Jalil wakens scorn, then - just pity. Through his meanness, he brags before his banished daughter visiting the cabin and then lets her sleep on the street when she throws her fate into his hands, marries Mariam off just two weeks after her mother’s death in order to please his wives… Avoiding his daughter, Jalil is hunting for approval of the society after his shameful adultery. Consequently, Mariam cuts the connection with her father. Requital is repentance, and it is especially sore when Jalil is dying unforgiven. All the characters are absolutely believable, so after the reading I even made an attempt to get ready for Laila and her new family’s further life on the internet. The language is easy and modern, but contains too many foreign words. Sometimes it is reasonable: for example, to give a sense of the origin manner to say La illah u ilillah when we would say Oh my god, or to accost unknown people as brother or sister (hamshira). But more often than not, the afghan words in the text are unnecessary and just disturb the reading, likewise unrelated to the plot excursions into political domain. The worst one made me laugh because it was so absurd:

“Mammy knew all of their names.
     There was Dostum, the flamboyant Uzbek commander, leader of the Junbish-i-Milli faction, who had a reputation for shifting allegiances. The intense, surly Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-e-Islami faction, a Pashtun who had studied engineering and once killed a Maoist student.” (Chapter 23),

and so on about six of Mammy’s superheroes. It does not correspond to the style. We would understand without the listing that Mammy is making herself idols out of some militant leaders: while others flee from the war, she is still waiting for their victorious march-past – until a rocket blazes her family.
     However, the plot is well constructed. There are some turning points in the novel: Nana’s suicide and Mariam’s wedding, Laila’s falling in love with Tariq and his leaving, the women’s failed escapade and, finally, Mariam’s execution. All the development is quite thrilling: you just read and sob, unable to break away. Hosseini knows how to catch his reader's attention. Though after all, one come across a disappointing final, not the real, logical final when Laila and her children fortunately reunite with Tariq in a safe place, but the mock appendix with their return to unpacific Kabul. What for?

“Back? To Kabul?” he asks.
“Only if you want too”(…)
“Me?” he says. “I’ll follow you to the end of the world, Laila.” (Chapter 50)
    
     So, she wants to contribute to the renewal of war-damaged Kabul and he is ready to follow, herewith it does not strike them to care about their children’s safety. The narration is ending in 2003th Kabul and today we know it is still war there and people are dying in bombardments. Such a turn of events reminds me of a trick of the Soviet patriotic literature where heroes used to sacrifice themselves for the illusory rosy future of the country.
     Yet, it is enough with the animadversion! I liked this book, amazingly. It is a powerful, dramatic and lyrical story that brings both joy and pain to your heart; maybe the best one I have ever read. It is a noble and generous book.