A Thousand Splendid Suns in GoodReviews: The Official Book Review Contest

Feb 22, 2009

Daniel rated it:

(review of isbn 159448385X)

bookshelves: 2009

Read in March, 2009

recommended to Daniel by: Rose

It's apparently becoming something of a tradition for me to trash books that are not only widely loved and praised, but were specifically recommended to me by friends. Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splended Suns," I'm sorry to say, is going to get the same treatment. (Forgive me, Rose.) "Splendid Suns" has been so widely read by this point, I won't bother recounting the story, and instead simply list my objections:

- Hosseini seems incapable of creating characters ...more It's apparently becoming something of a tradition for me to trash books that are not only widely loved and praised, but were specifically recommended to me by friends. Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splended Suns," I'm sorry to say, is going to get the same treatment. (Forgive me, Rose.) "Splendid Suns" has been so widely read by this point, I won't bother recounting the story, and instead simply list my objections:

- Hosseini seems incapable of creating characters with much depth to them. E.M. Forster, in "Aspects of the Novel," talks about books having round characters and flat characters, with round one being more like people you'd encounter in the real world, and flat ones being more of caricatures used to move a book's story along. The only character in "Splendid Suns" who approaches roundness, and he's a relatively minor character, is Mariam's father, Jalil. Everyone else is either a villain without any positive traits (Rasheed) or a hero who can do almost no wrong (Laila, Tariq, Mullah Faizullah). Even when Hosseini is depicting a child who has every right to behave badly given his circumstances (Zalmai), he can't help but depict the child as almost evil. The New York Times review of "Splendid Suns" said Hosseini "creates characters who have the simplicity and primary-colored emotions of people in a fairy tale or fable." That's pretty generous of the New York Times. I'd say Hosseini may not be able to create three-dimensional characters.

- While I appreciate Hosseini's attempt to teach a few decades of Afghan history -- a history few readers likely know in much detail -- grafting that history onto the story of one family makes for a rather creaky novel. To impart the history, Hosseini goes back and forth between giving the history through third-person narration, in Wikipedia-like prose, and putting it in his characers' mouths via dialogue -- dialogue often spoken to people who would already know the history. As a result, you sometimes get characters saying things like, "As you know, the Taliban forces men to grow their beards long and women to wear burkas." The cut-and-paste history lessons make the novel painful to read at times.

- Hosseini routinely uses "harami" (bastard) and other words from the characters' native languages in his dialogue, followed by the English translation, apparently in an attempt to bring readers closer to the Afghan culture. But it usually feels incredibly superficial, especially when the words being used aren't foreign concepts, but rather basic words -- "brother," "sister" and the like. Hosseini and his editors also seem to forget about the trope, and cut back on the use of the foreign words in the book's later chapters. I wish they had done the same throughout the book.

- The relationship between Mariam and Laila feels completely artificial. Mariam's initial hate for and jealousy of Laila never feels remotely justified, especially given how awful her husband Rasheed is anyhow, and their coming together later feels rushed and unrealistic. Even after they form a friendship, they never seem to grow quite close enough to fully explain why Laila misses Mariam so much towards the novel's conclusion. Hosseini fails to lay the groundwork needed to justify Laila's emotions in the novel's last chapters.

- Almost the entire book is unrelentingly bleak. Don't get me wrong, I understand Afghanistan wasn't exactly Disneyland over the past few decades, but I think there were more lighthearted moments in the Book of Job than in "Splendid Suns." I don't mind reading a depressing novel, but Jesus. Reading "Splendid Suns," I kept thinking of that old workplace poster: "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

I didn't completely hate "Splendid Suns" -- the story moved along nicely, and it gave me a little more insight into a culture I probably should know more about -- but I don't think I'll be following this one with "The Kite Runner." Khaled Hosseini probably doesn't need me as a reader, though. It seems he has plenty of fans.(less)

Like this review? yes (19 people liked it)

10 comments

Aug 07, 2007

Otis Chandler rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Owns a copy — Read in December, 2007

I'm not sure if I love Khaled's characters (see my review of The Kite Runner), but the man can tell a story. I think all Americans need to read this book, as it helps to understand and sympathize with what the people in Afghanistan have gone through. Particularly interesting as the book spans 30+ years and paints a very graphic picture of how Afghanistan changed in that time. From Russian communists to warlords to the Taliban to US Army, there have been no shortage of invaders and wars, and vict...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

1 comment

Sep 23, 2007

Rachel rated it:

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: Spoiled little malakies

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which tells the tale of two women in Afganhistan as they suffer and sacrifice during the nation's most tumultuous years, is in many ways the stereotypical female counterpart to The Kite Runner, Hosseini's first novel about Afganhistan. Where the latter is personal (even though Hosseini denies that it is autobiographical), Suns is universal; where the protagonist of the latter is ambitious and even audacious, the main characters in Suns spend much of th...more Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which tells the tale of two women in Afganhistan as they suffer and sacrifice during the nation's most tumultuous years, is in many ways the stereotypical female counterpart to The Kite Runner, Hosseini's first novel about Afganhistan. Where the latter is personal (even though Hosseini denies that it is autobiographical), Suns is universal; where the protagonist of the latter is ambitious and even audacious, the main characters in Suns spend much of their lives cowed into complacency. Both are well-crafted and feature, in different forms, Hosseini's transfixing prose, which is so clear and unpretentious that it makes me feel as though I am watching a movie. A Thousand Splendid Suns is more emotionally convincing, but, as a novel about women written by men, lacks that personal touch.
Perhaps parts of Suns seem so contrived because of the one-dimensionality of some of the characters. The plot sometimes lapses into a heroes-and-villains story. The protagonists, Mariam and Laila, are women forced into a kind of survival mode in which they feel afraid to express any of their individual characteristics besides the ones that can unite them as women despite their disparate backgrounds, such as their capacities for caring and sympathy, though none for Rasheed, their oppressor. Rasheed is perhaps one of the most disappointing characters in the novel, as he unquestioningly embodies the increasingly chauvinistic, male-centered values of his society. Even the son Laila has by him, Zalmai, is a bad seed compared to Aziza, the daughter she has by Tariq. Oh, Tariq. The long-absent knight in shining armor, and perhaps the only realistic, down-to-earth character in the novel.
Yet, the utter impenetrability of the characters mattered little to me as I was reading. There are two ways to read books like this: you can read it like a disinterested academic, circling over the prose like a vulture and constantly trying to criticize and qualify, or you can live the book. I stuck with the latter, and I had perhaps one of the most emotionally riveting reading experiences of my life. (Yet, you cannot neglect the fact that Hosseini is capable of better characters: Publishers Weekly said of his first book, "the character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut…"). Once I got inside Laila's head, in particular, I realized that I could have been her, had I been born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thus I was moved (a couple of times, even to tears) by her emotions, even the ones that I never thought I could have related to, such as her vision, after Rasheed suggests selling Aziza, of burying Aziza in the ground, wrapped in plastic to be dug up later. Despite the fact that I am far from having had any child-rearing experience, something about Aziza's "panicked eyes, the whiteness of her palms as they [slapped] and [pushed] against the sheet" really got me.
This isn't one of those books where you read it in an overexcited state and can't remember later why you were so addicted to reading it. I can pinpoint the exact pages where I was enveloped, for moments at a time, in this hellish little world and in the emotions of the characters. Perhaps it is their blandness that makes them so neutral and relatable; I don't know. But I do highly recommend this book to anyone who feels they are losing faith in the emotional wallop of words.

(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Dec 29, 2007

Donald rated it:

Read in January, 2008

More like 700 splendid suns

I found A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini disappointing, especially in comparison to The Kite Runner. I wonder if I would have liked this book more if I hadn't already read The Kite Runner. The Afghanistan culture and politics were interesting to me. Maybe it was just a case of been there, done that.

The story centers around two female characters, Mariam and Laila, and follows their lives over the course of 30 years. From the Soviet inv...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

Apr 03, 2008

Kim rated it:

Read in April, 2008

After reading The Kite Runner, I didn't think Hosseini could top it, but then I began this book, and I can't believe how much it's affected me. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but once the changes began in Mariam's life, I was hooked. This is basically the story of two women living in Afghanistan and the profound effects their lives have on one another. This book left me with a new appreciation with my freedom here in this country, and it gave me an understanding of the strength that m...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Sep 21, 2007

Lisa Vegan rated it:

bookshelves: bookclub, fiction, historical-fiction, novels, orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids, reviewed

Read in April, 2009

I thought this book was even better than the author’s The Kite Runner. The Kite Runner got four stars from me as it was just under that four and a half star mark. This is just above that four and a half star mark; hence the five star rating. The Kite Runner was about the boys and men of Afghanistan, and this book is about the women and girls of Afghanistan. I was really dreading reading this because I anticipated this being even more disturbing. In some ways it was; in some ways it wasn’t. I...more I thought this book was even better than the author’s The Kite Runner. The Kite Runner got four stars from me as it was just under that four and a half star mark. This is just above that four and a half star mark; hence the five star rating. The Kite Runner was about the boys and men of Afghanistan, and this book is about the women and girls of Afghanistan. I was really dreading reading this because I anticipated this being even more disturbing. In some ways it was; in some ways it wasn’t. I was so engrossed in the story that even the most horrifying parts didn’t stop me from wanting to continue; I didn’t cry until the end, but I was emotionally involved all the way through.

I loved the line from the poem that gave this book its title. There were so many beautifully written passages. I started to make note of them (and even considered including a few of them in my review here) until I determined that there were too many and decided to just enjoy them as I read.

I really cared about and could empathize with Mariam and Laila and Aziza, and some of the male characters too, and I yearned for some things to happen and some did and fervently wished for some things not to happen and some didn’t.

The story is devastating and many brutalities are described, but there were some wonderfully joyous portions as well, and much that simply felt like real life in this particular time and place.

I love books that give me an inside look into people from different cultures, and this book did a fantastic job of making me feel as though I was right there. It’s always amazing to me to read these historical fiction books where the events take place during my lifetime, in years for which I have many of my own memories, and I can’t help but think of how others have lived, and I naturally begin to think even more about how others live now. In this book the events took place in the very recent past so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine these characters in the present. And, of course, just as I was finishing up this book Afghanistan was yet again on the television news. These fictional characters seemed so real to me that I found I was worrying about how four of them were getting through the current circumstances.
(less)

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

7 comments

Sep 08, 2007

Russell rated it:

So I didn't actually 'read' this. My ladyfriend bought the book s on tape CD and we listened to it on our way to and from DC. The story was wonderful and devastating and painted a tragic picture of Afghanistan, but the woman who was reading the story had an awfully bad voice that I had trouble getting past. Anyway, it's depressing but fantastically written.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Aug 04, 2007

Amanda rated it:

Read in August, 2007

I can't say enough good about this book. This is a complete emotional rollercoaster - sadness, heartbreak, anger, fury - and that's all within a few chapters.

Everyone should read this book. It's just simply one of the best I've ever read.

Like this review? yes

add a comment