a Thousand Splendid Suns

When I picked up "A Thousand Splendid Suns," the much anticipated second novel by Khaled Hosseini, I had just devoured "The Kite Runner" in a single day but the day before. Still caught up in the thoughts and emotions engendered by that powerful and exquisite first novel I could imagine thousands of people holding this new book in their hands, wishing and hoping that Hosseini would do it again, but different and better. All things considered, following up on a successful first novel is probably harder than coming up with the original effort and Hosseini could have rested on his laurels in the manner of Harper Lee, but as "A Thousand Splendid Suns" amply proves, this native of Kabul has more stories to tell about the land of Afghanistan.

"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."

This book brought tears to my eyes more than the first one and that may well be because of my gender: what happened to Hassan and Amir was horrific in the sense that I could imagine those things happening to me, while as the father of daughters this new novel outraged me. I also know that Hosseini does not spare his characters from their fates and I have to say that I keep thinking that the author is not making these things up; that his characters might be fictional but that family, friends and strangers have all told him stories of what happened in Afghanistan. Regardless of the truth behind this assumption, these stories ring true. I also admire the seamless way that Hosseini works in words in the language on his characters, so that we understand that while they are similar to our words for honor and pride, "nang" and "namoos" have significantly different meanings in this culture. Then there is the steadfast Islamic faith of Mariam and Laila that serves them during the reign of the Taliban, when blind obedience to the law is the order of the day. But it is their beliefs that ring true to us in these pages.

That this novel starts off with two young girls instead of two young boys certainly fulfills the requirement for something different but in the same vein, but what mattered to me more was the fact that this time the characters never come to the United States. That is because "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is not just the story of these characters but also of Afghanistan, a land that has once again been forgotten as first Iraq and now Iran replace it on the nightly news (the reporting of the deaths of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan always seems like an afterthought when it is mentioned on the news). However, in the end the biggest difference between "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and Hosseini's first novel would be Part Four of this one, which is to say that he takes the characters who have survived further down the road than he did with Amir and his family in "The Kite Runner." Having enjoyed his first two novels within the span of but a few days, I will now have to endure the passage of several years before Hosseini's next novel, but I have no doubts that he will do it again, but different, and that the story will be worth the wait. (L. Bernabo)

"Nawabdin Electrician"--Daniyal Mueenuddin

I am interested in Mueenuddin's setting description. I see a lot of ecological devastation, or at least land unfairness as the context for this crime. Nawab is saved because he is locally respected and he is respected because he has been cheating the power company. So his good reputation is predicated on his theft. And Nawab’s small time theft only mimics the institutionalized theft of the absentee landlords growing water-crops in the desert. There is also a way in which Nawab has stolen his daughters’ destiny to provide one for his son; he has more daughters than he can afford to marry in pursuit of his goal of having a son. Still, he is generous too—in small ways, like with the sugar treat for his children. Does this redeem his character? To me, the story is not about whether he is a wretched or evil man, or not, but about how all judgments of good and evil are made in dubious contexts. The motorcycle thief gets no sympathy from anyone, and perhaps he should not; he was craven enough to shoot someone, but too cowardly to shoot to kill; he is a loser in the literary, not moral, sense. That is simply the role assigned him in this story.

What about Frank O’Connor and the lonely voice? O’Connor says that all stories are about the Little Man, a member of a submerged population dreaming of escape from a world that ignores or oppresses him, or a world he does not understand. And all stories end in a failure to escape in which the lonely voice of the character looks with sharpened nostalgia on the world and his failed dream of escape. Sure Nawab was dreaming of escape which he thinks he gets in obtaining a motorcycle—of getting status and becoming someone, etc. Maybe the story is about the fact that Nawab values a motorcycle above another man’s life, even the life of a theft and assailant; there is no doubt a defeat in that.

The story ends with a man begging for help in the face of death and no one does anything. Nawab is tempted to look at that, but chooses instead to think about the heroic light in which he can cast himself as having saved his motorcycle and survived six bullets. Ironic that, having been shot six times, he is thinking about his good luck.

The image of the snake in the birds nest suggests the rapacity of nature, so this is not simply a story about alienation from nature.