I chose to read Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns primarily because I know almost nothing about Afghan culture other than the propaganda fed to us by the media.
Afghans: They're terrorists, essentially.
I was right to assume that the novel would be sad; after all it is about the lives of two women living in the Middle East, a place where men have freely and severely oppressed women for decades. Of course, there was death and physical and mental abuse and horrific detriments of war and a surplus of moments that truly made me angry. I'm not sure if that connection to the lives of the characters was simply human nature--one person empathizing with the very real injustice of an entire nation of people--or the merit of the author and his skill to bring the characters to life.
When we talk about literary merit, it just seems obvious which works can be considered literature. Everything Shakespeare, for instance, or anything that sounds remotely like Oscar Wilde, has excessive periodic sentences, extravagant language, or existentialist themes. Having said that, A Thousand Splendid Suns doesn't immediately strike me as literature as much as it does commercial. It's a good story. I appreciated the characters and the themes--there was an obvious reiteration of Miriam's mother's words throughout the novel: something along the lines of "Men will always forsake women" or "Life will crap on you again and again and that's all there is." And the characters, Miriam and Laila, were dynamic. Miriam evolved from an innocent child who saw the world in a positive light to a young adult who knew too well the deceit and cruelty of human nature to a woman who epitomized the life Miriam's mother foretold of her and finally to a hero who finally destroyed the oppression that plagued her. And Laila... well she developed as a person does who grows.
I suppose there is depth in Miriam's storyline. She broke the cycle to which her mother fell victim by dying a martyr rather than a victim. But most importantly, I think Miriam's life illustrates the inevitability of succumbing to greater influences. Personally, I found Miriam's complete submission to that rotten husband of hers extremely surprising. She was too free-spirited, too confident, too sure to ever let the oppression her mother mumbled madly about get to her, or so I initially believed. And really, I continued to believe--even passed that belief on to Laila when Laila came into the picture.
In retrospect, that idea was foolish. It may also have been the author's purpose. I think he wanted, more than to just show the readers how awful women are treated in Afghanistan, how and why such oppression is perpetuated. Was Miriam weak? No. Her and Laila were very strong women and they never fully lost that. But Miriam, particularly, knew that her life and wellbeing relied on her ability to conform and submit. When we in America, safe and protected by laws and our own individuality, ask "How can these women allow themselves to be treated so terribly?"we don't really stop to think that these women would love to shed their burkas and chains and step into the sunlight. They just can't. The law protects us in America and enslaves them in Afghanistan.
I'm not too sure about Laila's storyline. Her love story with Tariq was very touching and the drama and turmoil that followed them told a compelling story. For me, I had the revelation that, even in a nation where the law calls for men to be oppressive, not all men are cruel. Tariq and Laila humanized the people of the Middle East. I don't know if there were any layers to them that would merit the title of literature, however.
What I appreciated far more than the characters or storyline, however, was how Housieni weaved his country's history into the lives of the characters. From about 1950 until 2002 the reader gets to see how life in Afghanistan changed and how that change simultaneously came about by outside forces and affected outside forces. At the end of the book my strongest reaction was, "Dang. People just can't leave that country alone." That reaction leads me to claim that A Thousand Splendid Suns was far more informative and thought-provoking on a literal scale rather than a literary scale. I considered the history of the Middle East, the US's involvement in their affairs, the lives of the people living there, and mostly the thought processes of the people who committed what appear to me to be the crimes of oppression more than I did the motifs, themes, and layers of the novel.
I could discuss this book, but not in the way I can discus Dorian Gray. My thoughts are political and social. I ponder the reasoning of these Muslims who hurt other Muslims. I think of the Judge who sentenced Miriam to death and how reasonable he seemed to be, and these thoughts lead me to ponder human nature. But a history book can make me contemplate such things.
A Thousand Splendid Suns, from my understanding, has more merit as a commercial, informative, and cultural novel than a literary work.
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