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Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns

Margaret Atwood said that Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, “is writing his country [Turkey] into being.” Khaleed Hosseini does the same for Afghanistan in A Thousand Splendid Suns. The delicate beauty of Afghanistan’s past meets its bloody present in this story, but the landscape and people come alive for me, and I care for them. When Hosseini describes Herat in the beginning of the book, I feel sad and nostalgic that this city was destroyed. I, of course, have never been to Herat, but the description of wide tree-lined boulevards, open parks, beautiful tiled Mosques, and crowded cafes seem like the kind of place I would happily spend an afternoon. I remember Dad speaking about Sarajevo like this, that it was beautiful in a singular kind of way, and completely gone after the wars in the 1990s. The giant Buddhas that Laila sees with her father and her close friend Tariq are used as target practice by ignorant Taliban terrorists and completely destroyed. I understand, for a moment, while I read, the ravages and loss of war. By the end, I think I have seen and known a bit of Afghanistan.

Hosseini creates a world of places and people that I want to know. His descriptions of Mariam’s childhood and Laila’s atrocious life with her husband are so different from anything I have experienced or could ever experience; yet, I want to know as much as I can about these women. They fascinate me. Mariam is shy and defeated, but she will make the most critical decision a person can make when the choice is given to her. Laila fights and defends and loves. I understand her more than I understand Mariam. Mariam describes taking solace and pride in her husband’s desire that she wear the veil; she believes he must love her more than other husbands love their wives if he cherishes her enough to keep her hidden from other men. She has no understanding of freedom like I do, but this does not make me feel sorry for her. She’s a fighter in her way, and she fights for things like love and family. People are people everywhere, even in veils and running from sniper’s bullets. Hosseini makes this point time and time again.

Ultimately, this is a moving snapshot of women’s lives, but it antithetical to most of the stories that are published in America today about women. These women are not worried about their body image. They are not guilty over getting drunk and doing something foolish with a guy they met at a bar. They are not contemplating leaving their families because they feel unfulfilled. Mariam and Laila aren’t given the privilege of these emotions and thoughts. I read this book, and I think how lucky I am to have the time to whine over not fitting into those pants I bought last year. These women live in terror, poverty, and isolation. At the end, when they are given the opportunity, they make choices for family and community, not themselves.

Hosseini creates a portrait of a world we hear about on the news but will never see. The narration is slow and full of imagery. The voices of Mariam and Laila are distinct and clear. Hosseini takes time with his story and trusts that the reader will follow his lithe hand, and we do because the path of the story is so heart-wrenchingly compelling. Perhaps this book is so successful because it creates a bit of beauty out of the shards of misery, deceit, betrayal, selfishness, and cruelty that so often afflicts human kind. Hosseini suggests that our ability to love and create beautiful lives amidst devastation is the greatest gift we have.

Bronte's Wuthering Heights

By the middle, when Cathy marries Linton, and Heathcliff is so distraught after hearing Cathy’s protestations to Nelly, that he leaves, presumably forever, I gave up any hopes of liking this book. Cathy and Heathcliff love each other, or so I am told, but the love is violent and earth shaking, and unexplained. Bronte suggests that they love each other because their very natures are spun from the same stuff, but it rings hollow to me. Their passion and fiery devotion make their bodies cardboard. I just don’t believe anyone could act this way all the time. Bronte could have helped herself in this venture if she had spent more time explaining the development of Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship when they’re children, but when they are out on the moors, falling in love, we are in the house, developing a foul case of cabin fever with the rest of the unfortunate Earnshaws, Joseph, and Nelly. The essence of Cathy’s character is selfishness, and a selfish character can never truly love. She tells Nelly that she loves Heathcliff because she loves herself, but she never thinks to give Heathcliff anything he might need; Cathy comes first to Cathy.

By Cathy’s death, which she brings about herself, I am really struggling to stay with it, yet I do, because I want to know how Cathy and Heathcliff get together. I know there must be some sort of posthumous tryst. The final chapters are sad, with images of the desperate Heathcliff unearthing Cathy’s coffin and surrendering to his grief on the windswept moors. If she had loved him, she would have married him, or left with him, or done something more substantial than have a conversation with Nelly and marry Linton.

Yet, Bronte is successful in a few things: Heathcliff’s hatred is every bit as full-blooded and vengeful as it should be, and the novel’s imagery is vivid in its bleakness. Heathcliff’s anger and hate is reminiscent of Iago, which is predictable, but I am satisfied with Heathcliff’s rancor. It is justified. He is treated horribly, and every bit of stray goodness in his soul is spent on Cathy, so there is nothing left in his person to do anything other than seek revenge on those who made him suffer. I feel sorry for Heathcliff, and I want to see him happy, for no other reason than someone with such bad luck should get a break, but he is lost in his ire, and Cathy will not save him.

Wuthering Heights is clumsily written; the story within a story strategy could have worked if had been used more sparingly. Nelly’s storytelling is clear, and we must believe true, but it is biased and gives far too much benefit to Nelly herself. Joseph’s brogue is annoying and impenetrable, but it adds dimension to the claustrophobic and dismal atmosphere of the book; Joseph is as unforgiving as the harsh elements, and as dark as the great looming house. His dialogue makes this clear.

I would recommend this book if you were looking for something truly dreary to do. If it was foggy out, the tea was hot, and you wanted to forget your own disappointments in someone else’s, this might be a good way to spend the afternoon. I recognize some talented elements in this story, but in the whole it was not to my liking.

The First

I have a library in a crook of a space that runs unexpectedly off the main room in my condo by the park. My library is red. I have huge shelves with books. My small marble hippos and wooden elephants sit sentry on these shelves, keeping an out eye for thieves or dust. Photographs of people I love in places we've been sit importantly on the middle shelf. My computer, on a long writing table with narrow, Regency legs is under the wide, picture window at the back. Across the far wall is a long, old couch with large flowers. It was banished from the other more masculine areas of the house by my husband, who prefers the soft, frayed comfort of the wide blue couch by the T.V. But I like it here: my books warm the room, the paint color encourages my mind, my dog sleeps on the carpet, chasing Heathcliff in his dreams, and my computer is open. Onward.