My colleague gave me her e-book when she knew I was making a list for this month's reading. Normally, I always love getting free books to read, but with this particular one, I freely admit it wasn't something I was looking forward to.
I had read
The Kite Runner, Hosseini's first book, three years ago. It's a great story and was written wonderfully. Once I finished it, I realized what I just read was something special, a rare gem that has got to be one of the greatest fiction written in the last decade. I had recommended it to friends and ... relieved I hadn't missed this book.
However. The process. The hours I spent while I was reading it. That experience was a different story altogether. It wasn't a fun, light book to read when all you want to do is to relax, had a good laugh, and forgot what it's all about ten minutes after you finished reading. It wasn't a book to read when you want to escape the boring 9-5 daily routines. And God knows I had never thought my love for reading as a sophisticated hobby or to gain some knowledge. I'd watch news and prefer to watch the Daily show for that. I read to have fun. I read to relax. I read for the chance to escape reality, to briefly visit a fantasy world where there's happy ending, where the underdog won, where the bookish girl got it all in the end. There's a reason why I kept reading and loving Julia Quinn's romance books after all. And for all of those reasons above, this book was NOT a good choice.
For me personally, once I started reading Hosseini's book, it was as if I were, very unwillingly, drawn into the story, as if I were there to witness the story as it happened, and the subject he was writing was far from pleasant. It was that strong of storytelling.
So I let his second book, given free to me almost a month ago, just sat there in my inbox. I was almost relieved that I still had a lot of other books to read (half of my
February picks were done only by mid-March) until it came down to the two books in March list: Hosseini's and Obama's Dreams from My Father.
At 7: 30 pm last night, after a tough day at work with my daughter already fast asleep (she didn't nap), it seemed that Hosseini's book was a good choice. Besides, I would only read the first few chapters while waiting for Daily Show's download to complete (connection was bad here. big surprise).
Of course then I started reading, and I couldn't stop. I knew I was in for a long, rough night by the end of the first chapter. I read, and read, and read until I finished the book at 1:30 am. And even when I only speed-read the last chapters (because I need to finish it, because it's already past midnight and I still had few more chapters), I still finished the book with tears streaming down my face, my heart ached and my head pounding (the last one probably because I really needed to sleep by then). THIS is why I dreaded reading Hosseini's books, because I knew I'd cry and I hate crying.
A Thousand Splendid Suns opened with the story of Mariam, a bastard daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur and his maid in the mid fifties in Afghanistan. Love was something that eluded Mariam. Her mother, bitter, depressed, angry, and emotionally disturbed, had repeatedly told her that she wasn't worthy of love, that she was nothing. It wasn't that Nana hated her daughter. In her own perverse way, this was how she showed her love to Mariam, by preparing her to see the world as it was from the eyes of an illegitimate daughter in Afghanistan. Yet, young Mariam loved Jalil, her father. He was her refuge, her strength, and her oasis of comfort in the dessert of her loveless young life.
Then one day, she had to learn the hard way that Jalil had not really loved her like a father should: an unconditional, selfless love that is every children, especially daughters', God given right. It was heartbreaking. It was all because of something so trivial, but the impact was so devastating for a young girl so thirsty of love, as it triggered a series of events that made her see the truth in her mother's words.
How horrifying was it to find out that the one person you love, who you admire, who you think love you as much in return, was actually embarrassed of you? Who was being nice to you as a penance for the incident of your birth? who considered you as nothing more than a burden? as a pesky distraction that needs to be rid of, quietly, to avoid further scandal? Mariam learned all this at the tender, fragile age of fifteen.
Maybe because of my very close and warm relationship with my dad (he's my hero!), maybe because every day I witness how much my daughter and my husband completely adore each other, this particular betrayal was especially hard for me to read.
Mariam's mother once told her to: "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam."
I was very uncomfortable because to some degree, I recognize the truth in it. Not from personal experience, but from other similar sayings: Behind every great man, there's a great woman. A nice, flattering thing to say, but doesn't it work the other way? Behind every man's downfall, there's a not-so-nice woman? Anyway, back to the book. Miriam's mother's warning was a prophecy of what to become of Mariam's fate.
More than two decades later, Laila was born. Laila was very close to her father, especially after her mother became despondent and emotionally unavailable when Laila's brothers went to war; after the news of their death, she vowed to live so that her dead sons could see their dreams come true through her eyes, not for her only surviving daughter.
But if her mother was mostly a ghostly figure, physically there but never really there when Laila needed her, Laila's father spent time with her, doing homework, making sure she's on the right track, if not ahead, in her education for he fiercely believed that women should have equal chance in life with men. Then, there was her sweetheart, Tariq, whom she had known since she was a little girl. Although he lost one leg because of minefield, Tariqwas always there and had always protected Laila. These two men loved Laila in a way her absent mother could not.
Unlike Mariam, these men had never failed her, at least not in her early life. Her father's too late decision to move the family out of Afghanistan, whether out of greater love to Laila's mother or fear of her, and Tariq's greater sense of responsibility for his own parents, robbed everything that was good in Laila's life.
One man, Rasheed, became Laila and Mariam's nightmare and made their lives living hell. Rasheed embodied everything that was wrong in Afghanistan, he was the ultimate Taliban before the country even knew what Taliban meant. Dealing with Rasheed, Laila and Mariam found ally in each other. They became friends, then best friends, then sister, and finally, Mariam became a mother figure for Laila.
Finally, for the first time in her life, Mariam found unconditional, unreserved love, and Laila found the mother she never really had in Mariam, and their love for her children became an endless source of determination to survive, of strength, of hope.
In the end, though, what Mariam's mother said was true: "There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don't teach it in school. Look at me... Only one skill, and it's this: tahamul. Endure" Sadly, tragically, this is still true in current Afghanistan.
This book told a harrowing story about the quiet strength of these two women, their abilities to endure and even persevere no matter how oppressive their situation is (when the good time to be a woman was under the Soviet regime, you know it's really bad). Perhaps because the main characters were women (Laila was only few years older than me), and the story focused on the relationships between girl friends, daughters, wives, and mothers, it touched me far deeper than his first book.
After reading this book, I can't help but thinking how Afghanistan was, still is, filled with plenty of Lailas and Mariams. It is a sad truth that was so easily overlooked when we are so busy with the distracting minute details in our daily lives, where the world was always filled with breaking news of natural disasters, political riots, recessions, nuclear radiations. It was disturbing how easy it was to acknowledge, yet largely ignore the ordeals of these women, who stood quietly and watched the world moves on without them beneath the suffocating burqa.
