A Thousand Splendid Suns
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Khaled Hosseini
Chapter 1-15 (Part One) Journal # 1 After I had read The Kite Runner, I was recommended to also read A Thousand Splendid Suns, by the same author, Khaled Hosseini. I took this piece of advice, and finished the book in just a few days. It was a splendid book written by a splendid author, who took it to heart to write such a vivid story about the lives of two women in Afghanistan and how difficult it was for them. From the first pages of this book, my attention was captured and I couldn’t put it down. It made me forget about the real world and dragged my mind into the world of Mariam and Laila. Mariam is a girl who was “born a harami, a source of shame to her father and his family” (60). Her father Jalil is of the upper-class men of Kabul, and her mother a lowly woman cast out of her home by her master Jalil. Every Thursday, Jalil would visit Mariam and tell her of the wondrous stories of her past, and Mariam, a naive little girl, would eat up all the lies he feeds her. Her mother would warn her against it all, but Mariam chose to believe the happy version of events Jalil told her. He was a rich man telling rich lies. Why would Mariam’s own father be so cold-hearted to pretend to love her and make up stories that aren’t even true? I think he does this because “[he is] ashamed of [her]” (50); but he doesn’t want her to know his true personality or else she wouldn’t respect him since he is her father after all. Social appearances told society whether you were worth their time or not, so Jalil wanted to save his face and keep his good reputation. Nowadays, we are still judged by our social status and appearance though it isn’t as severe and open as back then in the late 1900s. Mariam’s mother once warned her that there was “only one skill” she had to perfect, “[a]nd it’s this: tahamul. Endure” (17). We can observe how obedient Mariam is, because she did endure. She “quietly endure[d] all that [fell]
Khaled Hosseini
Chapter 1-15 (Part One) Journal # 1 After I had read The Kite Runner, I was recommended to also read A Thousand Splendid Suns, by the same author, Khaled Hosseini. I took this piece of advice, and finished the book in just a few days. It was a splendid book written by a splendid author, who took it to heart to write such a vivid story about the lives of two women in Afghanistan and how difficult it was for them. From the first pages of this book, my attention was captured and I couldn’t put it down. It made me forget about the real world and dragged my mind into the world of Mariam and Laila. Mariam is a girl who was “born a harami, a source of shame to her father and his family” (60). Her father Jalil is of the upper-class men of Kabul, and her mother a lowly woman cast out of her home by her master Jalil. Every Thursday, Jalil would visit Mariam and tell her of the wondrous stories of her past, and Mariam, a naive little girl, would eat up all the lies he feeds her. Her mother would warn her against it all, but Mariam chose to believe the happy version of events Jalil told her. He was a rich man telling rich lies. Why would Mariam’s own father be so cold-hearted to pretend to love her and make up stories that aren’t even true? I think he does this because “[he is] ashamed of [her]” (50); but he doesn’t want her to know his true personality or else she wouldn’t respect him since he is her father after all. Social appearances told society whether you were worth their time or not, so Jalil wanted to save his face and keep his good reputation. Nowadays, we are still judged by our social status and appearance though it isn’t as severe and open as back then in the late 1900s. Mariam’s mother once warned her that there was “only one skill” she had to perfect, “[a]nd it’s this: tahamul. Endure” (17). We can observe how obedient Mariam is, because she did endure. She “quietly endure[d] all that [fell]