Run to the library, now!
Go check out A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. I read it today, as part of my two-day vacation, and I cried.
It is about two women in Afghanistan from the 70s to the present. I looked at a couple of reviews, and while they slammed Mr Hosseini for writing "fiction" not "literature," they generally liked it, since it is such a gripping story.
I had read parts of several other books about that region. I read part of Lipstick Jihad, about a twenty-something Iranian-American woman who is a journalist in Tehran. Too hipsterish for me. I tried reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, but it was too pretentious and self serving. I did read Kabul Beauty School and found it entertaining and educational. I later found from the web that there is some controversy over that last one, the author wrote it as a memoir of her time in Kabul, setting up a beauty school. Apparently, she may have embellished, or told the story selectively, or something.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is fiction, but it feels like real life. It is so gripping and emotional, and you know that thousands of people in real life Afghanistan have had the horrific life experiences that the characters in the book have had. It made me cry to think of their hardships.
Then I went for a walk with my dog, and felt the obscene-ness of my middle class American existence. My dog probably has a more comfortable life than many people in impoverished places around the world do. Afghanistan has experienced a coup, a Soviet invasion, regional fighting by the Mujahideen, takeover by the Taliban, and invasion by the Americans, all within the last thirty years. There are millions of Afghani refugees living in Pakistan and elsewhere, most of the country is very poor, and according to wikipedia, they are experiencing severe environmental stresses, including drought and deforestation.
Sometimes my husband claims that our country is going to hell, that the Bush regime is a dictatorship, etc etc. This book will give him perspective. A country going to hell is one in which people are starving to death, one in which 70% of the forest have been cut down in a generation, one in which there is no clean water for drinking or electricity on a regular basis. A dictatorship is a regime where you could get your hand cut off for stealing, where women are not allowed to go out in public without a man accompanying them, where TV and music are forbidden.
Now, go read that book!
It is about two women in Afghanistan from the 70s to the present. I looked at a couple of reviews, and while they slammed Mr Hosseini for writing "fiction" not "literature," they generally liked it, since it is such a gripping story.
I had read parts of several other books about that region. I read part of Lipstick Jihad, about a twenty-something Iranian-American woman who is a journalist in Tehran. Too hipsterish for me. I tried reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, but it was too pretentious and self serving. I did read Kabul Beauty School and found it entertaining and educational. I later found from the web that there is some controversy over that last one, the author wrote it as a memoir of her time in Kabul, setting up a beauty school. Apparently, she may have embellished, or told the story selectively, or something.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is fiction, but it feels like real life. It is so gripping and emotional, and you know that thousands of people in real life Afghanistan have had the horrific life experiences that the characters in the book have had. It made me cry to think of their hardships.
Then I went for a walk with my dog, and felt the obscene-ness of my middle class American existence. My dog probably has a more comfortable life than many people in impoverished places around the world do. Afghanistan has experienced a coup, a Soviet invasion, regional fighting by the Mujahideen, takeover by the Taliban, and invasion by the Americans, all within the last thirty years. There are millions of Afghani refugees living in Pakistan and elsewhere, most of the country is very poor, and according to wikipedia, they are experiencing severe environmental stresses, including drought and deforestation.
Sometimes my husband claims that our country is going to hell, that the Bush regime is a dictatorship, etc etc. This book will give him perspective. A country going to hell is one in which people are starving to death, one in which 70% of the forest have been cut down in a generation, one in which there is no clean water for drinking or electricity on a regular basis. A dictatorship is a regime where you could get your hand cut off for stealing, where women are not allowed to go out in public without a man accompanying them, where TV and music are forbidden.
Now, go read that book!
posted by Shelly at 2:43 PM
4 Comments:
yes, make me feel bad for having Nature girl on hold instead of this book...will put it on my list now!
Will read it. I read The Kite Runner by the same author and thought it was really good. Would recommend it.
I am #678 out of 678 in the local library system. I guess I don't have to worry about it arriving before I finish my current books.
The book cane in and I read it. What a punch in the face! Now go read The Kite Runner.
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