Those are the most powerful words that shook me from this splendid author's book A thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini.
My admiration towards his creative and emotional pen of words is beyond word, I fell in love with this writer since his first book was published "The Kite Runner". I couldn't believe that anyone could write such a powerful piece of art and do the same thing again in the following novel. He once again took my breath away and created a novel, which weeps for women and gave the best definition of the word "endurance."
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel about two Afghan women who come from different paths and met each other through pain and torment during the Soviet-Afghan war and a war of marriage.
Mariam, who was an out cast, a bastard child grew up in a small Kolbah, with her mother. Her father, Jalil, who was a very well known man, couldn't face his act of disgrace by accepting her as his daughter. Miriam's mother, used to warn her, that her father never loved her, because he didn't accept her. The only thing that was good enough for his daughter was to hide her away in the Kolbah, like hiding his shame of sleeping with one of his servants (Miriam's mother). However, Miriam wanted to know his family. She went to the city of Kabul to meet him. However, as shameful as he felt, he didn't even open the door for his little girl. Instead, he hid away in his house with his wives and children. Miriam had to sleep on the streets that night. When she returned from her failed attempt she found her mother hanging from a tree near their Kolbah.
Lyla, who grew up in Kabul was as beautiful as her name described her "nightingale". Her father loved her and gave her education to strengthen her. His words were "Marriage can wait, but education can't." However, during the war, Layla lost her family and her father. Her dream of teaching was as real as the blood of her family on that day they were bombed. Layla was in love with Tariq, who was a cripple. The love between was so strong that the gossip of the town were mere whispers of the trees at night.
Tariq left Kabul and but took the memories of Layla with him.
Layla and Miriam both stricken by death of family, ended up being married to the same man. The man who oppressed them. One day they decided to make a run for it.However, the police got a hold of them and they were sent back home. Their punishment for running away were severe beating and imprisonment in their own home. Both these ladies, from different walks of life, had one thing in common "it was a man's world in Afghanistan" and "endurance is the bitter sweet essence of a woman's power."
Since Miriam couldn't conceive a baby, she found joy in Layla's babies. However, Layla's first baby would be a living memory of her love for Tariq. Yes, Layla was pregnant from Tariq, her lost love. Even though Tariq couldn't be there for her in flesh and blood, her little daughter Aziza, reminded her of what love should feel like. Layla deceived her husband, by making think that Aziza was his.
One day, Tariq came back, after 15 years of being outside of Kabul and avoiding the disasters of the war. Layla looked like war herself after 15 years of an abusive husband. She felt ashamed, as she could see in the mirror of Tariq's face, how she, Layla has withered away, just like Kabul. However, Tariq's love for her still saw the Layla whom he kissed under the whispering trees. She told him when he left Kabul she was already pregnant with his child Aziza. He met his daughter for the first time and the manhood, the fatherhood in him spilled love over this jewel of a daughter he missed for 15 years. Tariq promised her that he still loved her and that he would return for her.
However, by the time , Tariq left, her husband returned home and one of the children spilled the beans by saying a man visited Layla. Miriam and Layla knew what would happen. He was going to beat them to death. Miriam grabbed all the courage in her, everything that was left in her of what this mad man has already taken from her, and hit him over the head with a spade.
Miriam was tried by the court and was given a death sentence.
Miriam who couldn't conceive, and life was always harsh to her, found the joys of love through Layla's children. Miriam experienced love for the first time through the eyes of a child.
Tariq returned for Layla and made up the 15 years that they lost. Through Miriam's courage and divine love, Layla opened a school and fulfilled her dream of teaching.
Even my words can't describe the intensity of this novel. The most amazing talent Khaled Hosseini has is that his narration is from a woman's voice. When reading it, you wouldn't believe that a man could have written this. The emotions, the loss, the severity of love and pain are painted in such a real fashion that it is hard to separate the reader from the character.
He successfully describes the history of Afghanistan and how this country was torn apart by the Soviet powers and the Islamic fundamentalists, at the same time he walks you through the life of normal Afghan people that not only had war outside their homes, but also inside.
His passion for letting the woman's voice be heard ripples with courage through the pages that it is so hard to put the book down.
After I read this book, my eyes filled with tears. Tears of how much it means to be a woman. I realised how much of us have been robbed of our innocents, forced against our will, killed for our beauty and disgraced by our courage. How much of us have been in chains of social ills and our dreams cut short just to fulfil the wants of others and not of ourselves.
Some of you might think that this book is all about romance. It is not. It is about how one woman gains strength from the other. How one woman finds happiness that she has been yearning for through the love of children.
I still believe to this day, women are not as strong as men. However, women have endurance above all nature. Women can hold on for dear life as if life depended on itself. Women can give even when there is nothing left to give. A woman can stretch her womb and her life and make space for a baby , wanted or unwanted, where as men can't.
For many years women have been blamed for their crime of simply being women. Khaled narrates it so well of how social ills affects the woman in and out of home. He reflects on how social transition either cripples or enlightens women. He also successfully makes a comparison between good people and bad people, regardless of their culture, their background and their religion.
Khaled Hosseini's first novel "The Kite Runner" was so impressive that I stumbled on this book. It is in this book that I think we need to know more of this man. He is extremely talented, well composed in his style of writing, but speaks the truth that could kill a mocking bird.
I will end this post by quoting one of the most heart breaking quotes in the book: “Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.”
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