Mariam is a harami--a bastard child. When her father, rich city-dweller Jalil Khan, found out that his maid was pregnant with his child, he cast Mariam's mother away, to the outskirts of a nearby village. Mariam spends her childhood anxiously waiting for weekly visits from Jalil, who gives her gifts, tells her stories, and teaches her to fish. Nana, by contrast, speaks harshly to Mariam and warns her that Jalil is not the god Mariam thinks he is. But when tragedy destroys her family, teenage Mariam is shipped off to Kabul to marry Rasheed, a middle-aged, foul-tempered shoemaker. Everything changes.
Laila is a well-educated Kabuli girl with friends, a crush, and two loving parents. But the absence of her two much older brothers, who went to fight for the jihad, leaves her mother bedridden and listless most days. And as the war intensifies and the fighting factions keep firing on Kabul, everyday life becomes ever more dangerous. People leave the city. Her friends all leave the city. And when disaster comes for Laila's family, she is brought together with Mariam, Rasheed's reclusive wife down the street.
A Thousand Splendid Suns follows these two lives as they come together amidst war after war in Afghanistan--from the Soviet invasion in the 1970's to the bombs dropped by Bush after 9/11 and the scattering of the Taliban. Struggling to survive in intolerable circumstances--on the street and in the home--Mariam and Laila must become friends if they are to claim their right to happiness and love.
And what a symbol! Hosseini gives us war outside and war inside. Marriage to Rasheed is nothing less than a full-blown constant battle. He abuses in every way possible, but his victims find small ways to fight back, until one day when things must end--quickly and violently. And not long after, the larger-scale war begins to die down. The two wars loosely mirror each other in course, but they don't need to perfectly match up for the message to get across. Every war, big and small, has misunderstandings and unwillingness to understand at its heart. The strength and resilience of the women is astonishing. And, as I made a note of after a chapter near the end, one particular character's self-sacrifice led to more happiness and peace than any of the cowardly, egotistic wars on a larger scale ever did. These larger wars all involve cycles of hope and more fighting. With each new regime, people think that finally the killing will end. It never does. Soviets, Mujahideen, Taliban--they only destroy the country further. The first two create some theoretical reforms, such as measures to promote gender equality, which are ultimately cancelled out by all the fighting and destruction and death. The Taliban don't necessarily start another war with their rise to power, but they do cause immeasurable suffering with their horrendously oppressive (and rather more successful) reforms. But it's the smaller-scale acts of total sacrifice that allow people to live freer and more happily.
Mariam herself--in addition to her actions--became a symbol. "[Mariam] is here, in these walls they've repainted, in the trees they've planted, in the blankets that keep the children warm, in these pillows and books and pencils. She is in the children's laughter. She is in the verses Aziza recites and in the prayers she mutters when she blows westward" (366). As the country rebuilds after the Taliban flee, Mariam becomes a symbol for Afghanistan. She is the country. The course of her life and her actions become the ultimate Afghan story, and the tale of the country as a whole.
While I'm on the subject of Mariam, I'd like to point out that her relationship with Aziza is just lovely. They have so much in common (which I don't want to give away), and so naturally they become close. Really, Mariam's relationships with Laila and her children in general are wonderful. Laila very naturally becomes Mariam's daughter, and her children (Aziza and Zalmai--oh my, what Z's) Mariam's grandchildren. This partially-found family gives them the ability to survive in their circumstances, as well as being part of Mariam becoming a woman with everything she thought, as a child, that she'd never deserve or have.
And now I can't seem to get off the subject of Mariam. Really, though, the more I think about it, the more the book is about Mariam. Only half of it is from her perspective (the other half being Laila), but how can I escape Mariam when she is the country in which the book is set? A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book about Afghanistan. Mariam is Afghanistan. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book about Mariam.
All the technical elements (ha! I'll escape your grasp yet, Mariam, you perfect, amazing person!) are there in top form. Hosseini is a great writer. He has the perfect style for this kind of many-decade epic. He masterfully interweaves the huge, sweeping themes and constants with the tiny but highly meaningful details into one complex, many-layered narrative. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a great story and a great piece of literature, which is quite the accomplishment.
There's so much more I could write about this book, but in the interest of reasonable length and not including a ton of spoilers, I'll close out here.
In short, I would recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns to anyone. It's especially informative if, like me, you've only lived during the tail end of the book's historical events and didn't really know about what happened before that. I've learned so much from A Thousand Splendid Suns, both from the historical events and the fictional ones. I'm looking forward to our discussions in English class!