Book Club Discussion-A Thousand Splendid Suns

Jennifer Frank · Post by **Jennifer Frank** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:49 pm

I was wondering how far everyone is with reading this month's book: A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini. I finished it last night, and I'm ready to start discussing it when everyone is finished. I really enjoyed it, and the closer I came to the end, the harder it was for me to put down.

Let me know your first impressions.

Can this be listed as a sticky? Thanks!

Brad Hutchison · Post by **Brad Hutchison** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:35 am

I'm enjoying it too, but I probably need a couple more days.

Lynn Farris · Post by **Lynn Farris** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:33 am

I have to admit after your post I started reading last night. For all of you out there - the book is a real page turner. I'm more than half way through. So there is plenty of time for you to join us.

I guess the first thing that that hit me is how people can take bad situations and make them worse by their attitudes. I was also rather devastated by man's inhumanity to man or woman as the case may be. That is really why I couldn't finish last night - it was just too sad. I hope it ends well. So far, I'm not seeing a thousand splendid suns.

It is interesting that this book takes place during our life time - the fall of the Soviet Union etc. So the story is not one of men and woman long ago but a fairly recent look at this country.

sharon kinsella · Post by **sharon kinsella** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:27 pm

I'm not going to participate in the book club discussion but thought I would point out that this book showed the lives of these women in ways I never thought imaganible. I knew some things about what went on there and the status of women, but this shook me to my bones.

I read it a couple of months ago and it is an excellent read.

Brad Hutchison · Post by **Brad Hutchison** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:36 pm

Sharon, it would be great to have you join the discussion. Please feel free to post on the book. Or I'll have to resort to making inflammatory comments that you can't resist.

Brad Hutchison · Post by **Brad Hutchison** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:58 pm

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/labn ... napse.aspx

Jennifer and Lynne - this is an interesting article about neurologists studying the effects of meditation on the brain. Thought you might like to see it.

sharon kinsella · Post by **sharon kinsella** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:09 pm

Brad - That is so not fair.

Lynn Farris · Post by **Lynn Farris** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:08 pm

Sharon, I'm thrilled you are joining us!

We should also be thinking about another book and someone to coordinate it.

I finished tonight. I must say that I did cry - but keep reading - the ending does have some redemption. I don't want to give the ending away - but sometimes I don't want to finish if I think it is just going to be too sad. So my message is keep reading.

Jennifer Frank · Post by **Jennifer Frank** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 8:29 pm

Sharon, you should join in and comment as you see fit....

Lynn, I cried at several points in the book, too. The author's website briefly discusses how his first book was told from a male perspective, and how this book was a challenge for him to tell a story from the Afghan women's point of view. As a male author, I think his storytelling from a female point of view was excellent.

Brad, Let us know when you're done and I'll post a few discussion questions.

sharon kinsella · Post by **sharon kinsella** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:05 pm

I will, but it's been quite a few months and there have been many, many books since then.

Look forward to seeing what everyone else thinks.

I cried a lot.

Lynn Farris · Post by **Lynn Farris** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:33 pm

This isn't directly about the book. But many years ago, before 9/11, my son wrote a paper on Afghan women. One of the sites he used was RAWA.

Apparently the situation for Afghan woman hasn't improved.

Interesting site. http://www.rawa.org/index.php

Brad Hutchison · Post by **Brad Hutchison** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:21 pm

Done! Sorry, I'm always the slow reader. I think the bulletin board format makes it unnecessary to wait for everyone, but I appreciate it.

I'm emotionally spent. That's not to say I cried...

There was so much tragedy throughout, I was afraid to get to the end. I felt Hosseini had it in him to leave me with a sad ending, and I was fearful of that. For me, for no personal reason that I can think of, the relationship (or non-relationship) between Jalil and Mariam I found especially heartbreaking, even from the very beginning of the book.

Anyway, I'll save the rest for Jennifer's questions...

Jennifer Frank · Post by **Jennifer Frank** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:16 pm

Brad, I just wanted to wait until you were done so that no one spoiled the end for you

Anyway, I thought that I would dish out a few questions at a time to try to keep the discussion going a little longer. Also, feel free to post questions of your own. In the interest of full disclosure, a few of my questions I borrowed from Khaled Hosseini's website and a few are my own. So here are three to get us started:

1. What were your impressions of the relationships betweeen Mariam, her mother (Nana), and Jalil in Part One?

2. Mariam's mother tells her: "Women like us. We endure. It's all we have." How does this sentiment inform Mariam's life and relate to the larger themes of the novel?

3. What were you impressions of Mariams's marriage to Rasheed in Part One, both before and after the miscarriages? Did you predict based on his behavior early in the book the violence that was to follow later?

Brad Hutchison · Post by **Brad Hutchison** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 9:23 pm

1. What were your impressions of the relationships betweeen Mariam, her mother (Nana), and Jalil in Part One?

Certainly I, probably like everyone else, was very pro-Jalil and anti-Nana as the book begins - as was Mariam. I think I still am, even though Mariam did a 180 on each of them by the end. She could never forgive Jalil, but I felt throughout the book that his affectionate doting on her during her childhood was sincere, he just wasn't strong enough to stand up to the social pressure (as he confirms himself in his letter). Though we consider many of the social and cultural norms barbaric, or at least unsettling, I think it's unfair to judge Jalil outside of them. He did more for his harami daughter than society thought he needed to do or even should do. As I alluded to above, the fact that Jalil later in life wanted to mend his relationship with Mariam, did everything he could to reach out to her, I found heart-wrenching. Especially since Mariam never knew - that killed me. Jalil, in spite of his lack of "screen time," is to me the tragic figure of the story. Laila and Mariam found strength and purpose in the end - Jalil only heartache and sorrow and impotence in trying to right his past wrongs.

2. Mariam's mother tells her: "Women like us. We endure. It's all we have." How does this sentiment inform Mariam's life and relate to the larger themes of the novel?

Great question. That quote is THE theme of the novel, at least for the two heroines. Mariam didn't understand this when her mother said it, and resented the implication that there was nothing better in store for her. But this in essence became Mariam's creed - enduring was her great triumph, and she came to respect that same quality in her mother.

3. What were your impressions of Mariam's marriage to Rasheed in Part One, both before and after the miscarriages? Did you predict based on his behavior early in the book the violence that was to follow later?

I never thought about this until right now, but I think a parallel can be drawn between Jalil and Rasheed in that they were both slaves to convention. Nothing really from the early days of his marriage to Mariam indicated that Rasheed was predisposed to violence toward his wife, but he had very (common in that time and place) traditional views of what a wife should be - strictly domestic, burqa-clad, bearing children (especially sons) - and when Mariam failed (in his eyes) in some of these aspects he felt shamed, dishonored, and betrayed, and, well, anger management was not one of his strong suits.

Lynn Farris · Post by **Lynn Farris** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 9:40 pm

1. What were your impressions of the relationships betweeen Mariam, her mother (Nana), and Jalil in Part One?

It was a sad situation. Now in much of this country a woman could be killed for sex before marriage. It was positive that she and her daughter were given a home albeit very modest, food and a chance to live. Jalil was supporting her and Mariam to some degree financially and to some degree emotionally - he certainly didn't do it to the same degree that he did his wives and the children he had by them - but I didn't see him as that evil. I must say he did far better by them than many men in the US today.

I guess Nana was trying to make her daughter understand reality - but she was really cruel I thought. It was like she blamed her daughter for her mistakes. She was also cruel to Jalil's sons who weren't to blame. She may have thought that she was protecting Mariam by not allowing her to have an education - but was she? Perhaps she killed herself to force Jalil to take Mariam in - but in reality she hurt everyone and made Mariam feel really guilty and was ultimately responsible for her marriage to Rasheed.

Mariam was just a little girl who wanted and needed love from her mother and father. Her father in the short period of time he spent with her tried to lift her up - even if he didn't consider her the equal of his other children - he never called her the equivalent of a bastard. He was the high spot of her early life.

2. Mariam's mother tells her: "Women like us. We endure. It's all we have." How does this sentiment inform Mariam's life and relate to the larger themes of the novel?
Mariam's mother was negative - this was a negative comment but maybe a realistic one. I must say at some point I did wonder how much more this woman could endure.

3. What were you impressions of Mariams's marriage to Rasheed in Part One, both before and after the miscarriages? Did you predict based on his behavior early in the book the violence that was to follow later? It was horrible how quickly she was married off to a older man that she didn't know and taken to a new home far away from any thing that she knew. At first, maybe because I'm optimistic, I thought things might turn around for her. The ice cream was a nice moment. Despite his control - she seemed somewhat happy. She was very excited about the baby and so was he. He seemed to think that the miscarriages were about him and his sorrow - he didn't realize how devastated she was about it. I also wondered how her cooking got so bad. I think he was just angry. I really didn't see the foreshadowing of his behavior to come.