A Thousand Splendid Suns
30 Mar 2009 9 Comments
in authors, book reviews
Here’s template try #2. Please click through and let me know what you think of it in the comments! It’s available in green, blue, purple.
When I read The Kite Runner, I realized how much literature can do to bring us into a world we might never have experienced otherwise. Not the most groundbreaking observation, of course, but I think it’s especially important to assert in a world where we are losing newspapers and magazines by the day, and people are increasingly worried about the future of books.
I recently finished A Thousand Splendid Suns
I do agree with this NYT review that both novels are not notable for their plotting or characterization, but more for the beauty of the prose and the way Hosseini is able to immerse the reader entirely in a brutally authentic picture of life in Afghanistan over the past few decades. Will these novels be classics? If only for that authenticity, I believe they deserve to be read in the future. Would they have achieved such success in any other particular historical moment, if our culture was not so awash in diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance, and if we were not still sending soldiers to Afghanistan even now? I’m not sure. But it is, and we are, and these novels help us see the value of multiculturalism and the other side of this military engagement, and that is invaluable.
Mar 31, 2009 @ 05:32:35
I like this better than the other one, but it still seems a little small.
Mar 31, 2009 @ 06:12:20
Half of it is blank space!
Mar 31, 2009 @ 06:35:38
Shoot, I think my browser is still set to zoom in, because it doesn’t look that way to me.
This is frustrating.
Mar 31, 2009 @ 06:54:28
I like this one. I’m not seeing too much blank space and the font size seems better to me. Perhaps it depends on the browser? I’m viewing it in Firefox.
Apr 01, 2009 @ 19:59:31
I thought the same when I read both of Hosseini’s books – and an absolute fascination with Afghanistan, the history and the culture. Then I felt sort of silly that it took a bestselling novel to open my eyes to something that is on the news daily (and a topic I admittedly glaze over).
After reading I wanted more on the experiences of women in different cultures and picked up copies of In the Land of Invisible Women (a female Pakistani doctor in Saudi Arabia) and Infidel (a Somalian Muslim woman). Both are nonfiction and I’ve put them both down – they were not able to capture my attention nearly as well as the fictional Kite Runner or Splendid Suns did.
Apr 01, 2009 @ 20:35:21
Lauren, I’m exactly the same way– literature captures my interest much more than nonfiction. I also get much more engaged by history when it’s present in biographies, like presidential biographies, etc. I like a good narrative with strong characters
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Apr 02, 2009 @ 09:36:52
My juniors read these novels during our The Bullying Mentality unit. Guys read The Kite Runner…gals read A Thousand Splendid Suns.
They agreed…very powerful novels.
Apr 02, 2009 @ 19:13:24
What an interesting idea for a unit! I teach at an all-girls school, but we do get some boys in our junior year from a brother school. I never thought of having them read different books.