A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

Name of Reviewer – Naireen Naveed Pathan, Third Year B.Sc.B.Ed, Ashoka College of Education, Nashik.
This book of Khaled Hosseini is an encouraging and motivating story of two girls who fight for freedom from a person who is like a disaster for them. This novel was written in 2007.
The book is a compelling but heartbreaking story of two women, both with distinct family background and about a generation apart, who were brought together under the same household through the tragic sweep of war. It is a story set between the period of the 1960s to 2000s in Afghanistan; a period during the invasion by the Soviet Union and the rise of the dreadful Taliban.
There is this girl named Mariam who has grown with her mother who was betrayed by his own father for leaving home to marry a man( Mariam’s father ) who has abused her all her life . And then there’s this girl named Laila who was born in a privileged household which was luxurious .
Mariam’s mother dies by committing suicide and left Mariam alone . On the other hand Mariam’s father Jaleel , already have two wives in his big mansion. With no one left , Mariam was forced to accept a marriage proposal at the age of fourteen from Rasheed who was nearly 20 years older than her .
Mariam’s mother always warned her about this world which will become a scary nightmare for her someday, but despite of listening her mother she left her and ran out of her small hut to meet his father. But Mariam was just a child finding for father’s love because he gave him so much hopes that someday he will take her to his mansion and give her a life which she has imagined in her dreams. But Jaleel not just left her alone with her mother but also made her life disastrous. He never took her with him , but gave her so many hopes that someday will come and he will take her to wander this world and live a peaceful and happy life .
On the other hand , there’s Laila who was born when Mariam was 20. After living childhood with grace and joy , now Laila has entered adulthood and found someone who love her from his heart. Tariq was immensely in love with Laila . But Laila never know that someday he had to leave Tariq and marry the same person who married Mariam.
I don’t wanted to share the glimpse of this story but I know that even if I only share the review about it , you will never get to know about how those women have led their life under the rule of Taliban.
Hosseini is a master storyteller. His characters feel like you know them. You have a sense that you feel what they are feeling and can think what they are thinking. But it is a dark dark book. It is a story that will tear your heart into pieces and then when you are somewhat relieved there is light at the end of the tunnel will break your heart again. A story of domestic abuse that matches anything I have read before. A husband forces small stones into the mouth of his wife over an unpleasant meal leaving her to “spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars’’. The last quote, the author remarked that the grisly if colorful words were used by a bodyguard of a government official when telling him a casual story a woman he has seen beated by a Taliban official in Kabul in 2003.
This book is a story of deep love laced with extreme circumstances and incredible cruelty.

Name of Reviewer: Surana Pranit
Name of the college: Nowrosjee Wadia College
Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan American writer born in Kabul in 1965 he is known to his readers as a prolific author who bring to life the beauty of Afghanistan his first book The kite runner was published in 2003 and subsequently went on to become one of the most popular and beloved books in the world he mainly writes about war torn Afghanistan exploring genres such as history fiction and women fiction he has penned down three novels
1) The kite runner
2) a thousand splendid suns
3) and the mountains Enhoed
And one novella- the sea prayer
Synopsis
Like a compass needle that always points north, a man’s accusing finger always find a woman Always.”
These are the words five year old Mariam Jo is taught by her mother. An unwanted daughter of a highly wanted man Mariam is forced to spend her whole childhood in shadow and solitude until light arrives in her life and gifts her with tragedy upon tragedy leaving her lost in an unknown city called Kabul with an unknown man meant to be her husband…
In the same city of Kabul, thrives a young girl named Laila who has a wonderful life with loving people and bright future until war torn Afghanistan tears her away from all that she has ever known and she is left as lonely and helpless as Mariam Jo.
But fate brings the two women together and what follows is a table of courage resilience love tragedy and sacrifice that would Leave every heart broken and no eye dry .
Analysis –
Unlike most wor around fiction, novels, this book does not revolve the battlefields but rather around the lives of the ordinary people The flow of language is smooth and easy to understand thus making the book readable to any Layman. A large in Afghanistan as possible the book inspired to a great extent by the authors personal experience thus giving the novel a more realistic sense ….
Rating-
The reader has been able to find virtually no aspect of the novel worth criticism some might interpret this fact as a testament to the incapability of the reader regarding Literature analysis, the desired interpretation however is the impeccable writing skills of the author……
The beautiful and heart-wrenching story, the use of absolutely marvelous and yet seemingly Simple language the roller-capster ride of emotions experienced by the readers the death of every single character and the overall reading experience all combine to give the book a rating of nothing less than
You should definitely read this book if you –
Are an avid reader
Appreciate good Literature
Enjoy history fiction and women’s fiction
Want a book that is impossible to forget
Recommendations –
If you enjoyed reading this book, you should read
The Stationery Shop Bleed of tehran by marjan kamali blood of Flowers of by Anita Amirrezvani
Forty Rules of love by Elif Shafak
The Henna Artist by Alko joshi
Thoughts –
I was 12 years old, when I got this book as Christmas present this was the book that opened the doors for Me to the magical word of literature and it is very close to my heart today as we know about the Taliban ruling Afghanistan there exist thousands of Lailas and Mariams we pray for their safety and freedom..

Name – BARDE ABHAY SUDHAKAR
FY (B.Voc) Renewable energy
SPPU PUNE.
Book review
I had high hopes from this novel as i hear great review about it describing it as A masterful storytering a “A suspensful epic ” “ a real tearjerker”, and i have to say it did not dissapoint a bit the novel is slow-burn it first builds up character and their motivation.the novel is more of a charactor study. you get emotionally attached to it’s characters ,all characters are so layered protagonists Specially .with each page ending you just wish and hope for the characters to get a happy ending this novel is perfect example of how to do a plot twist. they come so naturally in the story and when you least expect it.i will go as far as saying that the twists are if not better they are as good as the series of “ a song of ice and fire ” by the George r.r. martin. although the content of both novel are pure different. but shock value is same. the novel is provactive and intregiate.a nail bitting experience to say the least .the novel touches many themes such as patriarchy, self-discovery, suffering, shame but also love and hope. The novel highligths how hope is a good thing. as described in the movie ‘Shawshank redemption’ – “hope is good thing, maybe the of best of things, and no good thing ever Dies.”the novel is true example of this quote. The novel story is even though ficitional but many aspects novel of the novel are taken from true events. the author ‘Khaled Hosseini traveled to difterent Parts of Afganistan for research. the novel is full of metaphor, the author has dived the novel into four parts the first part focuses on our first Protaganist mariam how she was illegimate Child of an buisnessman from the landscape herat. how her mother ‘nana’ mentally and emotinally abused her blaming her for this dreadful life. nana was house servant at jalil a local businessman who who had three wives and Nine children. they both had an affair thus lead to the birth of mariam . creating a exertion in the household of jalil. Jalil is forced to relocate nana and his illegimate daughter mariam to far away from his home. jalil every thursday visits mariam. Nana despises him although mariam loves him dearly Nana constantly tries to provoke mariam to hate jalil saying things like he does not care for you if he had he would have taken you to his home despite this mariam felt affection towards jalil. on her 15th birthday she decided to visit jalil home. She left home without notifying nana. after a struggling journey She reached jalil’s home she was then told by servants of the house that jalil is not home and has gone away for a business only to find out later he was indeed at home but decided to ignore mariam she spent the night sleeping on street with brizzing cold and nothing to cover, when she reache her home nana was no more She had hanged herself. thinking mariam has also abondon her marian is heartbroken and blame herself for this.after thisincident jalil quickly without mariam permission fixes her marriage to a shoemaker Rashed. he was 30 year’s older than her, mariam is dishearten at this point but still agrees for marriage aftrr jalil’s forcefullness. Rasheed is intially treats mariams with utmost care giving her seprate room to sleep taking care of her, listenting to her. one day when mariam was in deep sleep rasheed Come and starts making love to her mariam hesitates but does not refuse. after this mariam ‘commanded to follow instruction such as wearing full clothes not wearing lipstick. not talking to other men in the absence of her husband the food should always be hot . after some time mariam enters labour. Racheed is Very happy to hear it and is persistant on wanting a son as in his previous he had drunkly drowned him in water, mariam then expericend miscariage Rasheed behaviour turns aggressive towards mariam.blaming her for miscarriage, he starts finding mistakes in Small things mariam does he starts physically and emotionally abuse her. after a time he also start sexually abuse her after 7 miscarriges.. they still don’t get blessed with Children, rasheed now resents mariam blaming her for not giving birth to a boy. mariam lives her life depressed and in solitude. and this was the end of first part the second part state with our next protganist laila. laila Come from an eduated family and har ambition is to study further. She goes to class witht her friends to study. She there befriends a boy named tariq whom she is deeply in love with and he likes her too. one day in unforseekan incident a war breakout in afganistan between the Soviet Union and the Mujahideen forces tariq and his family decides to leave the Country before leaving it he meet laila one last time to
say goodbye. they end up having an intercourse. laila thinks of it as a Shame and returns home only to discover that her home is no more A rocket crashed on the home and has destroy it she looks for her mother and father but they were no more .she reached in state of comatose and when she wakes up rasheed is in front of her, which concludes the second part. the third part is where the core heart of the book lies. in the third part it is told that she is pregnant with the child of tariq. rasheed had rescued her and taken her to his house. after taking care of her for days. he propose a marriage to her. he is still married to mariam. mariam is not very happy about this marriage proposal. one day a person Visitis rasheed home and deliver the news that tariq an his family is no more laila is shocked and experience excruciating emotions. her all hope is go vanish now. shekeep quiet about her pregenancy and accept rasheed proposed Solely for upbringing for her child. marriage takes place .mariam despise laila. her child is born whom she names Aziza whom she is deeply fond of. but rasheedis not attached to the child in fact he hates her as he wanted a boy. rasheed starts treating laila same as mariam. abusing her and forcing himself on her. She then give birth to her second child zalmai which is rasheed’s son, he is very happy about this. he gets very much attached to his son. he treats Aziza and zalmai differenty .laila is not very happy about her son. She is not emotionally attached to him. She even Considerd abortion before birth . even after birth of son rasheed’s abuse did not stop. he got more violent accusing laila of not paying more attention to zalmai mariam now starts sympathising with laila. they both started talking to eachother. this starts a beautiful relation between them a relation much like of an & mother and daughter mariam starts seeing laila as a daughter Shenever had . there was one striking difference between
both of them laila was more courageous . years passed their bonds grew deeper mariam also Starts treating laila’s
child as her own. the taliban rises to power in Kabul they force harsh rules on local people. they banned women’srights. while all this is happening in a drought Rasheed’s shop burns to ashes. leaving him force to look for other job which he do not like he push out all this anger in front his wives, frustated with all this laila makes a plan to leave this place with mariam and children. mariam is hesistated first but agrees. when rasheed leave for work both women pack the luggage and runaway but fate had something else store for them the local police capture them as women do not have the luxury of traveling alone anywhere. they calls rasheed. rasheed is furious with this act he is in enraged state now he takes both women home and beates them to pulp using a shovel Specially mariam he even lock her in store room and almost starve her to death as he thinks mariam proveke laila for escape after the few days event he puts aziza in an orpharge Saying he cannot afford two kids.then one day tariq returns .he comes to laila’s house in rasheed’s absence.laila is Shocked seeing tariq as she thought he died then she realise rasheed had paid that
man to deliver the fake news of tariqs demise. tariq gives hope to laila and says he still Loves her and ask her to come with him to pakistan after a hesitiation laila agrees and after a lot convincing so does mariam. then that evening when rasheed comes home his son zalmai tells rasheed a man Visited home afternoon. rasheed becomes infuriated now he just wanted to Kill these both women he slaps laila and before he can do anything other mariam hits Rasheed in the head with the same shovel. rasheed lies dead. mariam breaks down she convinces laila to free Aziza from orphanage and go with tariq before the Police come and she will surrender herself even after laila’s request mariam stayed behind and surrender herself this where the third part concludes. the 4th part and last part is more of an epilogue tariq and laila gets a job in a hotel in pakistan and live there happily laila is now pregnant with tariq’s child. one day a news comes that the war has ended in Afghan and it is peaceful than before. this news stays with laila . laila wants to go back to her country and make a living . Of course tariq is oppose to this idea but after minor argument aggres to her, they shift to the same place where where mariamused to live. (Heart) She meets one old man who was accustomed to mariam. Laila tells him about mariam circumstances and how she got sentence to death by local government After hearing this news the man’s eyes filled with tear he says he have one thing of mariam’s that he now wants relinquish to laila. he gives her a bag of money and a copy of the movie Pinocchio (a movie jalil promised mariam that he will show her). he says Jalil left it for
mariam. he wanted to give it her but mariam refused to meet Jalil after the marriage he had deep regrets about the way he treated mariam he was shameful of his acts. laila accepts this as she opens a small school for children and start teaching tariq also starts a job they both put their haunting past behind and starts new life. laila is greatful of mariam and the live she has because her the novel ends. i was devistated for days after reading this nothing has ever impressed this much. it made me thankful to life i’m living right now. with each day my love for this novel only grows. the novel made retrospect my own life the novel is true example of hope and how you can achieve anything if you have resillance the author ‘Khaled hoseni ‘did not had not founded the perfect title for this book. after a lot of research he comes across a poem from 17th century which an ode to the city of Kabul from there he picked the title. i finished this book the years ago I still rember how a tear drop from my eye landed on the last page of the novel. a masterpiece an under statement. So many emotion you feel in this journey . a novel i cannot read again just for how heartbreaking it is. —ABHAY BARDE