Author: Khaled HosseiniGenre: Human experience, War, Women, Novel
Summary: Here is another tale about how people try to live, just live amidst all the destruction and chaos occurring around them, to them. Although it can never be written off as just another tale.
Mariam lived in a kholba with her mother for the first fifteen years of her life. Being illegitimate, she was always called a harami by her mother, although she didn't really understand the implications if it until she goes to find him in town, after her father fails to turn up to take her to her promised birthday treat. There she finds out that he is actually ashamed of her, despite his weekly visits with promises and sweet words, when he refuses to meet her, and lets her sleep on the street waiting for him. When she returns, she finds her mother has committed suicide, hanging herself off a tree. To preserve honor for his household, her father plays the role of comforting her in public, although he cowardly marries her off to a man who is thirty years her senior, who lives far away. She first imagines a real life, a family with children, contentment, but after she miscarries their first child, he becomes more and more abusive towards her.
Born a generation afterward, Laila is born to a open, warm family, and she is brought up as an educated young woman. Although her mother is in a sorry state, mourning her elder brothers who left to join the war, she has a happy childhood where she is allowed to grow, and develop properly, with her best friend Tariq at her side. Her life turns upside down however, because of the war. Tariq's family decide to leave, and they have an emotional farewell which leads to her carrying his child. Her family is killed in a bomb attack, and she is rescued by Rasheed and Mariam.
Mariam knows what Rasheed intends, and doesn't approve of it because she is so young, and is surprised when the girl accepts the proposal so soon, although she does it for the baby. Mariam doesn't know, and is at first, hostile towards her. However, their combined circumstances gradually make them confide in each other, forming and unlikely alliance, with real affection for each other.
Thoughts: The utter strength a human is capable of in trying circumstances amazes me. What struck me most about this story, was the strength of character of both the women. Surely, the way they displayed it was different as night and day, but it was still strength, how they managed to exist, to live, to love in those circumstances, enduring what they had to. It is heart-wrenching, what they have to go through, day by day, but at least you see the next day, and maybe that is enough; that is a chance to live on. I realized that education also makes all the difference. How lucky we are to be able to learn, because it is a wonderful thing. There is genuine love and affection even within the book, moments of beauty that shined through all that was ugly, and it yanks at the heartstrings, forget tugging. Children, specially, in all their innocence and purity, are true saviors. This also had a story of true love, which was just T______T (okay, speech deteriorating now, clearly, so I'll stop blabbing.)
This is a definitely a book you should read at least once.
Rating: 10/10
Quotes:
Note: Part of #ReadingList2010. Read this a while back, but I'm trying to keep to the resolution.
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