In Kabul, a tale of two women

The author of 'The Kite Runner' tries to go behind the burqa in his second novel.

from the May 22, 2007 edition

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Within a week of her mother's death, they've married her off to a Kabul shoemaker three times her age who beats her and forces her to wear a burqa decades before the Taliban required it.

This section sags from the weight of heavy-handed preaching and obvious symbolism. For example, when her mother swears at Mariam, Hosseini intones, "She understood then, what Nana meant, that a harami was an unwanted thing; that she, Mariam, was an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such as love, family, home, acceptance." OK, good to have that clarified by Page 4.

But if readers can hang on 90 more pages, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" takes a turn for the better with the introduction of Laila, a teacher's daughter and a neighbor of Mariam and Rasheed, the horrible husband.

Hosseini is on much firmer ground with Laila's family of liberal intellectuals. The characters are recognizable people, the dialogue has snap – there's even a little humor, courtesy of Tariq, Laila's best friend.

Kabul itself also becomes a major character, as war against the Soviets is replaced by internecine warfare between factions of the mujihadeen. Laila's parents are killed by a rocket, and Rasheed pulls her from the rubble. Evidently believing in the "Finders, keepers" rule, he takes the teen as a second wife. The two women eventually forge an alliance against the monster at home and the chaos raging outside.

Then the Taliban arrive, with their list of rules banning everything from kites and parakeets to women's laughter. (That last isn't really a problem for Mariam. As she notes, life under the Taliban isn't so very different than life with Rasheed – at least, at first.)

Hosseini has aimed high with his second novel. In addition to telling a gripping story, he wants to convey 30 years of Afghan history and praise the endurance of the women of Kabul in the face of titanic oppression.

If "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a little shaky as a work of literature, at least a reader feels that Hosseini has more at stake than where the book ends up on the bestseller list.

• Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor.

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