A Thousand Splendid Suns 3

Phew! That was crazy. I feel like I was in that book and watched everything happen before my eyes. Has that ever happened to you? Well it can make you feel pretty weird when you get out of it. It’s just so sad. All of the destruction. I mean, right now I just feel numb. I really loved the last few pages. It was like a whole new stage in the book. After all of the tragedy in the story, they return to Kabul and rebuild. There is a numb happiness, but there is still the ache of the past losses. Hosseini writes, “But Laila has decided that she will not be crippled by resentment. Mariam wouldn't want it that way. What’s the sense? she would say with a smile both innocent and wise. What good is it Laila jo? And so Laila has resigned herself to moving on. For her own sake, for Tariq’s, for her children’s. And for Mariam, who still visits Laila in her dreams, who is never more than a breath of two below her consciousness. Laila has moved on. Because in the end she knows that’s all she can do. That and hope”(Hosseini 363). I felt like I was the one mourning over Mariam’s death and realized that all I could do was move on. There is always destruction, but all we can do is look to the future and give thanks for what was there and what will be.

I really put myself in Laila’s shoes throughout the story, and it really helped me understand the relationships between her and others. Mariam became a mother figure to her, and she doesn't even correct someone at the end of the book who thinks she is Mariam’s daughter. Its sort of ironic and amazing how, even though she was unable to have children, she became the most prominent mother figure throughout the book.

I was very surprised when Mariam was executed, that was heavy stuff. It was almost beautiful (is that weird to say?) when Mariam decided she wanted to be turned in. She knew it was what she had to do. She only wished she could turn back in her last moments when it was too late, which showed the weaker innocent side of her. She is a very interesting character, and I found it comforting to read her decisions and actions.  Everything became numb and slowed down after that part.

Overall: really good book, just don’t read it if you are very touchy because you will probably ruin the book with your tears. Just kidding, but it is very heavy. Thanks for reading!

A Thousand Splendid Suns 2

This book is amazing. It is very entertaining and speaks to me through a perspective that I am unfamiliar with. I have just reached the point where Laila and Mariam have accepted each other as wives of Rasheed and become allies, possibly even friends. To me, this book is mostly about two girls who have lost their families and have no one that they love or who loves them, but they manage to become family of one another.

The point when I think that the girls finally come to lighten up towards one another is through Laila’s daughter Aziza. The author writes, “Mariam had the impression that the baby too was examining her. She was lying on her back, her head tilted sideways, looking at Mariam intently with a mixture of amusement, confusion, and suspicion. Marium wondered if hace might frighten her, but then the baby squealed happily and Mariam knew that a favorable judgement had been passed”( Hosseini 217). Mariam has a slight resentment towards Laila since she is unable to have children while Laila is, and Laila is the second wife of her husband. Once the baby shows this friendship towards Mariam, it kind of breaks the wall and allows her to open up to Laila and to understand her. I think the child Aziza represents peace in the story. Almost everything in the book so far has been destroyed or killed, and there is a war going on. Aziza is the only person that has created something: a relationship. Other characters, which will take too long to explain, such as Jalil (Mariam’s father) and Rasheed (Mariam and Laila’s husband) represent destruction, and Nana (Mariam’s mother) represents the anger in response to destruction, but the inability to fix it. Babi (Laila’s father) and Mullah Faizullah (a man who lived near Marium) represent wisdom, and Tariq (Laila’s love interest) and JalilI (again) represent  hope, even if it might be false. I just realized that both Mariam and Laila have the same roles in their life (the destroyer, the anger, etc.) and when all of that disappears they both end up in the same place.

I'm sorry if that speedy little realization at the end of the last paragraph didn't make any sense to you, but it did to me, and it probably will if you read the book. This book is very sad, though it is a very good read. I was surprised that it lingered so long on the back stories of both female protagonists, but it allowed me to fully understand the situation and attached me to the characters. Thanks for reading my ramble and stay tuned for my final post on this book!!!  I can’t wait to see what happens!

A Thousand Splendid Suns 1

Just before I started reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, I found a useful resource of background knowledge about Afghanistan and the time period, which you can find here. The source is meant for a teacher, but I was able to weed out some information and links.

The book starts during the 1960’s and follows the story of a young woman named Mariam who is forced to marry a shoe-maker. In all the synopses I have read, the book revolves around her and another character, Leila, but she has not come into the story yet. The author of the book is Afghan-born so he obviously knows what he is talking about and everything should be authentic. I assume that the story will have something to do with the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1970’s and possibly lead up to the Taliban. At first I thought that his occasional use of Arabic words would be confusing but after reading a word used in multiple sentences I am able to figure out what the word means. I'm surprised at how many words I actually knew when I first read a word!

So far I have read about 30 pages of the book and it is very entertaining. From reading the first page or two I was skeptical that I would actually enjoy the book, but little did I realize that I was slowly becoming very interested in it. I am looking forward to reading a story from a different point of view about a different subject.

Kabul

 Kabul
by Saib-e-Tabrizi

An English  translation of the poem that Khaled Hoseini used for the title of A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Ah! How beautiful is Kabul encircled by her arid mountains
And Rose, of the trails of thorns she envies
Her gusts of powdered soil, slightly sting my eyes
But I love her, for knowing and loving are born of this same dust

My song exalts her dazzling tulips
And at the beauty of her trees, I blush
How sparkling the water flows from Pul-I-Mastaan!
May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!

Khizr chose the path to Kabul in order to reach Paradise
For her mountains brought him close to the delights of heaven
From the fort with sprawling walls, A Dragon of protection
Each stone is there more precious than the treasure of Shayagan

Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye
Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls

Her laughter of mornings has the gaiety of flowers
Her nights of darkness, the reflections of lustrous hair
Her melodious nightingales, with passion sing their songs
Ardent tunes, as leaves inflamed, cascading from their throats

And I, I sing in the gardens of Jahanara, of Sharbara
And even the trumpets of heaven envy their green pastures

Lord of the Flies 3

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what would you do? If this question was commonly said back when William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies, I think he might have been playing off of it. He used this imagined situation as a way to show the two sides of everyone, as I talked about in an earlier post.

He uses three main aspects or the story to get his point across: Ralph, Jack, and the Beast. Ralph represents the realistic point of view at which we look at this island question. For example, we might think that the first thing to do is to find food or water of shelter or make arrangements to be rescued. Jack represents the more crazy and savage side of us, in which we would enjoys our time and think about impossible things we might do on this island, simply because we can. The beast represents this inevitable end and darkness that we would come to on this island. It could possibly be anywhere as well. Golding could be saying that when these two sides of us compete with each other and the more adventurous side wins, we reach this darkness.

There are even more complicated little symbolisms that other characters represent in the story. I am still fuzzy on what the character Simon represents, however Piggy is very obvious. He represent the intellectual side of us. This also says that the intellectual side cannot survive without the reality (since Piggy stayed with Ralph), which makes sense, for what would be the point of knowing things if you could not apply it to the world.

SPOILER ALERT: Then Piggy dies. Right after the destruction of the conch shell. It reads, “... the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock... the body of Piggy was gone” (Golding 255-256). I figured out the the conch probably represents civilization and order, since it is used to call meetings in the group of boys. So I guess Golding is saying that intelligence and intellectuals can only exist with order. In the wild, both order, intelligence and reality disappears.

I enjoyed the book overall, though it ended a lot faster than I thought it would, and I think the climax was only a few pages before the end. I hope you enjoyed reading this post and hopefully got something out of it. Next book: A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Lord of the Flies 2

I don’t know if William Golding meant for this, but I can’t stop paying attention to one thing while I read this book: the characters Jack and Ralph. I think about them as if they are the same person and each boy represents a different side of that person. Jack represents the adventurous and risk taking side and Ralph represents the more realistic side. For example, while Jack is busy exploring or hunting pigs, Ralph is focused on keeping the fire lit to make sure a nearby boat would spot them. In the last few pages of what I have read so far Jack says, “‘Let’s have a fort.’ ‘There’s no food here,’ said Ralph, ‘ and no shelter. Not much fresh water’”(Golding 148).

This is another scenario that I really saw the two sides come out in both characters. Even though Ralph is a young boy, he no longer becomes amused by forts and exploration, he only displays frustration from not being rescued from the island.

I looked up the meanings of each of the names and I found that (in most sources) Ralph means strength and Jack means rebellion. This expands my original meanings a little bit (though Jack’s makes more sense to me). As I was trying to figure out the purpose of having both boys represent something, I realized that it could be showing the state of the boys in comparison to civilization. I predict that the group of boys will end up following Jack more often than Ralph simply because he is more adventurous. As Jack becomes in charge, it will represent how they are drifting from civilization and becoming more savage-like.

Anyway, the book is still rising to the climax and I have a feeling that it is about to get really creepy/weird. I don’t really know what’s going on with this man that fell from a plane with a parachute. I think he is dead? And he will probably contribute to making this book really messed up. Well, I will find out as I continue reading, I guess!

Lord of the Flies 1

            So far this book has nothing to do with flies and I doubt it will. Never the less, it probably has some significance symbolically and I should keep a note on that as I read. Any way, what this book is actually about: a bunch of boys aged elementary school and tweens that apparently crash landed on an island (or were dropped onto an island after their plane malfunctioned or was shot down?) without any adults. That's pretty much all I know... There will probably be struggles with power and survival throughout the group of boys later in the story. There are two current boys who are very good candidates to lead the group, and though they are getting along now, they probably won’t around the middle of the book.

The only other really extraordinary aspect about the author (William Golding) besides the fact that he is an award winning author, is that he fought in the Navy during WWII. This probably means that Golding knows a little bit about surviving and death and power ranks, and that he will probably convey this situation very well.

            Hopefully this book stays interesting and we’ll see what happens! I should be writing my next post soon!