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!