2007-10-18 "Knowing and loving are born of this same dust:"

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini is a book that the author researched while visiting Kabul. It is a story of friendship between two very dissimilar women who were ages apart in background and in education. They became close in order to survive and to endure the environment that they were forced to live in. The reader grows to understand that there existed between them a closeness like that of a mother and daughter. This intimacy was built upon much mutual respect and much love which these two (2) stunning characters generated for each other. The novel is really the story of the lives of Laila and Mariam.

The title for this novel comes from a 17th Century poem by Saib-e-Tabrizi which was a beautiful poem written in praise of Kabul. The excerpt from which the title originated goes like this: "One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."

But the beautiful poem begins its praise of this city with these lines:

"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

These lines above symbolize so much of this novel. It is the understanding of their fate and the knowing and the loving of each other; it is the sticking by their heritage and their people which clearly demonstrates how Mariam and Laila were also "born of this same dust". The thorns in their lives which they both had to endure did not silence them and in their own ways they each made a contribution to each other to contribute either to each other's life or to the other's legacy.

In reading this novel, the reader will be stymied by what the women of Afghanistan had to endure in the face of oppression and in some instances complete domination. Mariam's and Laila's story is not, I imagine, the story of every woman, but it is their story, told so eloquently, by Hosseini.

Reading the novel will make you sad, it might make you feel uncomfortable and in some parts you will wish that you could do something; even though you realize that this is a book of fiction. But literature that tells a story as powerful as this one, and possibly with as much truth about circumstances in it...cannot always be happy. The reader must be willing to look into the window of these women's lives and realize that the spirit of these women will not be broken and that both will be able to make decisions that they are strong enough to endure. Giving back to others "born of this same dust" is the ultimate gift that both women can give to Kabal, its people and to each other.

A worthwhile book.

Bentley/2007