A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

An even more extreme version of Islamic fundamentalism was espoused by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Having seized power in 1996 after years of Afghan civil conflicts and a protracted war of resistance against a Soviet army of invasion, the Taliban sought to make Afghanistan into a pure Islamic state devoid of Western influence. To that end, the Taliban outlawed music, television, sports, women's education, and many other things deemed un-Islamic. In urban areas where the Taliban's grip on power was especially strong, the Taliban outlawed a variety of activities considered un-Islamic, including music, television, movies, kite-flying, and chess. Men were required to wear long beards; those whose beards were of insufficient length could be jailed until their beards grew out. Such rules were enforced by the religious police, part of the Taliban's Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice.

The brilliant result is A Thousand Splendid Suns, a novel about two women protagonists, Mariam and Laila (Hosseini, 16). The trajectory of their lives forms the double plot of the book, and although the narrative is in the third person, the point of view itself shifts to that of the character whose plotline is being developed. One is reminded of Leo Tolstoy's management of the double plot in Anna Karenina (1875-1877).

Indeed, the two women's narrative points of view structure the novel with intricately wrought symmetry (Hosseini, 17).

A Thousand Splendid Suns can also be read as a female bildungsroman, and the growth of these two girls into maturity, marriage, and maternity aptly illustrates the travail of Afghani women. Hosseini's two women are strategic contrasts physically, socially, and psychologically. Socially, Mariam is from the rural lower class; Laila, the urban middle class. Psychologically, Mariam is accustomed to humiliation; Laila, to consideration. Physically, Mariam's features are ...