A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead Books

Recently, Mary Boyd brought home from the library a book by Khaled Hosseini, entitled, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. I later found out that his first book as well as this one has maintained a high position on most best seller lists for months. This one came out in May and immediately soared.
As my wife was taking a break from reading said book to prepare a meal (I grill and eat but don’t do the inside stuff of meal preparation), I peeked into the book and was immediately captivated by what I read. That grip didn’t end until the pages did. I told our librarian, Judy, that it was an awesome and very sad book. Hosseini takes us into the intimate experiences of four generations of Afghan women where there is precious little for anyone except the fictional domineering males in the book to delight in. The book is soulful, brutal and candid concerning social life in that particular Islamic state. I am inclined to believe it is little different in others.
As I was finishing the book, I happened to see an interview of an Islamic woman on the Oprah show. This woman was extolling the joys and virtues of Islamic womanhood from her perspective in the USA. It was hard to choke down the nausea from an awareness that there was a certain hypocrisy in this woman’s perspective. Only in the USA could she enjoy the best of Islam and be free from the unbelievable oppression Islamic women experience in most places on our globe.
At the end of the day……..I am glad to have had the privilege of reading Hosseini’s second book.