A Thousand Splendid Suns +++

Hosseini's first book, The Kite Runner, was a success...a good story told well. I hope the film currently involved in controversy, is up to the caliber of the book.

I felt this second book, again a look at life in Kabul through the menacing years when it was hard to live no matter which side you were on, was told in too small a voice. It seemed to tiptoe its way onto the page with a whimper rather than the outrage that was an underlying current. It lead to too many subtle contradictions and changes in character only vaguely assumed, not adequately fleshed-out. However it still portrayed lives in a repressed culture in the turmoil of struggles for power.

The Kite Runner made me more curious about Afghanistan and a desire to learn more. Splendid Suns deflected that curiosity toward a feeling of sorrow with little hope for any reasonable resolution. The happily-ever-after ending was left hanging with the expectation of more killing rockets, more cruel invasions of home and person. Perhaps that is the way it was supposed to end. I just wish there had been more conviction to the characters along the way. Though perhaps I'm not able to recognize the subtleties implied here.