A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khalid Hosseini)

Summary: A Splendid Thousand Suns is a tale about the frailty of character of strong men and innate strength of frail women. The novel explores the lives of two Afghan women who belong to totally different backgrounds but are forced to share the same unhappy household. It narrates their tragedies, their unwavering endurances and sacrifices in the face of cruelty and hardships. The backdrop is, once again, the war torn Afghanistan mutilated by forces from within and without. The two women face rejection from their families and their brutal husband, suffer from domestic violence and yet find love, companionship and consolation from each other. It is the story of Mariam who is an illegitimate child of a wealthy Herati businessman. Jalil did not have the courage to marry her mother after dishonoring her. His weak will perished under pressure from his family and he married the young, innocent girl to Rasheed a brutish cobbler some thirty years her senior. Repeated miscarriages dashed all of Rasheed’s hopes of fathering a son and he subjected Mariam to torture over petty domestic issues. Unwanted, unloved Mariam soldiered on silently till Laila entered her life. Laila was the beloved daughter of a university teacher who imbibes in her his love for education, poetry, art and culture. With Kabul under fire from warlords, Laila’s childhood sweetheart Tariq departs for Pakistan, leaving Laila in a big predicament. To avoid shame, she too marries Rasheed but soon loses her place as the queen of his heart when she gives birth to a daughter. Slowly affection and friendship develops between Laila and older Mariam …a relationship so strong that it transcends all differences and enables them to withstand depravation, starvation and brutality all around them. Laila also suffers violence at the hands of her husband till one day while he was attempting to strangle her Mariam kills him to save Laila. Laila ultimately finds love and contentment and becomes a teacher in a local orphanage. But more than Laila, it is Mariam who leaves her memories in the hearts of others as bright as the brilliance of a thousand splendid suns.

 Khalid Hossieni, through the lives of these women, lays bare the underlying issues that plague Afghanistan today. The women, in an average Afghan household, are still considered worthless. We see glimpses of these in Nana’s words when she says “Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.” Political unrest, deteriorating law and order situation, years of wars, first as jihad against the Soviet regime and later as warlords and Taliban took over, have left Afghanistan bleeding and made millions of Afghanis homeless and destitute. It is actually their story too as Hossieni tries to show that love and heroism can triumph over death and destruction whether of an individual or a nation

Source: http://www.shvoong.com/books/novel-novella/1637344-thousand-splendid-suns/#ixzz1QnQSqH3F

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Leo Tolstoy Russian author, one of the greatest of all novelists. His life is often seen to form two distinct parts: first comes the author of great novels, and later a prophet and moral reformer. His major works include War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Some great quotes by a great novelist:


"Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live".


"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful".


 "Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source".


"Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity".


"The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded". 


"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time". 


"A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction"


"Anything is better than lies and deceit! " 

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose books, set among the English middle and upper classes, are notable for their wit, social observation and insights into the lives of early 19th century women.

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire. She was one of eight children of a clergyman and grew up in a close-knit family. She began to write as a teenager. In 1801 the family moved to Bath. After the death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother moved several times eventually settling in Chawton, near Steventon.

Jane's brother Henry helped her negotiate with a publisher and her first novel, 'Sense and Sensibility', appeared in 1811. Her next novel 'Pride and Prejudice', which she described as her "own darling child" received highly favourable reviews. 'Mansfield Park' was published in 1814, then 'Emma' in 1816. 'Emma' was dedicated to the prince regent, an admirer of her work. All of Jane Austen's novels were published anonymously.

In 1816, Jane began to suffer from ill-health, probably due to Addison's disease. She travelled to Winchester to receive treatment, and died there on 18 July 1817. Two more novels, 'Persuasion' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published posthumously and a final novel was left incomplete.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/austen_jane.shtml