A Thousand Splendid Suns

Book Club #2!

About the Book:

Summary: 

Miriam is a woman born in Herat, Afghanistan, out of wedlock to Nana and a man named Jalil. She lives outcasted from her village. After her she leaves home in an attempt to get her father to allow her to move in with the rest of her family, her mother commits suicide. At 15 years old she is married off to an older man named Rasheed in Kabul with whom she is unable to have children and is treated poorly. Laila is a girl born in Kabul with a father that encourages her to go to school, learn, and aim high. Her life is drastically altered when the country's leadership changes, her childhood love Tariq leaves town, a stray bomb hits her home and kills her parents, she is taken in by Rasheed and marries him. Despite uncongenial beginnings, the two form a bond as women raising children in a household and country in which women are denied previous rights and war is a constant presence.

Setting:

Kabul, Afghanistan in 1964 to present-day

Characters:

• Miriam
• Laila
• Rasheed
• Tariq
• Nana
• Jalil
• Mullah Faizullah
• Laila's mom
• Laila's dad
• Tariq's parents
• Aziza
• Zalmai
• Abdul Sharif

Questions:

1. At several points in the story, Mariam and Laila pass themselves off as mother and daughter. What is the symbolic importance of this subterfuge? In what ways is Mariam’s and Laila’s relationship with each other informed by their relationships with their own mothers?

 

2. One of the Taliban judges at Mariam’s trial tells her, “God has made us different, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proven this.” What is the irony in this statement? How is irony employed throughout the novel? 

 

3. Throughout the book, young girls are being married off to cousins and much older people. What do you think are the implications of this and pros/cons compared to relationships in the Western world?

 

4. Laila's mother changes dramatically from a vibrant figure among the women of the community to a withdrawn, depressed individual. Miriam's mother Nana seems to always have suffered from depression. Mental illness does not seem to be addressed in that culture. Why do you think this is?

 

5. Relationships between parents and their children seem largely tragic in this novel. The theme of betrayal is central - Jalil abandoning Miriam, Fariba's treatment of her daughter vs. sons, Miriam not being able to conceive, etc. What do you think about how the adults affected their kids (or lack thereof, in Miriam's case) throughout the novel?

 

6. Mariam says she is ready to go because she has accomplished all she wanted in life - what did this mean or include?

 

7. Afghanistan has experienced many changes of leadership throughout the story - which characteristics of each reign do you think were positive and negative for the characters?

 

8. Tariq and Laila have a special lifelong friendship - have you ever had a similar childhood friendship?

 

9. Mullah Faizullah is Mariam's childhood mentor - what do you think made this relationship special? What qualities of a mentor is significant for children?

 

10. Jalil regrets not taking in Mariam to save face and uphold his reputation - have you ever done anything you regret for similar reasons? what do you wish you did instead?

Conversation Summary:

Despite problems with echoing, conversation mostly circled around treatment of women, culture differences, and child-adult relationships:

• appreciative to live in a society where women can do and be pretty much anything
• better understanding of middle eastern culture and origin of current status
• mentors are people that give you advice, teach you things, tend to be older, wiser and more experienced
• marrying young children off to a much older person is confusing, power difference, person should be wiser but if abusive or mistreats set a norm that the child will not easily break from, different father figure
• Miriam and Laila had weaker mother figures but strong male mentors that encouraged them
• unfair society rules for women
• happiness of women in families
• similarities and differences between characters and their mothers - strong, sacrificed, valued Aziza
• how Miriam's life would be different if she had children
• why Miriam refused to see people from Herat
• culture and religion
• emotional trauma of growing up and living in a changing, war-torn country
• rules of the country's leadership

References:

1. Women in Afghanistan have found a voice to demand change after the brutal lynching of a woman falsely accused of burning the Koran.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/03/26/afghan-women-find-a-voice-after-lynching?videoId=363634946&videoChannel=117760&channelName=World+News 

 

Bear Love Book?:

#3/3