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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (view source)
Revision as of 09:00, 11 August 2020
, 09:00, 11 August 2020no edit summary
I am all for engaging with current events through fiction. I'm all for confronting the woes of our foreign policy through it, too. I'm all for revealing through novels the way poor benighted Afghanistan suffers and fails while the great and good use it as a fighting ring. This is not why I disliked ''A Thousand Splendid Suns''. I don't think Hosseini does enough to challenge the Western view of the country - burqa = bad, Buddhas of Bamiyan = good, no shading of that anywhere to be seen - but I don't mind that either. It's just that the book isn't very good. It runs at a breakneck pace and you feel as though you're in the middle of a novelisation of The Terminator or somesuch action film. It just never lets up. It's melodramatic, over-theatrical, unshaded, and just plain schmaltzy half the time. It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's a holiday read, not a weighty one. And to hear hushed tones in relation to it, well, because, very possibly, I am snobbish, jealous, and mean-minded, it gets on my nerves.
The subject matter is weighty. The book is not. It's a light, romantic read with some purple prose set against the background of one of the most significant conflicts of our time. There's nothing wrong with that at all. If you like this kind of read, you'll love it. Bookbag would enjoy it as a holiday read. If the rave reviews, the award shortlists and the hyperbole have has made you buy it, you're going to be severely disappointed.
If you want to read about women in Afghanistan, try Christina Lamb's ''The Sewing Circles of Herat'' - her journalism is as lyric as any novel. We've also enjoyed [[And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini]].
{{toptentext|list=Richard and Judy Shortlist 2008}}