Review of 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' Through the Lens of Logic

- Alaka Neupane

               Introduction 

About the author 

Khaled Hosseini (March 4, 1965) is an Afghan-American writer who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother used to teach Farsi at a high school in Kabul. His family had to shift to Paris due to his father’s official reasons in 1976. By then they were ready to return to Kabul, which was invaded by the Soviet Army, resulting in them moving to California, upon the political asylum provided by the United States. He did his graduation in biology and went into the medical field. His debut novel is ‘The Kite Runner’, which he started writing in 2001 and was published in 2003. The other novels written by him are ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, ‘And the Mountains Echoed’ and ‘Sea Prayer’. 

(Source: https://www.seattleoperablog.com)

About the book

‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ is a novel that depicts the situation of the early 1960s to the early 2000s in Kabul, Afghanistan. It broadly sheds light upon the lives of two women from Kabul, born 20 years difference. Mariam, a girl born in 1959, gets to live her childhood with her mother, who had endured all her life, and father who sowed the seed of false stories and hopes once a week when he visited her. She didn’t get to taste what education would be like, what living in big houses in big towns would be like, and more importantly, what living with her father would be like. She didn’t know what it meant to be an illegitimate child. She didn’t know the way to differentiate the real from the unreal. She didn’t know the actual meaning of endurance until her mother committed suicide. Laila, a girl born in 1976, lived her childhood full of love, happiness, gratitude, care, support, and hope. She was born to a middle-class family, where love would conquer suffering and optimism would conquer pessimism. She got to feel the real love of a father, experience teenage love, viewed the world with a spectrum of optimism until she collided with her unimagined life.

Content in the book

‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ starts with a village where lives a 5 years old Mariam. A girl, who has been peripheralized with the word ‘harami’ by her own mother, Nana, upon being the illegitimate child. Jalil her father, is a great businessperson in Herat and visits her (Mariam) every Thursday, reciting her the stories which were skeptical (to us) but realistic enough to Mariam. She rather becomes skeptical about the stories told by her mother, who was once a housekeeper in Jalil’s and had been thrown out of the house upon carrying Jalil’s child in her womb. She imagines herself being with Jalil in his house living together with other brothers and sisters. This imagination of her gets extended to the verge of reality when she walks to Herat and waits for an entire day to enter the house where her father lives. Along with the downfall of her expected imagination, she faces the unexpected reality and mourns the suicide of her mother, Nana.

After the funeral of Nana, she was taken to Herat and extended her hand to a widowed shoemaker, Rasheed. She was loved, cared for, and pampered until she suffered a miscarriage. She then gets to realize that, she was married with the expectation of replacing the loss which her husband had upon losing his son. 

Laila, a young intelligent girl was brought up two houses apart from Mariam’s and Rasheed’s. She lived with her loving and supportive father and mother who encouraged her to have an education and stand up for herself. However, the life of the family shakes upon the news of the death of her two brothers. She had a friend from her childhood, Tariq, which further led to teenage love. They both make instant love at a quick time when Tariq talks about his family moving to Pakistan due to the war in Afghanistan. Later, when Laila’s family prepared to leave Kabul, the rocket hit her home, resulting in the death of her parents and wounding her.

Laila finds herself in Mariam’s when she gets back to her health. One fine day, Abdul Sharif brings her the news of Tariq’s death. Numb and devasted Laila, accepts the marriage proposal from Rasheed, realizing the child in her womb, of Tariq. She then gives birth to a baby girl, Aziza, after which she feels the abusive and manipulative violence by Rasheed. Mariam and Laila both build a good relationship when the time passes by. Mariam becomes closer to Aziza and takes care of her like her own child. After 4 years of Aziza, Zalmai the son of Laila and Rasheed takes birth, which shows the discriminatory pattern of Rasheed towards a female child and a male child. Laila couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the love of her life: Tariq. She slowly realizes the conspiracy of Rasheed, upon creating a false story of Tariq’s death and reaching it to her. 

Tariq and Laila, now, more often met each other, when Rasheed wasn’t home. But, upon knowing the meeting they had, Rasheed beat both Mariam and Laila until their voice choked. One day, Mariam dared to get salvation from all the violence and killed Rasheed with a shovel. She surrendered herself to the Taliban and let Laila and Tariq live the rest of their lives happily.

Laila and Tariq moved to Pakistan with their son and daughter and lived the life they had dreamt of, years ago. They decided to move to Kabul again. While returning she visits Mariam’s old home and receives a letter her father Jalil had written to her, with the regret all over. Laila and Tariq build a beautiful life there in Kabul. Laila becomes a school teacher and when she becomes pregnant, she decides that if it was her daughter, her name would be Mariam. 

Discussion

1. When Jalil creates false stories and tells them to Mariam, Nana, Mariam’s mother tells Mariam that they were lies, moreover the rich lies that are spoken by rich men. Yes, our society is constructed that way where hierarchical order is always there. Even when a person with a high profile or status tells lies they are given emphasis and categorized in other ways than by poor people. 

2. Nana often told Mariam that being a girl one had to endure all their life. It came out to be true too. When Mariam lived her post-married life, she got to taste all the types of endurance one had to face in life. Yes, the society where Nana and Mariam didn’t have the space for women so the words she told were all through the reality she has survived all her life to which I strongly agree.

3. Nana, in verse of teaching the life lesson to her daughter Mariam, says that ‘no matter what man’s accusing finger always finds a woman’. This teaching of her was very relevant to the time they were living in. Moreover, Mariam too had to suffer that from her husband.

4. Women were always portrayed as an instrument that would be played upon the choice of men. They didn’t have their independent decision-making power. In addition to that, they always had to live under the shadow of men.

5. The story also sheds light upon the fallacious reasonings given by men to justify their marriage. Here, marrying a girl who is 5 times younger than a man is easily acceptable and seen with no any sight of hesitation.

6. Another shed the story shows is the discrimination that prevailed in Afghan society where male children were prioritized over female children. This clearly shows the patriarchal modality of society which has always dominated women and their space.

Connection with logic 

Logic is the study of the methods and principles used to distinguish good from bad reasoning.

In this book too, we can find various spectrums of thoughts of different people in the story, which are logically valid and invalid as well. The instances that are connected with logic are chronologically mentioned.

1. Phenomenalism (Perception)

Mariam imagines Herat when Jalil, her father tells her stories. She had never been there so she just makes a perception of Herat in her mind corresponding to phenomenalism.

2. Deductive reasoning

None of the Afghan women went to school during the Taliban’s invasion.

Laila was an Afghan woman.

Therefore, she didn’t go to school during the Taliban’s invasion.

3. Inductive reasoning

Mariam, an Afghan woman suffered physical violence from her husband.

Laila, an Afghan woman suffered violence from her husband.

Therefore, all Afghan women suffer from physical violence from their husbands.

4. Appeal to money fallacy

Mariam was told to marry Rasheed on the basis that he was a shoemaker to diplomats, and members of the presidential family, and had owned two-storied houses and she would have no trouble in her life.

5.  False analogy fallacy

When Rasheed said that he would marry Laila, Mariam reminded him of how young she was i.e., 14 years old. But Rasheed made a false analogy and said that his mother was 14 when she gave birth to him and 13 when she married. Also, Mariam was 15.

6. Appeal to fear fallacy

Rasheed with his conspiracy, misinformed Laila about Tariq’s death. This aroused a fear of the life Laila would have to spend without anyone known in this world. Because of this fear and misinformation, she agreed to marry 5 times older Rasheed.

7. Hasty generalization fallacy

Rasheed as per the hasty generalization fallacy, generalized the women as an instrument to give birth to children followed by physical violence from men. 

Conclusion

‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ is a novel representing two Afghan women who have come from drastic opposite backgrounds, but at the point of life, their situation intertwines. This novel depicts the pathetic life one survives upon being a woman. Furthermore, it makes one realize the brutality one faces due to the political scenario created by the country.