A thousand Splended Suns:

Any comments on the ending of the novel ?

I'm pleased she and Tariq found each other again and got together.

And it goes against my better principles to say this, but when they killed off that old fart?

I ENJOYED IT IMMENSELY!

Unfortunately, not all Afghanistans have happy endings to their lives though.

I see what you mean Carla about the reader not shedding tears on Rasheed's demise.

This is of course one of those conflict solutions that happen mostly in books; without the author's providential intervention reality would have been bleak for the women, just lifelong misery.

I found it interesting to note that the author is always concerned about his characters and their humanity-- as they took the decision to kill they thought about peotecting the son whose father had locked in a room.

Although Rasheed is a creep of the highest order as far as his treatment and attitude toward women is concerned, I don't think he meant harm in locking the boy in the room.

He, in his warped way of thinking, thought he was protecting the child from what he viewed as 'evil women'.

I think Rasheed was cruel to the extreme; he was just plain sick in the head with the fundamentalistic side of Islam.

The author does a good job at making us realize that not all Muslim men are cruel to women.

(Sorry I didn't get a chance to come back for a couple of days.)

Yes, Carly, Rasheed loved his son (not his daughter though) and only locked him up because he didn't want him to witness the argument/ beating up scene that was about to follow.


Yesterday I saw a very disturbing documentary on TV: it was about the equivalent of a psychiatric hospital in Pakistan.

First, the inmates/ patients were only women and their children (males having either no psychiatric problems or being treated in different types of places).
The women were in cells, behind bars. One had been brought there many months before for ...whatever her husband had decided this place was for. He had said he would be back soon; he never returned, but sent her divorce papers after a month.

That's awful, isn't it . . . but at least it's better than your inlaws killing you off.

I've heard about that - the groom's parents take so much money from the bride's parents when they get married.

Then they want to get rid of the bride - so the mother in law gives her son's wife something to do at the stove, and it blows up!

Geesh!

I read about this many times about India, so this time it's not Muslim culture.
It happens so often that all the main newspapers have a page listing "dowry deaths".

Why be satisfied with the dowry your first wife brings if her death can bring about dowry number two?

In most cases it's engineered by mothers-in-law, but that's not all: in those rare cases when the police actually investigate and the in-laws are found guilty, only the mother-in law goes to jail most of the time. The husband, if bothered at all, just pays a fine, although there are specific laws condemning those customs in India.

I saw a TV programme where they showed some of the mothers-in-law in jail, explaining indignantly that they had no idea why they were there and how they'd always been good mothers, etc...

As is so often the case, customs, ignorance, poverty, and human nature are a lethal mix.

Although I wonder if that's the case - do the men make the women commit the crime, or take the blame for it?

I dunno' . . .

I wonder how the bride's husband actually feels about it.

I wonder why I particularly mistrust the 'men' in these cultures? Surely all the women aren't lilly-white innocents.

WildCityWoman wrote:



From what I read it's not clear who thinks about it first, but the mothers-in-law seem to take part most willingly. Out of greed, and I imagine this time in their lives is the only time when they exercise power over another human being.

If you google " dowry deaths times of India" you'll get lots of results.
Here is one:

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2670297.cms

Ah, thanks Ophelia . . . I won't do it right now though.

I've been stuck at home with an ankle/foot that I sprained last weekend - today I've got two appointments;

1) dietician;
2) x-rays . . . chest, bone density, etal.

Then I hope to be taken to lunch at Ali Baba's - where I might get to have Shrawrma chicken again!

So I don't wanna' depress myself this early in the morn.

Ha ha!

It is a warped field in India of opposing viewpoints. In the cities you have engineers, scientists, modern thinkers who want so much for India to fully enter the modern age, but if you drive a few miles into the villages, you find ancient traditions and customs living on, undisturbed. As India, the second fastest growing country in the world, begins to take up it's role as an influential country, we will have to see how they deal with this sort of thing. Already they have passed laws hoping to curb casteism, which is the largest concern, in my opinion. Having visited there myself, I feel that the treatment and respect of women is actually culturally and historically positive, even in the rural areas of Kerala that I saw. Far closer to the modern West compared to the Taliban regime.

Hello Theowne, welcome to Booktalk.


Would you like to tell us a little about yourself, and about your tastes in books, by using the "Introduce Yourself threads" ?

I really enjoyed this and the Kite Runner. I know they're different, but as I read them together, I tend to think of them as whole. Here's a brief article I wrote on them:

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/334163_t ... many-years

This is an excellent review, it is very well written. Do you review books often? Do you review for any other sites?