Post B # 7

I will be honest, here. I had not read a quality novel for a while. I had read a few good books last summer, but they all didn't have much substance. As for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I just couldn't get into it. Hosseni's writing style in A Thousand Splendid Suns is powerful, and draws the reader into the plot as though he or she is one of the characters, experiencing the hardships that plague Mariam and Laila throughout the story. The event that happened to Mariam on page 94 still sticks out to me. Rashid forces her to eat rocks, because supposedly he had eaten some dry rice. "He shoved two fingers into her mouth and pried it open, then forced the cold, hard pebbles into it. [...] Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars (94)." I read that page about five times. I don't even know why now, it was such a gruesome part, and each time I read it, I had an alarmingly clear picture of what was happening. Overlooking the horror of this passage, it is a great quote from the novel. It gave me a crystal clear mental image of what was happening, and I reread the passage more than once. Page 94 was not the only place that had the effect either. There was a time when Tariq's neighborhood was being attacked by men wielding rocket launchers and grenades. I could vividly imagine Rashid strangling Laila, then finding Mariam beating him down with a shovel. When it all boils down, I'm convinced that there is one main reason why this novel was successful. It was realistic. Think about it. When was the last time you read a fiction book that accurately portrayed the events it was written about? It was a realistic view about the horrors of the Taliban when they occupied Afghanistan. Khaled Hosseni taught me many things I did not know, and through his writing of A Thousand Splendid Suns, he opened my eyes.