Loss

It’s hard to let go of something, especially when the thing that you lost didn’t have to get lost. A Thousand Splendid Suns (contrary to the name) is a book of misfortune, which leads to loss. Although the character experience gain at some points in the novel, they seem to lose something even more valuable the next time misfortune knocks at their door.

When the story of the novel shifts from a misfortunate Mariam, who had recently lost her mother and been married of into a forced marriage by her father, the book seems to take a turn for the better. Laila is a little girl who is neighbours with Rasheed, Mariam’s husband. Unlike Mariam, she was in school, had both parents to raise her and was a pretty little girl, as described by her parents. Laila was meant to be the embodiment of what Mariam could not be. When the book seemed to be at its lightest moment, Hosseini manages to remind readers of his true message. He first eases us in with a light loss.

“One day that same month of June, Giti was walking home from school with two classmates. Only three blocks from Giti’s house, a stray rocket struck the girls. Later that terrible day, Laila learned that Nila, Giti’s mother, had run up and down the street where Giti was killed, collecting pieces of her daughter’s flesh in an apron, screeching hysterically. Giti’s decomposing right foot, still in its nylon sock and purple sneaker, would be found on a rooftop two weeks later.” (Hosseini, 178)

After this loss, Laila and her family decide to move to Peshawar to seek refuge.

                “Laila dropped the books at her feet. She looked up at the sky. Shielded her eyes with one hand. Then a giant roar. Behind her, a flash of white. The ground lurched beneath her feet. Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. It knocked her out of her sandals. Lifting her up. And now she was flying, twisting and rotating in the air.” (Hosseini, 194)

                After the rocket hit Laila’s home, Rasheed was the one that saved her. He insisted that in return for her salvation, she should marry him. Hosseini managed to take a girl that was born in a good environment and distort it so that she would have to lose everything. He is one of few authors that can depict loss and misfortunate so beautifully.