#39 A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini (Bloomsbury)

I cry a lot. Particularly at films and books, but anything can set me off. It's all a bit strange: real-life situations which most people would consider to be emotionally moving, whether they should prompt tears of sadness or of joy, barely register in my consciousness, but make-believe events can reduce me to floods of tears.

I'm not ashamed of this, and - if you'll forgive the continuing confession - I'm happy to admit that there is no quality control within my tear ducts. Just off the top of my head, I cried during Marley and Me, which is a truly awful film (I've not read the book), and I sobbed uncontrollably for 90-odd minutes when recently watching Hachi (another film featuring a dog) on the plane over to the United States - everyone else on the plane must have thought I was a nutcase.

All of which is a long introduction into the issue which most puzzled me when assessing A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. It's a very good book, which tells a harrowing tale of two Afghan women who suffer untold pain and indignity, but find some sort of common ground in the face of huge oppression, both within their families and their country. It's very well written and extremely moving - but two thirds of the way through, I couldn't help myself wondering why I wasn't crying.

Ultimately, the tears did start to roll as the denoument approached and the ultimate sacrifice was made by one of the women, but for all the fascinating storytelling of the two women's lives and the insight into how Afghanistan has become the country it has over decades of foreign interference and infighting among its natives, I couldn't ignore this lack of emotional response and connection to the book on my part, especially given the litany of suffering, ranging from physical to psychological violence, throughout.

I should mention a couple of things I liked a lot. Hosseini's manner of hinting what is come ("The next time Mariam signed her name to a document, 27 years later, a mullah would again be present") is a neat device, and I also liked the shifting predominant focus between the stories of the two women.

Very good, then, but not great, although it has encouraged me to look up Hosseini's other Afghan novel, the bestseller The Kite Runner, which predates A Thousand Splendid Suns.

So, rating time:

#39 A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini (Bloomsbury) - 8/10

Next up: The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (Vintage)

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