This book is set in the war in Afghanistan, with a time span of 30 years. With the tragic fate of two Afghan women as the main line, it reveals a glimpse of the lives of Afghan people, especially women.
Under the fierce collision between the meager hope and the bloody reality, let us realize the hard-won peace, happiness and women's freedom, and understand the important significance of patience, faith, education and redemption to a person, prompting us to reflect: If we are destined to face a bleak life, where will we go?
Khalid Husseini, the author of "Brilliant Thousands of Sunnis", was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and fled to the United States because of the war. After the publication of his first novel, The Kite Runner, it was a great success, winning various newcomer awards and staying on the Amazon list 13 1 week.
Brilliant Thousand Yang is another touching work by Housainy after The Kite Runner. Tell a touching story about affection, friendship, faith and being saved by love with delicate and touching brushstrokes. There are two heroines in the book, Mary Yam and Lila. Because of their different backgrounds and family education, their fate is different.
They bear the tragic memories of different times and bear the heavy burden of war, poverty and domestic violence together. The bitterness and patience hidden in their hearts are intertwined, which makes them once incompatible, and also makes them form a friendship, even a mother-daughter relationship.
But no matter how bitter life is, they still have a bright heart. As17th century Afghan poet Cybertron wrote, "People can't count how many bright moons are on her roof, and there are 1000 brilliant suns behind her wall."
Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of wealthy businessman Zale and his maid Nana. From birth, she was placed in a simple mud house on a desolate mountain by Zall, and lived with Nana for fifteen years.
Mariam first heard the word "Harami" when she was five years old, on a Thursday. While waiting for Zhalile, she climbed into the chair and accidentally broke a piece of porcelain left by Nana's mother-a soup bowl painted with dragons to ward off evil spirits. Nana was flustered, grabbed Mariam and shouted, "You clumsy little Harami. This is what I get for putting up with everything. A clumsy little Harami broke the heirloom! "
At that time, Mary Ren was too young to understand the discrimination contained in this word. Later, when she grew up, Mariam realized that Harami is something that people don't want. She is a person who is not recognized by law and can never legally enjoy what others have: such as love, relatives, family, recognition and so on.
Out of guilt, Zalal visits Mariam every Thursday with smiles, gifts and intimacy, telling her the story of the city, telling her the newly released movies in the cinema, teaching her how to fish, how to kill salmon correctly, and how to draw an elephant one by one ... Zalal has become Mariam's only contact with the outside world, proving to her that there is a vast world outside the mud house.
Mariam trembled with pride for having a well-informed father like Zale, which made her feel that she could also have the beauty and generosity that life can give. Therefore, Mariam loves Zale.
Nana's world is always full of complaints and curses. She banned Mariam from going to school and complained that Zalal's ruthlessness always ruined the good time when Mariam and Zalal rarely got along. Mariam believes that Nana regards her as a tool, an object of lying and property. Nana distorted the truth of their lives and turned her into another reason to hate the world, fearing that she would get happiness that she had never had before. This made Mariam have a strong desire to escape from Nana and live with Zarile aboveboard.
/kloc-On the 0/5th birthday, Mariam and Zalal agreed that Zalal would take Mariam to his cinema to watch Pinocchio at noon the next day, but Zalal stood me up and didn't come.
Mariam decided to find Zalie herself. She avoided Nana, walked west, crossed the mountain stream, secretly came to Herat, got a ride with an old man and came to Zhalile's door. The driver opened the door. He told Mariam that Zalie was out of work and couldn't come back. Stubborn Mariam sat at the door and waited all night.
Until the next morning, the unyielding Mariam took advantage of the driver's unprepared and ran into Zalille's garden. Through the grape trellis, fish pond and fruit tree, she saw Zhalile hidden behind the curtain on the second floor.
The driver took Mariam into the car and drove to the mud house. Mariam kept crying, crying for the disillusionment of her dreams, crying for Zalar's hypocrisy and ruthlessness, and crying for bring disgrace to oneself who didn't listen to Nana. She finally realized that Nana was the one she should live with forever.
However, life is like this: after a broken heart, we have to endure sadness again and again.
Nana died and her body hung under the willow tree. Nana once said that if Mariam left her, she would die. Mary Yam, who had nowhere to go, had to live in Zhalile's house, but her deep sin made her miserable. Even so, Zalal's three wives could not tolerate her. A week later, they forced her to marry a shoemaker, Rasheed, who was 30 years older than Mary Yam, in Kabul, a place where they would never meet, thus opening the curtain of Mary Yam's miserable life.
At first, Rashid was very strict and considerate to Mariam, but after Mariam's first abortion, everything was gone. Nana said, "Just as a compass always points to the north, a man's blaming finger always points to a woman."
Mariam's life took a turn for the worse, and she lived in the shadow of domestic violence every day.
In the next four years, she miscarried six times, and Rashid exhausted all her patience in the alternation of hope and disappointment. He put a handful of stones into her mouth and forced her to chew until her teeth were broken and her mouth was full of blood.
She has been very patient, enduring endless abuse and flogging, and never even cried. Because this is the only skill that Nana taught her. "In this life, women should learn one thing, and that is patience."
Until another person walks into her life, just like the bright moonlight in the dark night, gently tearing the darkness of her dark life. Make her realize that she can love and be loved, and she doesn't just have to endure it. She also has the power to resist injustice and change her destiny.
Compared with Mariam, the girl Laila was much luckier in her childhood. Laila was born in a relatively democratic and happy family. Her father was a teacher in a university, and her mother was cheerful and had two brothers.
Laila was educated by her father's new ideas since she was a child. Her father told her: "marriage can wait, education can't wait." You are a very, very smart girl. You can get what you want. When this war is over, Afghanistan will need you as much as those who need it, even more than those who need it. Because if women in a society are uneducated, then there is no possibility of progress in this society. "
Even when stray bullets were flying all over the sky, my father didn't stop educating Lila, which became Lila's infinite strength in the future.
Lila has a childhood friend named Tariq. When she was young, she accidentally stepped on a mine and blew up a leg, but Laila never abandoned him. Two people are always inseparable, fighting. Anyone who wants to bully Lila, Tariq will not hesitate to stand in front of her to protect her. In Tariq, Laila saw the dazzling light of love.
However, the war broke out, rockets fell like snowflakes, guns were heard, houses were razed to ruins, and children's limbs were scattered all over the floor. Laila's two brothers were martyred, her friend Katie was blown to pieces, and her lover Tariq was forced to take refuge in Pakistan with her family.
When Lila's family packed their bags to leave, a rocket fell from the sky and blew the house to pieces. Both father and mother died, and Laila was crushed under the rubble, next to her father's body.
All the beautiful fantasies about Peshawar were wiped out in this disaster.
Rashid with ulterior motives dug Lila out and saved her life. Laila, who lost her loved ones, has only one hope: Tariq. But God played another joke on her.
A month later, a man brought a bad news-Tariq, whom Lila loved deeply, died on the way to escape. At this time, Lila was pregnant and a part of Tariq was growing in her body. In order to give birth to this child safely, Laila was forced to marry Rasheed, who was in her 60s.
In Mariam's eyes, Lila is the third party in her marriage. She was jealous of Laila's youth and beauty, her fertility and Rasheed's love for her. They live together in embarrassment, cold war and noise, and they vent their anger and sadness through each other. But kindness finally helped them bridge the gap and help them move on in the difficult years ahead.
1in the spring of 993, the girl Asha was born. Rashid's wish to have a son failed again, and Lila's treatment turned around, so Mariam gloated in her heart.
One day, when Rashid entered Mariam's room and beat her with a belt, Laila came in and hugged Rashid's arm to stop a bloody violence. Mariam and Lila thus established a friendship.
Later, Mariam told Laila that she should adapt to such a life, but Laila firmly told her that there was no violence in her family and she would not adapt to violence, not now and not in the future.
Different backgrounds and families determine their different personalities, horizons and living standards, and also make them have different fates.
Mariam changed unconsciously in the process of getting along with Lila, especially Azsha always threw herself into her arms with a smile of expectation and joy. When she expressed her love for her innocently and unreservedly, she felt the true feelings of the world and felt that she was also a person who had been needed for many years. To this end, she became brave and firm.
They planned a prison break together. They stole Rashid's money and went to the station to take the bus together. At that time, there was a rule that women could not go out without men, so they asked a man for help at the bus stop, and the man cheated them.
They were taken home by Rashid, beaten, and locked in a closed dark room with the baby, without water and food. A few days later, the heat almost killed them.
They continued to endure Rashid's torture until Laila became pregnant again. Laila originally wanted to abort the child, but the nature of maternal love finally overcame her hatred for Rashid.
Because the fetal position is not correct, Laila can only have a caesarean section. In that era when women were regarded as livestock, the government did not provide any medical equipment and resources to gynecological hospitals. Laila was awake and endured severe pain without anesthetic. Her abdomen was cut open and another stitch was made.
Women are fragile, but maternal love is powerful. Only maternal love can make a weak woman endure the pain of slitting her belly, just to let a little life see the sunshine.
Rashid finally had a son, and his decades-long wish finally came true. Rashid was overjoyed, but this joy was quickly swallowed up by a fire.
In late summer, a fire destroyed Rashid's shoe store. Hunger has become the biggest problem for their survival. In order to reduce the burden, Rashid threw Azsha into an orphanage. In order to visit her daughter, Laila has to endure three or four beatings every day, and she is black and blue all over.
Until one day, Tariq appeared at their door. They realized that the love story of Where Are You Going was just a play directed by Rashid, in order to catch Lila's trick.
Laila exposed Rashid's hidden plot for many years, and Rashid also tore up Laila's lie for many years-Asha is Tariq's child.
They wrestled together, and Rashid grabbed Lila's neck with both hands. Laila's face turned purple, her eyes turned white and she was suffocating.
Mariam rushed into the tool shed and grabbed a shovel. After twenty-seven years of marriage, he has taken away too many things from her, and she can't let him take away Lila again. She raised the shovel and hit the man on the head with all her strength. This is the first time she has decided her own life trajectory, and she has no regrets.
After sending Laila and her two children away, she accepted the death penalty calmly. This weak woman, who was born in humble origins, suffered from inhumanity and was tortured, was extremely brave and strong in the last course of her life. She feels that she has finally become an important person in the eyes of others, even a hero. She thought it would be nice to die like this.
If you can get love, you are lucky. It is great to dare to give love. Mariam became a great man who was loved and loved in her own way.
At the end of the story, Laila left stable Pakistan and resolutely returned to devastated Kabul. She listened to Mariam's call, joined Tariq's post-war reconstruction and became a teacher in an orphanage.
She knew that Mariam had not left. She is on the repainted wall, in the saplings they planted, in the children's blankets, pillows, books and pencils. Most importantly, she is in her heart, where she shines like a thousand suns.
"Brilliant Thousands of Sunnis" is set in the war in Afghanistan, with a time span of 30 years. Through the perspectives of Mary Yam and Laila, it interprets the struggling female life in Afghanistan under the old system, weaving hope into despair and carving true feelings into cruelty and shock.
But this is not a simple war novel, nor a simple story of love and redemption. By comparing Mariam's and Laila's family background and life fate, the story makes us reflect on the great significance of education and change.
As the author expresses in the book through Lila's father's mouth: If women in a society are not educated, then there is no possibility of progress in this society.
Education makes us stand on the shoulders of giants to change society and promote civilization. Our country was also devastated by war, and our happy life today is also the result of our predecessors' constant changes and efforts to promote social progress and economic development.
Although we are happy in peaceful China, we can't stop there, just like Laila didn't stay in Pakistan in the end. We can strive to chase the kite of our dreams on the road of life, accumulate footsteps for social progress, and realize the transformation from "small self" to "big self" in our struggle, just like Laila returned to devastated Kabul without hesitation.
"Disturbing the status quo and trying to change" is the most important thing that Brilliant Qianxun taught us!