Engrossing Story of Despair
My Amazon Review
First off, this is one tight book. The translator, Polly McLean, pulled a Hemingway with this one. Every sentence is accounted for and ever word conveyed a specific mood, feeling and image. Kudos to a flawless prose!
Now to the story itself.
This short story (136 pages) is about a woman caring for her immobile, stricken husband as she recounts her dark thoughts and secrets to him. The entire story takes place in the room where the husband lies bed-bound, which makes it a great candidate for a play production.
When the man's wife, who remains nameless throughout the story, visits him to change his soiled cloths and replenish his IV drip, she reveals a little bit about herself and her untold story to him, and to us the readers. The story builds quickly and crescendos with a shocking revelation and a chilling development that will leave you stunned and heartbroken.
The story is extremely allegorical, which is precisely why the woman was never given a name, which in turn would have given her an identity. She represents Afghanistan with all its anger, innocence, naïveté, perversion, sorrow and pain. At the heart of the story, though, was despair. The woman's palpable wretchedness mirrored the state of her country. The war that was raging outside her house was identical to the one tearing her apart from the inside.
And there is no end in sight.
The sick man aslo represents Afghanistan. He represents its hollowed, paralyzed and rigid consciousness that is unable to evolve or to respond to outside stimulants.
The "patience stone" in ancient Persian folklore is a magical black stone that absorbs the plight of all those that confide in it and explodes when nothing else remains to be said. The woman makes the man her very own patience stone. She confides all her dark secrets in him, hoping he'd explode when she's done laying it all out before him.
The story makes for a great read. It has tender moments, but it's mostly very intense and heavy. It makes sense that Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns) introduces it. The woman in this story could be one of the close relatives of either Mariam or Laila, the protagonists in A Thousand Splendid Suns. If you loved that book, you will love this one too.
If you're looking for a slice of life, albeit depressing, in Afghanistan, this makes a great, quick read. Highly recommended.
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