"Lift not the painted veil which those who live call Life"

I was about not to write any more reviews before going off to my place of summer holidays... But when I finished yesterday "The Painted Veil" (W. Somerset Maugham) I just could not resist a temptation to share with you my admiration and complete enchantment to the book...

This 1925 year novel is a masterpiece of prose, of author ability to paint scenes with words...
but there is something deeper - the plot that gave rise to the 3 movies (1934, 1957, 2006) was quite shocking to me today on a deep personal level...

And please don't ask me with what side of the triangle I  sympathize the most ...
The only thing is that Maugham has an unusual ability to tell the most important truths of life without an jota of preaching or moralizing....

Perhaps , a longer review will come...

The portrait of self destruction - Goodbye Columbus

I have just read Philip Roth's first novella „Goodbye, Columbus”. I did that because I liked the two other novells The Dying Animal and Nemesis and I was happy to read them.

I was surprised how deep and thought provoking the author first novel was, and, indeed, it confirms the greatness of the author.

The plot of the novella is simple. The narrator Neil Klugman, a poor 23 years old librarian of Newark Public Library falls in deep and true love with Brenda Patimkin, a daughter of wealthy family and student of very a good school. However, as the narrations unveils, we see that their relation has some intrinsic unuttered problems, probably related to the difference in social status of the partners. They finally break after the discovery made by Brenda's parents of their sexual relations.

But, contrary to many, I do not find this book to explore the "classism" or assimilation problems (both Neil and Brenda were Jewish).

To me it is a record of self destruction — or the destruction of true love, of true great values in life by the narrator. The amazing value of the book lies in the ability of author to stay behind the hero, to create such a narration where, on a surface, while we read, we support his acts and his decisions. And only after a short musing we can notice this deception. We clearly see that there is no excuse for the hero, that he, almost deliberately, kills the love of his life — having not a single spark of remorse, and even trying to excuse himself.

Was it unconscious ? Was is really deliberate ?

As with all destructive steps of our lives — the main reasons are inside us ....

Sebastian Horsley dies ...

I'm depressed and devastated.

It's no more than a month since I was in a concert in London's HMV with Current93 and his guests.

The concert announcer was famous English celebrity and artist, Sebastian Horsley.

See his intro:




He died two days ago...

What more could I say...

---

Few day passed and our sorrow is no less.
What we know now is that he hasn't take drugs for long time recently, but the funeral of his long friend Michal Wojas turned him into it: „The 47-year-old reportedly hadn't used heroin for several months but the death of his close friend Michael Wojas triggered a fatal drugs binge.”

Let me add Sebastian Horsley's own quote:

„I have been punished by a God I don't believe in and he has thrown me off the cross for impersonating his son, for being an atheist, and for being a disaster. I have made a complete fool of myself.”

[9news: Horsley generated a storm of controversy after he had himself nailed to a cross in 2002. His hands were torn during the process after the foot support he had been standing on collapsed.]

What connects Conrad to Naipaul ?

A dedicated reader cannot get any better prize when his own discoveries are confirmed by giants of literatures.

From the beginning on my reading of "A Bend of the River" I was sure there must be a connection between Joseph Conrad and VS Naipaul. In fact, after reading "Heart of Darkness" I switched to "A Bend ..." which was long on my "next reading" list.

These two books are linked on many levels. Both play their action on or close to Kongo river, yet both don't name it. Both don't name the country identity nor its figures. Both deal with human nature more then with anything else....

So, imagine my joy when I read the following words from Nobel prize committee, when, in 2001, VS Naipaul was selected to win:

Naipaul is Conrad's heir as the annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings. His authority as a narrator is grounded in the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished.

"A Bend in the river" is the story of Salim, a Muslim of Indian origin, who lived in unnamed city on Africa East. At some moment in time he bought a store in the midland of the continent on "a bend in the river". His story is from now on related to the political turmoil of the country (possibly Congo) caused by its dictator - the Big Man - most likely Mobutu Sésé Seko. What is the most important in the book, is the impact the dictatorship had on the people - how it changed their minds. How it attracted people, and how it betrayed the in the end.

The book shows, how troubled Africa is. How difficult it is for Africa to emerge the democracy, to disavow violence and corruption - how deep these problems are - and how they cast shadow on human souls.

The book has also a beautiful love story plot....

VS Naipaul forms a conclusion and writes his conclusion ... at the very beginning of the book:

"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it."

I was first shocked by the sentence, and by some interpretation of the book - as totally pessimistic. It seemed to me that there was a lot of hope in the book.

I thought like this, until I read about "Second Kongo War" ... it claimed almost 6 million victims...

What is Africa today? Can you tell me ?

Darkness of the Soul in the Heart of Darkness

I must admit that the second reading of "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad was extraordinary experience. As it was with "Lord Jim" it is hard to write a review about the book that deserved and rightly received tens of thousands of reviews.

So let me point only these matters, that were so important to me.

"Heart of Darkness" to me is about the nature, the human condition and the dark side of our souls. It is also one of best written short novels I ever read, using intense, suspended language - with many symbolic connotations and special constructions related to its form of "frame narrative". For all language lovers - those who like the pure construction of phrases - this book is like good poetry.

Nature - Conrad shows how important nature is for us, the nature that is almost forgotten today - it was already almost forgotten in the beginning of XX century:

The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set. The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. It was not sleep--it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance. Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard. You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf--then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well.

The pervasive nature is contrasted with human affairs and our constant jabbering:

The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove! was in my nostrils, the high stillness of primeval forest was before my eyes; there were shiny patches on the back creek. The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver--over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a somber gap glittering, gittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself.

or in this fragment:

The pilgrims could be seen in knots gesticulating, discussing. Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily believe they took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart,--its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life.

The tragic human nature is projected onto the nature, but Conrad does not make it dull and naive. He does not meditate on humans thrown on the nature. Rather he is able to show the authentic tragedies, deceptions and deep unshaken love:

'Yes, I know,' I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her--from which I could not even defend myself.

Finally, the book shows how easy is to lost our own inborn sagacity, how easy is to deprave oneself. What we usually need - is just a bit too much power, too much wealth and too much domination over others...

I tried to break the spell--the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness--that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.

I know that there are many more interpretations of this incredible book, some even accusing Conrad of racism. Nothing is more far from the truth and from the author intentions. His portrait of the relations between whites and blacks in the book are in fact, accusations of imperial era. As it is in the most famous movie adaptation of the book: "The Apocalypse Now" ....

The Heart of Darkness - harbinger of my third reading review ...

". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the
life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence,--that which
makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is
impossible. We live, as we dream--alone. . . ."

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

I'm deeply moved by this book. I did not think, my third reading of it in my life, would bring such shocking experiences and thoughts...

Full review to come soon...

TENDERNESS

Tenderness - is like a cry full of war;
And like the current of whispering springs,
And like a funeral march...

*

And like a long plait of golden hair
On which a widower wears
A silver watch - - -

(A riddle: who wrote these strophes ?)

Swan Thieves - When a word is the paintbrush and a book is the easel ...

Elizabeth Kostova's second famous book (after Historian) is about obsession and time...
Well, it is also about art and love and about many more matters.
However in my review I want to focus on the two former themes of the book.
It is very recent book (release date was January 12, 2010) .

The plot describes a famous fictional artist Robert Olivier. After an violent attempt to slash a painting in National Gallery of Art he has been hospitalized. His psychiatrist, himself a painter becomes deeply involved in Olivier case. As the patient refuses to speak, his therapist goes deep into his life, visits and talks to his former wife and gets into relation with his former girlfriend. Soon he discovers that his patient is obsessed by beautiful women, Beatrice, late XIX century impressionist painter. When the psychiatrist discovers the truth about her and about her troubled life, and in some sense explains the roots of his `patient's obsession - that finally brings relieve to Robert Olivier and he seems to be healed.

The true theme of the book is the power of obsession that, in some circumstances, can completely overwhelm human's life. Obsession, that transcends the time and space.
Robert Olivier falls in love with the person who is no longer alive. His expression of the love is the painting. He paints the women who lived in XIX century France, and for some reason did not became famous, even thought she full deserved it. I would like to find the better word than obsession, as it has some pejorative connotations. Maybe just Passion?

When we look deeper into ourselves we quite often find such passions, although maybe of different magnitude or kind. In this context, she was worth the love lasting more than century...

Olivier, in his sketches and paintings, brings her back to life. Her beauty is almost surreal or maybe even hyper-real. When he discovers more and more about her past, he reveals the secrets that still exist, secrets frozen in her letters, in her uncovered paintings. The past time is no longer past, the events, the emotions and deeds find realistic existence in Olivier's passion... It seems to me that Kostova believes, as I do, in the specific concept of time, I once described after reading Vonnegut's "Slaughter House 5".

There is small disappointment at the very end of the novel. It is in authors description of unnaturaly fast Robert's healing and recovery. It is unconvincing and quite flat and I must say that to some extent, the climax of this otherwise beautiful and enchanting book, is lost...

Swan Thieves review harbinger

I picked up "Swan Thieves" mainly because I wanted a good relaxing story. It was a good and relaxing story. But it was far more...

During the regular day of week I can't have enough time to write a full review - it will wait till the weekend.

But - I could not resist telling you that this is another great novel worth reading !!!
Kostova is another fantastic story teller...

Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse

Even though I read this book when I was young, the return to it in my fifties, and the reading of the final chapters in Paris was a kind of circular literature experience I did not predict to touch me so deeply in the end of 2009...

"Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse" or "The Saragossa Manuscript" is an epic novel originally written in French in the beginning of XIX century. Its author, Jan Potocki was Polish nobleman, off-spring of famous lordly Potocki family, which was so important in the history of Poland. The family was far from being a dull aristocratic dynasty - see a note about Walentyn Potocki as an example.

Jan Potocki was highly educated person, known as ethnologist, Egyptologist and a linguist. He wrote in French. It is interesting to find that the final complete edition of the French original was published only in ... 2006.

"The Saragossa Manuscript" is a frame-tale story. In modern literature it was one of the first, preceding Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights by more than 30 years. Critics compared "The Manuscript" to The Decameron and to The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, but Potocki story telling is much more elaborated and convoluted, with stories told in parallel, stories within stories, sometimes going to the fourth level of nesting, or stories affecting the other stories on different planes of narration ... This very construction make the reading not only pleasant but also intellectually challenging experience.

In the factual setting, the story is located in the Napoleonic war times, when a French officer, after the fall of Saragossa, discovers an XVIII century manuscript describing the life of young officer of Wallon Guard - Alphonse van Worden. The plot described in this manuscript form the most of the book.

Being the officer of the Wallon Guard, the famous catholic formation from southern Belgium, he happened to be the only surviving male of fictional Muslim Gomelez family. The family members, hiding in caves of Sierra Morena mountains, predicting the glooming future of their Shi'a dynasty, organized intricate probation for Alphonse, driving him through ecstatic erotic experiences, inquisition tortures and metaphysical and philosophical conundrums, rooted in Jewish Kabbalah, Dervish and Gypsy stories, enlightened science and history of the region. The challenge was to test Alphonse honor, loyalty to his faith, ability to keep secrets and integrity. This part of the story is written with such level of realism, that even modern reader is completely surprised when, at the end of the narration, the true is finally revealed to Alphonse. It is also written with true love for diversity and cultures. Christian, Jewish, Gypsy and Muslim heroes of the stories are pictured with equal admiration and respect…

In almost 700 pages of the book, you will also find a lot of philosophical deliberations. Some of them ponder on the nature of the mind and the difference between human and animal intellect. Some of Potocki's thoughts are surprisingly modern...

I must admit, when it comes to storytelling and imagination, Potocki XIX century novel surpasses by an order of magnitude that of Don Brown's XXI century narration. He could be a teacher for all who write about secret societies and mysterious events alike. You never get impression of a naiveté of the author knowledge.

I have been reading this book in audio, in the translation from French to the mother tongue of the author. When finished I watched the entire 1965 black & white film by Wojciech Has. This was culmination of my adventure with Potocki and his book.

FYI, I was once honored to talk to late Wojciech Has, when I gave lectures in the Lodz Film Academy. I also know very well the locations the film was set - as it was an area for my climbing training in my youth. I can only pity that there are no English subtitles on YouTube complete set of episodes from the movie... :

Of Love and Death – The Dying Animal

Philip Roth is an American writer. Born in 1933, he is the author of many famous books. To name a few: “Goodbye, Columbus”, “American Pastoral”, “The Human Stain” and “The Plot Against America”.

“The Dying Animal” explores those corners of human mind where the lust and sexual desires live.
The main character of the book is the aging man named Kepesh, an intellectual celebrity, amateur pianist and university scholar.
Divorced when was still quite young he kept his solitude as a virtue, a freedom and ... the ground for endless sexual adventures with his young female students. His life was well arranged, promiscuous and easy-going until, at age 62, he meets Consuela, a beautiful offspring of Cuban emigrants. Initially his desire for her is almost only bodily, almost fleshly and full of fetish obsession about her breast. But as Consuela demonstrates her freedom – he almost falls in love with her. This love reveals itself in a strange way – in his morbid jealousy for her, for her friends, boyfriends and even brothers. I say “almost” because during the affair with Consuela he maintains the sexual relations with his previous lover. Reading the book it is very hard to judge if Kepesh was only an animal with sexual desire to Consuela, or if he truly loved her, but was intimidated by his senescence, generation gap etc...

There is also an interesting part about father-son relations. Kepesh – the bad father, who forsook his son when he broke his marriage, has, nevertheless, an important role in boy’s life.

The book ends in completely unanticipated and tragic way – shocking the readers at first. However, in the tragedy and uncertainty of the book climax lies its most important virtue – the reflection on, sometimes insecure and full of abeyance, yet true love and caring, the love that has a power to fight the death. That is my rendering of Kepesh final indecisiveness – contrary to many reviews I have read...

... their steps lost forever in the shadow of the wind ...

This was my second reading of Carlos Ruiz Zafon "The Shadow of the Wind". The first time I read it more than a year ago and it was in fact in audio.

I guess I returned to the novel for two reasons. The first was the craving for regular paper & black letters experience with this very book. The second was to understand better the link between two last Zafon's novels, this one and "The Angel's Game".

And I must confess - "The Shadow of the Wind" literally overshadows "The Angels Game". It is more epic if I could say so; it is magical, yet realistic, it tells us about the power of love, but does not succumb to supernatural climax. It does not leave you with a feeling of incompleteness...

I must also confess, that there is some greater value in reading the book with your eyes rather than with your ears. Beyond the narration and the words - there IS something magical in physicality of the book. For many books it is good to start with audio, but when you arrive to the traditional form, you suddenly understand the magic of impatient page turning ...

To those who could take this short review as a discouragement for "The Angels Game". It is not my intention and it is not like it sounds. Both books are just great, the fantastic narration and incredible story telling is the virtue in both of them.

The Soloist - A true story of the true power of music

Nathaniel Ayers was at the footsteps of his potential great musical carrier, when, while at Juilliard School of music he was struck by the sudden outburst of schizophrenia. Then for thirty years he was leaving on Los Angeles streets as a homeless bum, playing for money on his violin with two strings broken....

He was discovered by journalist and columnist, Steve Lopez, and they both went through the painful process of getting Ayers out of the darkness of his illness. Though never totally recovered, Ayers, with the help of selfless attitude of Lopez finally found his home, his studio and started to live more or less normal life.

The book "The Soloist" is very well written, fascinating account on these events. It is captivating, once started it is quite hard to stop reading it - what I witnessed, reading it all over my trip to Paris, in metro, on the plane - just everywhere....

"'Do you know what Sibelius is saying here?' Mr. Ayers asks. 'He's saying. I love this music' Do you hear it? 'I love this music. I love this music'"

You can watch the real Lopez and real Ayers here:



Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation is here: http://www.naayers.org/

And the movie website is here: http://www.soloistmovie.com/

Last but not least - there is no better real life illustration of the ideas of Musicophilipa than in "The Soloist". Both books gave me incredible experience during this visit to Paris, one was read in paper, the other listened to in audio...

Paris, St. Placide, June, 25, 4 AM.

I Am Not The Messenger - I Am The Message

Another great book by Marcus Zusak. Another amazing experience of prose close to poetry. However, unlike in The Book Thief, the poetry of the prose does not stand out as explicitly. We hear the sound of Australian suburbs and their lingo instead.

The story is about Ed Kennedy, a 19-year-old cab driver who lives alone with a strange old dog Dorman - a true canine coffee addict! Ed has not much ambition to do anything else with his life, besides driving taxi and playing cards with his three friends. His mother despises him, and after his father died a year before – he does not have any goal in life.

Until something happens - something totally out of the blue - and he gets a series of messages to deliver, acts to perform, deeds to do. I will not tell too much - I do not want to spoil it for you.

Till the very end of the story Ed doesn't understand the meaning or the purpose of the messages he was chosen to deliver. But the whole process marks a first serious awakening in his life. As the story evolves, he abandons simplicity and shallow commonness and his life gets a meaning – he does things that truly make difference.

This is a book about love, hate, solitude and friendship and about difficult family relations, about the hardship of life in today's poor suburbs of contemporary cities, and finally - about the hope to get rid of the “epidemy of ordinariness” and vanity of our daily life.

And it is told without any bombastic preaching of “greatness”...

“Maybe everyone can, maybe everyone can live beyond what they are capable of”

Messanger - another great opus of a genius....

After "The Book Thief" I started to listen to "I Am The Messanger"....

Another amazing piece of novel. Another poetry, this time Australian-English language
that happened to speak to me very well...

I'm still in the mid of the book - but I can tell you - READ IT !!!!

"There were wooden teardrops and an oaky smile"

Without an exageration I can say that it was one of the best books I ever read...

I finished the reading (i.e. listening) in cold Paris, March 2009 walking on the dark streets of this city. And the first thing I did after I finished was to go back to the beginning and to start it again....

"First the colors. Then the humans" - this is how it starts, the story told from the perspective of ... death personified. The narration brings some far but strong recollections of that used by Norman Mailer in his "The Castle in the Forest", but don't take it as criticism - in fact it is a praise....

What makes Zusak's book such increadible experience? First and foremost - his vacabulary, his parlance, his prose poetry. Bacause of these, you loose the sense of reading the novel, and you feel like you are reading the poetry...

"I can promise you that the world is a factory. The sun stirs it, the humans rule it. And I remain. I carry them away. "

"The girl loved that-- the shivering snow"

One of my friends told me, when recommended the book couple of weeks ago: "I did not know how one could live through the words as it is in the book" ...

But there is also something else. The book has deep meaning and strong message. It is about the most dark period of human history - Nazi Germany. It's about Jewish persecution and Holocaust. But it is also about forgivness, about love, about the simple fact that not all Germans were Nazi and not all Nazis were killers. It's about life in hard times, and about difficult greatness.

"There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all" - Mahler's 3rd Symphony

Readers of my blog know my fascination with Mahler's music. It started long time ago, with Zubin Mehta and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Mahler's VII symphony during the first "Festival of Four Cultures" in Lodz, Poland. This time I return to Bernstein's recording of Mahler's Third with Wiener Philharmoniker. Mahler's 3rd is the longest of all his symphonies, and one of the most beautiful. Mahler tried to provide some interpretation for this symphony, and it has a form of "messages" that we might receive: from Mythological God Pan, From Summer, from flowers on the meadow, from animals, Man, Angels and Love....

However, the sung parts of the Symphony, IV and V have amazing texts (corresponding to the messages from Man and Angels). Message from Man uses famous part of Nietzsche, "Thus spoke Zaratustra" called Zarathustra'a Roundeley, while The Message from Angels uses anonymous folk song, part of "The Youth's Magic Horn". Seemingly primitive text about St. Peter's sin and his redemption is surprising after deep and dark Nietzsche strophe. But when you dig deeper you find that all this is about the yearning for etehrnity, about fundamental discord with death, with vanishing life ...

Musically, the best are first and last part (at least to me). You will find a lot of amazing and surprising moments there. But you must immerse yourself into the music to enjoy it.
For me the most amazing was the imitation of bell sounds, first by a boy choir in V part, singing literally Bim-Bam, Bim-Bom and later, the same imitation played by big drums (timpani) in the VI part - finale.

I also found fantastic article about Bernstein Mahler's fascinations.
The article cites Bernstein saying: "There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all. (...) Every pianissimo is as intense as every forte. . . . Everything has to be done at full intensity."

You can here this words in the bonus to 3rd Symphony in this recording (Leonard Bernstein: The Mahler Symphonies (DVD))

For you, a thousand times over

"The Kite Runner" is Khaled Hosseini first novel. Despite its enormous success it is decent and unassertive story of the simple, yet most fundamental human virtues of honour, friendship, faithfulness but also of shame, guilt and remorse.

It is a novel that teaches those simple and basic things that all religions teach; in some sense, teaches also about the importance of G-d in human life - but it is doing so in unobtrusive, I would say, humble way...

It is a story of two boys from Afghanistan. They lived in times of old, free Afghanistan, before Soviet invasion and Taliban regime. Amir, the narrator in the book experiences a kind of lesser acceptance from his father, until he becomes a local hero for his achievement in kite fighting. Hassan, his friend, and the son of Amir's father servant helped Amir in everything, including the kite ride, when Amir won. And for being that helpful, Hassan suffers the attack and abuse from local villain Assef - the attack witnessed by Amir, who, scared by the situation does not help Hassan.... This even leads to the break in their relation, with Amir, full of remorse, but unable to overcome his guilt. When, after many years, he becomes a successful US citizen, he realizes that his sin of his youth, the sin of not helping his best friend, puts a shadow on his life, so he returns to Afghanistan. Not able to receive forgiveness from Hassan, he finds his son Sohrab and saves him from oppression of Talibans, takes him to US and, in a single light smile after years of silence - gets some absolution the sin of his youth...

I write about this story in the shortest possible way, not to spoil it to future readers. The real plot is fascinating with many unexpected turns... However, at every moment of the novel plot, we find incredible human paradoxes intertwined with moments of life. The book is about simple things, simple sins that our life is full of. It shows, what happens to them, when they happen in history - particularly in troubled history of nations.

And it also shows, that until we do not understand that the problems are in us - not in THE OTHER - no reconciliation is possible...

As one poet expressed it: "Learn to love others - they pass away so fast" ...

It also teaches us not to wait with our attempts to receive forgiveness. Sometimes, the person whom you want to forgive you, passes away and you need to ask G-d and his descendents for it...

How hard it may work, hard in the deep, psychological way, was never better described than in "The Kite Runner"...

The greatness of this book, is from the fundamenta message, that the simple facts of our life bear the most significant truths of our life.

Read the passages:

"There is a way to be good again"

"There is no act more wretched than stealing"

"For you, a thousand times over"

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night"

Last but not least - the book is also beautifully written. Fantastic imagery of Afghanistan, Pakistan and California are long in my eyes after reading it. Certainly - one of the greatest books of my all life....

See also the interview with author, by Charles Rose.

The another incredible story - this time about men, honour and pride

I knew what I was doing when, just after "A Thousand Splendid Suns" I turned to "The Kite Runner"...

Still reading it, so no review yet. However, I must tell now, that it was quite disturbing to read a number of reviews, trying to say of "A Thousand ..." was better, or "The Kite ..." was better and so on....

People carring such judgments just do not understand what the books are all about, and, I dare to say, do not appreciate Hosseini real genius ....

The incredible story of women hardship

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini is a book that easily can be your favorite book of life. It certainly is for me.

The first thought to reveal about the book is that it makes the fantasy and fiction - the unified reality of such enormous realness, that it is hard to believe, during the rearding of the book, that you read another fiction novel.

The book describes the lives of two women in Afganistan in the critical part of its history, between early 1960-ties to early 2003. The destiny and history of the two women is intertwined with the troubled history of the beautiful country. The history that is mosty tragic and miserable, particularly during Taliban reign. However, even if history plays an important role - the book is about human condition - about the difficult and impossible love and friendship, about the greatness of human spirit over the world full of hatred and evil.

In many ways, the most important message we read in this book is that formulated by Victor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." I haven’t seen more powerful scene that illustrates this truth than the scene of the death by public execution of one of the book heroes at the hand of vindictive Talibans...

The book reiterates the fundamental truth - the basic human feelings and behaviors, those of the glorious and of the deplorable significance - are independent of the culture, religion, political system etc. We see there both admiration of traditional humble Islamic values and reproof of their perversion in the culture of Taliban, Mujahideen and similar (like Hamas or Hezbollah) culture of killing and murder. After reading it, you will have more moderate view on the Western-Islam conflict...

Last but not least - the book is also about love. I would say - it is all about love...

The book is also full of incredible nature descriptions - where you have the feeling of being there ....

Final word - it is the book everyone should read.