The Swallows of Kabul
CDN$ 6.00
Brutal but worth the effort - This story depicts life within the Taliban controlled Kabul with all the brutality a person would imagine existed during those times. Two men form the centre of the story, one a jailer, the other, a university grad and former owner of a successful business. Both men have one wife and no children. The jailer s wife is dying from an unknown infection. The educated man s wife was a magistrate and beautiful beyond imagination diseased with an anger against her life s changed circumstances that she cannot accept no can she accept her husband s reticence to stand up to a regime that stripid him of wealth and her of basic human rights. Mr. Khadra s images depict a Kabul even more stark than that of Khaled Husseini in the Kite Runner. Mr. Khadra s real gift to the reader is his insight into the thought processes of characters very different from those of the west. For example, when the jailer confides to a child-hood friend that the reason for his melancholy is the illness suffered by his wife, the friend becomes very impatient with the jailer. Why does he not simply divorce her and marry a virgin. This a brutal read however worth the trouble for those seeking insight over entertainment.
Religion and social issues come to life - Set in Kabul with the Taliban in charge, Yasmina Khadra presents the lives of two couples: one a family of wealthy shopkeepers destroyed by the Taliban, and the other a prison keeper who believes in the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith. Islamic passion, religion and social issues come to life in The Swallows Of Kabul: there are very few novels which explore this region of the world and the poetic, literary style of Khadra s will find a home with many American readers.
Mesmerizing - I couldn t put this book down. It was written with a style that included a beautiful rhythem and sophistication. It s description gave a real sense of the varying perspecitives and the stuggle for so many in Afghanistan. It s story line keeps your interest until the very last page and left me wanting more. I highly recommend it.
A Rather Trite Story Marred Even More By Its Prose - I had mixed feelings about THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL. The story is interesting, though a bit trite, and I found the prose more than a bit overblown, so much so that it detracted from the story, something prose should never do.THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL is set in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban and concerns two couples, the Shaukats and the Ramats. Atiq and Musaarat Shaukat have had little joy in their lives or in their marriage. Atiq, a former soldier, now works as a jailkeeper. When he was injured in combat, it was Musarrat who nursed him back to health. Now, however, Musarrat is ill with cancer.Mohsen and Zunaira Ramat are quite different. They re far wealthier and better educated than are the Shaukats. Mohsen was a diplomat and Zunaira had once been a lawyer, but now, under Taliban rule, she languishes at home because she refuses to wear a burqa.Eventually, however, because of tragic events, the lives of Atiq and Musarrat and Mohsen and Zunaira all intersect.THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL is written in present tense interior monologues that give the story a wonderful immediacy, but, as I mentioned previously, the prose is so overblown it actually detracts from the story. It felt to me as though Khadra was trying very hard to be poetic, but if this was the case, it didn t work, at least for me. The subject matter in this book is very dark and tragic but many of Khadra s images were so overblown, they almost made me laugh out loud.THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL is a story of lives that have, in all probability, been destroyed beyond redemption. While this certainly isn t a bad book, I didn t find anything new in it, nothing that was really thought provoking. The book caused me to feel sympathy for the people of Afghanistan in general, but not for Khadra s fictional characters. When I think of the book, the thing I remember most is Khadra s horribly overblown prose, and that s certainly not good.
The Swallows of Kabul.....An astonishing work - A sad, painful, haunting novel by Yasmina Khadra.This is the story of 4 people who live in Kabul: A Kabul that has degenerated into an urban economic and psychological wasteland under the Taliban.Then one event changes the course of the lives of these 4 people: bringing them into contact with one another and making all of them reflect and focus not only on the past but also what is happening to their somewhat safe present existence. The narrative is powerful, the story is exquisitely told. It will keep you turning the pages until you reach the conclusion. Highly recommended