Splendid Suns & Surrendering

Summer is drawing to a close, and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve already completed 12 books this summer, and have 4 that are almost done. I’ve done a lot of reading. I just finished reading Khaled Hosseini's captivating A Thousand Splendid Suns, which was heart-wrenching. Such sad fiction, and the sadness is made ever more aching when the fiction is based on fact. This world is messed up, and practical answers seen elusive, even impossible. The story takes place in contemporary Afghanistan, where instability is the norm and horrors are expected. Refugees, children without parents, businesses destroyed, cultures destroyed, all for what? More freedom, less freedom? Does anyone even know? In the story, you see horrible marriages, and I have to think that these horrible marriages may have cultural aspects unique to the story, but I doubt the overall misery is any different from the soulless marriages occupying many homes in America. At times, I wonder if marriage is just a euphemism for slavery and love an esoteric luxury, a commodity to be discarded because human life simply isn’t worth that much.

I also recently finished another book which is focused solely on marriage. Iris Krasnow writes in Surrendering to Marriage about real marriages—ugly, beautiful, worn and redeemed. As a journalist, she interviews dozens of partners, trying to get some handle on marriage in America, and, to no one’s surprise, much of it isn’t pretty. But Krasnow remains dedicated and optimistic, pulling out threads of what it means to make a marriage work, believing that the threads that are worn and tired can make the most beautiful tapestry. The tapestry of her book includes stories of adultery and divorce, resentment and loss, but hope is woven throughout.

These two books are so completely different. One has hope for marriage in America, one depicts a challenging portrait of marriage in Afghanistan. And in both, there’s a desire for love, a desire for honest-to-goodness intimacy. Whether it is found in friendship, parenting, or marriage, it permeates our lives and our longings.