The Bookseller of Kabul – Journal Entry #1
We were very surprised with how strict the men are towards women and how they are punished if anyone feels they were “disobedient.” When Jamila married a man who did not live there, she started having what we know of as an affair. Someone claimed they saw a man crawl through her window at night and when the room was checked, some of his things were found. Because of this, the family had a “council meeting.” At this council meeting of her family, everyone, even the mother voted to have her killed because she dishonored the family. After she was killed, most of the evidence that a marriage had taken place was gotten rid of. A young girl named Saliqa was also disobedient because she responded to love letters sent to her. She met him in a taxi and went to a park, although nothing happened, she was severely punished. When her uncle came home, he beat her close to death. Even right away in the beginning of the book, Sultan gets a second wife, against all wishes of the family. Not even his first wife had any say as she was just pushed aside.
These stories give us a better idea of how other cultures live and how women are treated. This information doesn’t necessarily pertain to our lives because in this country we have so many rights as women. Also, it isn’t a man that makes a woman valuable in society but their own personal success.
We believe the author has deeper concentration on the treatment of women than necessarily on men. In the foreword, she vocalizes her struggle in the home because of her feelings on how the women were treated by the men. One of the most interesting things we’ve read about is when Sultan gets a second wife, his first wife who gave him his children, is just left in another country. As much as he promises to send for them, he makes up reasons to still leave her there with her youngest daughter. All of the back stories on the women and their treatment were also very interesting. She focuses a lot on the women’s roles and their struggles than the men’s. Another thing that we enjoyed reading was the poems that they included. The author added in history of the poems and what could and would happened to many of the authors if it was read, especially women authors. The poems showed the women’s hate towards their husbands that they weren’t allowed to vocalize but also the sexual desires the women also felt but were unable to show. Because of the focus on women and their treatment, they would be an ideal audience for reading this book.
Just last week we were talking in class about gender roles and different assumptions the opposite gender had of each other. Although we seemed to point out roles in the US, we also briefly discussed how this could change or be a lot more drastic in other cultures. The ideas in this book will help contribute a lot to the discussion next week that is focused more on women.
“In Afghanistan a woman’s longing for love is taboo. It is forbidden by the tribe’s notion of honor and by the mullahs. Young people have no right to meet, to love, or to choose. Love has little to do with romance; on the contrary, love can be interpreted as committing a serious crime, punishable by death. The undisciplined are cruelly killed. Should only one guilty party be executed, it is invariably the woman.”
This paragraph helps the author transition from the chapter discussing the death and beatings of the girls and also helps introduce the coming chapter. In the coming chapter, it includes the poems in which women discuss their secret thoughts and desires, thoughts that would be punished.
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