The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji
Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 02:07PM Haji, N. (2011). The sweetness of tears: A novel. NY: William Morrow.
This is the book if you want to have a text that you can read over several days. This story is full of emotion as it explores the beauty and importance of language and gender imbalances of power. The story, however, does wrap up very optimistically in the end (maybe too much so). The book draws the reader into current events such as tactics in the war on terror, as well as the conflicts in Iraq, and provides in-depth detail about Shia and Sunni Islam and Christianity. The author explores three generations of lives and connections between those lives linked to Pakistan and the United States. You have to read some way into the book to find the start of those connections, as the book begins with the influence on Christianity as shaping some of the main characters. I am noticing more and more books that explore the connections between different faith communities, whether novel or memoir. I also found myself jotting down pieces or marking pieces of Haji’s writing that personally resonated or that alluded to ideas that I teach about. An example that caught my attention was when a father and daughter re-tell a version of a fable to include gender equity. That part had a thoughtful explanation: “People tell stories. And people listen to them. The way a story is told says something about the one who tells it. And the way it is understood, the lesson drawn from it, tells something about the one who listens.” (Haji, 2011, p. 164).
Reader Comments (2)
This book was so beautifully written and what resonated so deeply within me is the understandings that most of the characters had to go through to find peace and forgiveness within themselves and others. I am a catholic but the writing on the Muslim religion was so beautiful and revealing that I hope more people read this book and come to see this as I had many years ago. I look forward to Ms. Haji's next book. her previous novel, The Writing on My Forehead, also written by Ms. Haji is a book I would highly recommend.
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