Just finished reading it. This book; it’s so unbelievably sad and beautiful and, whoa.  I mean, literally just finished with it.  Trying to drive West on Wilshire with my eyes watering, nose getting all sniffley.  In the midst of all this election, hype, who in the world is there to commiserate with over the tragic life of a fictional heroine who embodies the most extreme manifestations of loyalty and sacrifice.  I’ll say it before; am saying it again.  Khaled Hosseini is our Charles Dickens.  He gives insights into parts of the world otherwise inaccessible through sophisticated mellowdramatic storylines, caricature.  Hope, grief, hardship and regret.  Still reeling from the experience of having just read this.  And in case you’re thinking this comparison between Dickens and Hosseini is a bit much, try this.  Compare the excecution scenes between A Thousand Splendid Suns and Tale of Two Cities.  How the protagonist comes to grips with their inevitable fate by elevating it.  Processing this in the middle of everything else; relating to many aspects of many of the characters and appreciating their inconsistencies and complexities reminds me that, despite the political zeitgeist, sucking me in like a tractor beam, my life isn’t really driven by blips and waves and bytes.  Fact of the matter is, I’m truly looking forward to the election being over so I can get back to myself again; losen the grip of this driving need to be so plugged in all the time.  Or at least, plug in a different way.  One that is more heightened and grounding, perhaps.  Still been enjoying the Palin haikus and all.  Though, now that I think about it, perhaps it’s just another way of dealing.  Okay, “dealing” is kinda strange verbiage.  I find myself engaging in what’s happening in politics on the intellectual and emotional intensity that I engage on, also can –if I’m not careful– get overwhelming and even exhausting.  Well crafted narrative fiction, by contrast, is back to the micro again.  It’s one connection going on —author to reader— no responsibility to fix or communicate or persuade or retract or supercsede anything on the outside.  Yet, the resonance of this author/reader intimacy is nevertheless, global in scope.  Perhaps fiction does not function on the multiplatform level that politicians must to target the widest demographic.  At the same time, it’s creating a corridor where there would otherwise be a wall.  In the case of A Thousand Splendid Suns, it provided me with a connection to the dreams, hopes, sorrows, losses and sacrifices of those lives beneath the burkas.