Khaled Hosseini. We had a very stimulating conversation last night at our new reading group. I had looked for discussion guides, and Penguin has one I found sadly lackluster. Not much about the major theme we concentrated on, sin and redemption. Today I did a little more searching and found a discussion guide that focuses on human rights. But nothing about the religious themes or imagery.
Last night the most intriguing questions came late in the evening. The book refers to the story of Abraham and Isaac. But what about Hagar and Ishmael? It seemed clear who would represent Hagar (and therefore Ishmael), but we didn’t know enough about Islam to really wrestle with the implications of that possible identification.
