Set in 1970s Afghanistan, A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear tells the story of Farhad, a young man who runs afoul of the repressive regime's police. He's badly beaten, and much of the book is concerned with him trying to understand what's happened to him, where he is now, and what he should do next. A Thousand Rooms would probably work better for you if you know more about mid-century Afghan history than I do, to provide the context for Farhad's circumstances, and I have no idea what to make of the book's slightly Oedipal weirdness about women—I think a lot hinges on whether or not you decide that what's happening is "really" happening or whether it's Farhad dreaming or hallucinating. A surreal and tense novella. ( )

Zoals de andere boeken van Rahimi gaat het niet om het verhaal. Hij beschrijft zeer goed de emoties en gedachten van een verward persoon en gaandeweg krijg je een beetje zicht op welke gebeurtenissen dat uitgelokt hebben, maar die blijven eerder bijzaak aan zijn emoties. Rahimi kan die ontreddering van zijn personages beschrijven als geen ander. ( )

A man wakes up beaten and bloody in the sewer beside the road unsure of who he is or how he got there. Over the next 24 hours his memory comes back in bits and pieces, told in reverse chronological order in alternating chapters with the present. Within the span of a few days, the life of an ordinary young man is destroyed during the violent, hopeless period of coups and invasion that defined the 1970s in Afghanistan. A grim but moving story of loss and unfulfilled hope. ( )

A book that got me. Not right from the start, that was strange. I had no idea where I was, who I was or when.
But gradually following the shards of the main character's story, things get clearer and more grim. Until you grasp the bigger (nearly the complete) picture and then the book stops. It left me quite alone, I would have liked to learn what happened, instead of guessing. I've never been a fan of that kind of endings and that still hasn't changed. ( )

Farhad lives in Afghanistan and one night he is late for curfew and he is beat up by guards. Mahnaz finds him and contacts his family so he can be smuggled into Pakistan. I'm not sure I caught all the meaning in this book, not know a lot about Afghanistan. the book is written very disjointed and it's hard to tell what is real and what Farhad is dreaming. ( )