Title: And The Mountains Echoed
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Pages: 466
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½
When extreme
poverty causes him to lose his child, Saboor, a hard-working Aghan from
Shadbagh village, makes the difficult decision of giving up his daughter, Pari,
to Suleiman and Nila Wahdati, the wealthy employers of his brother-in-law,
Nabi, the brother of his second wife, Parwana. Four-year-old Pari and 10-year-old
Abdullah were the children of his first wife, who died giving birth to Pari.
The decision
buys the family respite against the terrible winter, but it leaves Abdullah
heartbroken. Abdullah, despite his young age, has been almost a father to Pari,
answering her every need and sacrificing everything for her.
It’s hard to
describe the plot of this book, as it is more about Afghanistan, than about any
specific characters. The book makes a character out of Afghanistan, its
weather, the customs and traditions that dictate life in its villages and
cities. The author evokes the difficulties emerging from the hard life and the
toll it exacts.
The language is earthy
and relatable. The story begins in Afghanistan, but it might as well have begun
in an Indian village; it felt that familiar. The writing, especially in scenes
featuring Abdullah and Pari, evoked innocence and childlike wonder.
Some lines that
stood out for me:
Beauty is an enormous unmerited gift given
randomly, stupidly.
If culture was a house, then language was the
key to the front door.
The decline of one’s own body is incremental,
as nearly imperceptible as it is insidious.
I had been
looking forward to this book, especially because I loved The Kite Runner. But
while the sensibility is the same, this book didn’t touch me like that one had.
So many
questions were left unanswered. Abdullah’s chapter had ended with his resolve
to go to Kabul and look for Pari. His days in Shadbagh, he decides at the end of
the chapter that explores his story, are numbered. The next we hear of him, he
is a hotelier in the US. The author never brings us up to speed on him. Did he
end up going to Kabul? If not, why not? What were his growing up years like?
How did he reach the US? We are told almost nothing about a little boy we, as
readers, have loved and latched on to.
After we get
attached to Abdullah and Pari, the PoV turns to that of Nabi. We read a long
letter, spanning whole chapters, written by him to a plastic surgeon, Markose,
telling him about all that transpired in the past and more recently. Markose
lives rent-free in his home, the home he inherited from Suleiman.
From there we
read of Parwana’s childhood with her twin sister, Masooma, and the tragedy that
she allowed, and the guilt she carries all her life. Then we meet cousins,
Idris and Timur, now Americans, whose families were once neighbours of the
Wahdatis in Kabul.
Then the story
takes us to Paris, where Nila has moved with Pari. We read about Pari’s
childhood, adulthood, her subsequent marriage, her kids and her life. This
story is followed by that of Markose, from his childhood, his friendship with
Thalia, the daughter of his mother’s best friend, his own fraught relationship
with his mother.
Then we have the
story of Adel, the son of a war criminal, and Gholam, the grandson of Saboor. And
finally, we have the story of Abdullah’s daughter, Pari, named for the sister
he lost. The story of the younger Pari was the one I related to the least. Not
because of any flaw in it, but because by then I was yearning for the siblings
to be united.
It felt
exhausting getting into the skin of so many characters and never staying with
any of them. From Abdullah and Pari, to Nabi, Suleiman and Nila, then Idris and
Timur Bashiri, the stories have a tenuous connection. They are all parts of a
whole.
The end of each
section, Abdullah’s, Nabi’s, Idris’s and Nila’s, left me with a vague sense of
loss and disappointment. Through each story, we went further away from Abdullah
and Pari.
The book was
beautiful but I longed for Abdullah and Pari to be united. I was disappointed
it took so long, and with the manner in which it happened.
