“And the mountains echoed” opens with a brilliant
parable, which is an allegory for the next chapter to follow. A poverty stricken father, desperate to provide
a good life for his family, lets his young daughter Pari, be adopted by a rich
family. Little does he realize how profoundly the loss would affect the family,
especially Pari’s elder brother Abdullah. In Adullah’s poignant words, "Pari was like the dust that clung to his
shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent in the house,
silence that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow,
sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain
that never fell."
The narrative of the novel is anything but
linear. Stories in it crisscross over a span of sixty years - stories of
disparate characters from around the world, whose lives intersect with the main
characters Pari and Abdullah at different times, thereby bringing the story
around a full circle. Each story independently explores bonds of family and
love, and the devastation that separation and loss can bring. Every broken bond
leaves a hole in the heart, which the characters try to fill with other people.
Some succeed and some not so much.
Hosseini has developed his characters quite
wholesomely. Much of the book is against the backdrop of Afghanistan, starting with
pre-Soviet era, then the Mujahuddin rise, the Taliban movement, until after the
American invasion post 9/11. The characters evolve over the years, with choices
they have made between responsibility and freedom. Each character is vividly
different from the other and yet, the author has developed with such maturity
that the reader understands each, like one understands friends. I feel he put a
lot of soul into developing the character of Nabi, a true and yet fallible
gentleman. His good nature is typified in his comment “"One thing I have come to see is that one is
well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner
workings of another person's heart."
Hosseini brings out the stark contrast between
appearances and reality in several characters; the beautiful are inane, the
mutilated are strong and deep, the immoral revered as heroes. He has also shown
a certain level of redemption for one’s deeds, karma if you will, through the
book.
Resonating
with its opening poem by Rumi, the book tries to take us beyond the boundaries
of moral and immoral judgments - a realm beyond narrow minded assumptions about
good and evil. In every story, he has brought out the conflicting feelings of
"good" and "bad" and the greyness in between that almost every human being is made of. He
has tried to make us visualize a new field of consciousness - something
spiritual beyond the range of human perception, of sorting things into black
and white. Also, through his various stories, he has tried to demonstrate how
we all are united in ways beyond our imagination. None of us is a separate
entity. We are all connected together in this large fabric that has been woven.
This reminded of Andy Weir’s short story “The egg”.
Having said that, I must say that while the
book’s first chapter gets you hooked and you remain hooked for the most part.
But, the book begins to pall a bit towards the end. While Hosseini has kept the
intersecting facts charmingly consistent across his various stories, his
writing style has not been so consistent. There are sections in the last third
of the book, where he hurries through long spans of time, like he were writing
an epilogue. The narrative does not always flow smoothly from one story to
another, though he has made an effort to cobble the splintered journey back to
the main story. The stories crisscross with each other, instead of weaving
together well into one tapestry of a story. Also, he did not finish the other
stories that he had developed to the point of curiosity. What happened to the
young boy Adel, who was beginning to understand that his father was not the
hero he once thought he was. And to Iqbal’s son? Idris and Timur?
I was also a bit confused by Hosseini’s saying
that the book’s title was inspired by William Blake’s “Nurse’s song”. The one
emotion that this poem fills you with is just happiness, unlike the book which
is definitely melancholic.
Yet all in all, I was fascinated by the story and
the heartfelt emotion that permeates one’s being upon reading it. It also made
me delve into the spiritual metaphors and think deeper about life. I would give
the book a rating of 4 on a scale of 1 to 5.
Suniti’s feedback and my response
You have done an excellent job of writing about
this book. This book deals with the psychological aspects of a tragic life
events and covers so many different kinds of painful life experiences and how
people from different social and economic backgrounds deal with realities of
life. Every character was put in a very challenging situation and had to make a
tough choice. It goes beyond the boundaries of moral and immoral judgements;
These are normal people with so called normal lives; Everybody did what they thought
was right thing to do at the time. Relationship between Nabi and his master,
similarly,relationship between a disfigured girl and the old lady were
eyeopeners for me. Author tried to put many different kinds of difficult
situations in the story and tried to connect them, but I agree, that he could
improve on that part. I think it was more important for him to write about as
many difficult situations as possible and how people deal with them in real
life, than connecting them together. I think he has done that part well because
I these stories are not far from real life. I think he left those two
characters for his next book! Or he did not see much future for these two; Or
They were there to explain recent political situation and how it is affecting people.
Or .....he just got tired of figuring out what kind of people they would
become?
