And the Mountains Echoed
| And the Mountains Echoed | |
| Khaled Hosseini | |
| Riverhead (2013) | |
| Rating: | **** |
| Tags: | Fiction / Literary |
An unforgettable novel about finding a lost piece of yourself in someone else.
Khaled Hosseini, the #1
New York Times
–bestselling author of
The Kite Runner
and
A Thousand Splendid Suns
, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, May 2013:
Khaled Hosseini’s
And the Mountains Echoed
begins simply enough, with a father recounting a folktale to his two young children. The tale is about a young boy who is taken by a
div
(a sort of ogre), and how that fate might not be as terrible as it first seems—a brilliant device that firmly sets the tone for the rest of this sweeping, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel. A day after he tells the tale of the
div
, the father gives away his own daughter to a wealthy man in Kabul. What follows is a series of stories within the story, told through multiple viewpoints, spanning more than half a century, and shifting across continents. The novel moves through war, separation, birth, death, deceit, and love, illustrating again and again how people’s actions, even the seemingly selfless ones, are shrouded in ambiguity. This is a masterwork by a master storyteller. —
Chris Schluep
“
And the Mountains Echo
ed opens like a thunderclap. . . . [Hosseini] asks good, hard questions about the limits of love. . . . Love, Hosseini seems to say, is the great leveler, cutting through language, class, and identity. No one in this gripping novel is immune to its impact.”—
O, the Oprah Magazine
“With his third and most ambitious novel yet, Hosseini makes it clear that he's not ready to rest on his Big Name. . . . While it hits all the Hosseini sweet spots—nostalgia, devastating details, triumph over the odds—
And the Mountains Echoed
covers more ground, both geographically and emotionally, than his previous works. It's not until Hosseini makes the novel small again, for the poignant conclusion, that you fully appreciate what he's accomplished.”—
Entertainment Weekly
(A)
“Transports you whole into the otherworldly realms Hosseini builds in Kabul, Paris, San Francisco, and the Greek islands. . . . There's something primary and beautiful about the simple desire to get lost in a story, and Hosseini is an expert manufacturer of that experience.”—
Harper’s Bazaar
“Like a sculptor working in a soft medium, [Hosseini] gently molds and shapes individual pieces that ultimately fit together in a major work. . . . Family matters in ways small and large in this novel. Whether or not the connections are visible, they exist nevertheless. Hosseini seems to be telling us that the way we care is who we are and, ultimately, the face we show to life.”—
New York Daily News
"Readers' tears may fall by first chapter's end . . . Introspective and perfectly paced, Hosseini's microcosmic plot spares no expense with sensory details. Each character . . . captivates. Hosseini skillfully weaves the tapestry with universal elements: human fallibility, innate goodness, perseverance, forgiveness, sexuality, jealousy, companionship, and joy. Yet his words are never sugarcoated: The brutality of life is on display, and people are shown just as they are, for better or worse. Poverty and gender roles leave scars, while shifting points of view reveal Hosseini's prism of truth. The heartbreaks are not intended for shock value, but they do linger. And the Mountains Echoed resonates to the core.”—
Austin Chronicle
“Like [Hosseini’s] previous books, the new novel is a complex mosaic, a portrait of the Afghan diaspora as it is folded into the West and of those left behind. . . . The book is elevated by a strong sense of parable and some finely drawn characters and is inventively constructed as it leaps from voice to voice.”—
Esquire
“Devoted readers will find it worth the wait.”—
Patriot Ledger
“Hosseini returns with an instantly relatable novel that follows generations of a troubled family across the Middle East.”—
Marie Claire
“The beautiful writing, full of universal truths of loss and identity, makes each section a jewel . . . Hosseini’s eye for detail and emotional geography makes this a haunting read.”—
Publishers Weekly
“Captivating and affecting . . . A masterful and compassionate storyteller, Hosseini traces the traumas and scarring of tyranny, war, crime, lies, and illness in the intricately interconnected, heartbreaking, and transcendent lives of his vibrantly realized characters to create a grand and encompassing tree of life.”—
Booklist
(starred review)
“Hosseini weaves a gorgeous tapestry of disparate characters joined by threads of blood and fate. . . . In this uplifting and deeply satisfying book, Hosseini displays an optimism not so obvious in his previous works. Readers will be clamoring for it.”—
Library Journal
(starred review)
“In
And the Mountains Echoed
, Khaled Hosseini presents a multitude of windows into the souls affected by these events. The novel's rich kaleidoscope of images coalesces around one theme: the powerful and often excruciating legacy of family ties within the maelstrom of history.”—
Shelf Awareness
“Fiction Top Pick . . . Engrossing . . . Ultimately,
And the Mountains Echoed
is about the human endeavor to transcend difference.”—
Bookpage
This book is dedicated to Haris and Farah,
both the
noor
of my eyes, and to my father,
who would have been proud
Â
For Elaine
Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
âJELALUDDIN RUMI, 13th century
One
Fall 1952
So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one. Don't either of you ask me for more. It's late, and we have a long day of travel ahead of us, Pari, you and I. You will need your sleep tonight. And you too, Abdullah. I am counting on you, boy, while your sister and I are away. So is your mother. Now. One story, then. Listen, both of you, listen well. And don't interrupt.
Once upon a time, in the days when
div
s and
jinn
s and giants roamed the land, there lived a farmer named Baba Ayub. He lived with his family in a little village by the name of Maidan Sabz. Because he had a large family to feed, Baba Ayub saw his days consumed by hard work. Every day, he labored from dawn to sundown, plowing his field and turning the soil and tending to his meager pistachio trees. At any given moment you could spot him in his field, bent at the waist, back as curved as the scythe he swung all day. His hands were always callused, and they often bled, and every night sleep stole him away no sooner than his cheek met the pillow.
I will say that, in this regard, he was hardly alone. Life in
Maidan Sabz was hard for all its inhabitants. There were other, more fortunate villages to the north, in the valleys, with fruit trees and flowers and pleasant air, and streams that ran with cold, clear water. But Maidan Sabz was a desolate place, and it didn't resemble in the slightest the image that its name, Field of Green, would have you picture. It sat in a flat, dusty plain ringed by a chain of craggy mountains. The wind was hot, and blew dust in the eyes. Finding water was a daily struggle because the village wells, even the deep ones, often ran low. Yes, there was a river, but the villagers had to endure a half-day walk to reach it, and even then its waters flowed muddy all year round. Now, after ten years of drought, the river too ran shallow. Let's just say that people in Maidan Sabz worked twice as hard to eke out half the living.
Still, Baba Ayub counted himself among the fortunate because he had a family that he cherished above all things. He loved his wife and never raised his voice to her, much less his hand. He valued her counsel and found genuine pleasure in her companionship. As for children, he was blessed with as many as a hand has fingers, three sons and two daughters, each of whom he loved dearly. His daughters were dutiful and kind and of good character and repute. To his sons he had taught already the value of honesty, courage, friendship, and hard work without complaint. They obeyed him, as good sons must, and helped their father with his crops.
Though he loved all of his children, Baba Ayub privately had a unique fondness for one among them, his youngest, Qais, who was three years old. Qais was a little boy with dark blue eyes. He charmed anyone who met him with his devilish laughter. He was also one of those boys so bursting with energy that he drained others of theirs. When he learned to walk, he took such delight in it that he did it all day while he was awake, and then, troublingly, even at night in his sleep. He would sleepwalk out of the family's
mud house and wander off into the moonlit darkness. Naturally, his parents worried. What if he fell into a well, or got lost, or, worst of all, was attacked by one of the creatures lurking the plains at night? They took stabs at many remedies, none of which worked. In the end, the solution Baba Ayub found was a simple one, as the best solutions often are: He removed a tiny bell from around the neck of one of his goats and hung it instead around Qais's neck. This way, the bell would wake someone if Qais were to rise in the middle of the night. The sleepwalking stopped after a time, but Qais grew attached to the bell and refused to part with it. And so, even though it didn't serve its original use, the bell remained fastened to the string around the boy's neck. When Baba Ayub came home after a long day's work, Qais would run from the house face-first into his father's belly, the bell jingling with each of his tiny steps. Baba Ayub would lift him up and take him into the house, and Qais would watch with great attention as his father washed up, and then he would sit beside Baba Ayub at suppertime. After they had eaten, Baba Ayub would sip his tea, watching his family, picturing a day when all of his children married and gave him children of their own, when he would be proud patriarch to an even greater brood.
Alas, Abdullah and Pari, Baba Ayub's days of happiness came to an end.
It happened one day that a
div
came to Maidan Sabz. As it approached the village from the direction of the mountains, the earth shook with each of its footfalls. The villagers dropped their shovels and hoes and axes and scattered. They locked themselves in their homes and huddled with one another. When the deafening sounds of the
div
's footsteps stopped, the skies over Maidan Sabz darkened with its shadow. It was said that curved horns sprouted from its head and that coarse black hair covered its shoulders and
powerful tail. They said its eyes shone red. No one knew for sure, you understand, at least no one living: The
div
ate on the spot those who dared steal so much as a single glance. Knowing this, the villagers wisely kept their eyes glued to the ground.
