Goodreads Book Review: And the Mountains Echoed

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved Khaled Hossieni's debut novel, The Kite Runner. I liked his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, even better, earning it a place on my list of favorite books. So I was a little disappointed with his third novel, And The Mountains Echoed.. Don't get me wrong, Hosseini is still an outstanding writer, with emotional resonance, memorable and relatable characters, and a strong sense of place. However, with this third book, he simply tries to do too much, bogging down the story with too many characters, uneven pacing, and too many shifts in time, place, and narration.

At it's basis, And the Mountains Echoed is the story of a love between siblings that withstands trails of time and separation, and as such, it is a moving story. It opens in 1952, when the siblings in question, Abdullah and Pari, are ten and three respectively, living in an impoverished Afghan village.

But from there, Hosseini expands the story by telling it from the perspectives of other characters in other times and places. These range from a relative of Abdullah and Pari's who lives for decades in Kabul to seemingly unconnected characters in present-day Greece and northern California. The reader does come to realize that these characters and their lives are in fact connected, but the shifting in time and place just add confusion. Yes, the characters are compelling, but as soon as I would become fully immersed in one story, Hosseini shifted to another. And the pacing was uneven, with certain events in characters' lives given too much time and others breezed over.

There are things in And The Mountains Echoed that Hosseini still does very well. All his settings come to life, not just his native Afghanistan but Greece, California, and Europe as well. And he is sensitive to the various social and political climates in which his story is set. It is when his characters straddle multiple worlds - as with characters who have immigrated from Afghanistan to Paris and California - that he is at his most compelling.

Finally, the love and loyalty Hosseini's characters have for each other here, and the moral complexity of their decisions, is moving. At its basis, And The Mountains Echoed is a heartwarming story. But it would have been even more moving if it had been simpler and sweeter.


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"According to Autcorrect, Happy Milk Day!"*

*The title of this post is attributed to my friend Amelia's facebook status.

On a more serious note, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I wanted to muse a little bit on both his legacy and one of my favorite quotes of his:

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."

Of course MLK was a prolific speaker, and their are so many quotes from his speeches, writings, and elsewhere that have been inspirational.

The above has always stood out to me, however, in it's applications. I can extend it to my personal life, although of course Dr. King was speaking in the larger and admitedly more significant context of the Civil Rights struggle.

 But yes, I myself struggle sometimes dealing with the sometimes larger, sometimes petty disappointments of my own life. So to juxtapose that against the "bigger picture" (infinity!) reminds me to maintain perspective.

As a nation it is sometimes easy to lose hope as well. Especially when recent events like the Ferguson protests remind us that we have so far to go when it comes to full civil rights and racial equality. But when looking at the bigger picture, we have come along was from Selma.

Martin Luther King, Jr. lost his life in pursuit of his dream, but he never lost "infinite hope." And even with all of the finite disappointments we face, both as a society and as individuals, MLK's dream and his infinite hope live on.