This book starts with one of my favourite Rumi verses:
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I'll meet you there."
***
When you take up a Khaled Hosseini book, you do not expect a fun reading. You know there will be pages and stories which will wrench your heart apart, you know there will be words therein which will startle you with depth and understanding of sadness. And the Mountains Echoed was no exception.
This novel is divided into nine chapters and almost each, with a little help from the preceding chapters, can stand on its own as short stories. You know Khaled Hosseini is a confident writer when you find him introducing new characters so late in the novel. Sometime I even wondered why. If I think about characters like Idris, Timur, Roshi and Amra, I realize that they are not very necessary to the central theme of the novel. They are a part of the backdrop, brought to life because of the writer's whim and later, the thread of their story is left loose, again at the whim of the writer. I did not so much mind the fact that Timur and his lot were not so relevant to the central theme; these characters were beautifully developed and they lent so much insight to the general wave of the story. If I look at this chapter of the book, I would say that this is one chapter that most highly qualifies as a very well written short story. But when I look at these characters as a part of the novel, I cannot help lamenting their abrupt dismissal from the pages.
What surprised me so much in this book were the very strong female characters. The women in this book took care of their own fate. Be it little Thalia who faces the world with a scarred face and takes up the job of a plumber/IT person in her later life, because she has an inquisitive scientific mind or be it, Nila Wahdati, who defies accepted norms of female modesty in her poems and life or Pari, who decides against marriage for the time being so that she can take care of her dying father; the women in this book does not live in the shadows of the men around. From a pedantic point of view, it would be interesting to study individually the women in this book; they are independent, forgiving, adamant, insightful and interestingly, never very rich.
Also, what I did not expect in a Khaled Hossieni novel was homosexuality. What happens when a man pining for a married woman discovers that he is the object of affection of her husband? Khaled Hosseini, through his novel, beautifully drives home the point that it is superficial to label love as homosexual or heterosexual. If you understand love, you will respect both and not judge one against the other.
The novel begins with the sale of Pari, a very young girl. Separated from her loving brother Abdullah, she goes on to live a rich life with her new parents; only to be separated from her new father when her new mother decides to abandon him. This is the central theme of the story; the tip of the iceberg. As the story unfolds, we see many more people come in and out of each others lives, and all of them would leave a mark in the mind of the readers. The pages will charm you into thinking that somewhere in this world, these people really live.
Would I recommend this book to my friends? Yes, I would. But I would also warn that you should not read And the Mountains Echoed for its story; you should read this book for the characters travelling through the story . They are the real winners here :)
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I'll meet you there."
***
When you take up a Khaled Hosseini book, you do not expect a fun reading. You know there will be pages and stories which will wrench your heart apart, you know there will be words therein which will startle you with depth and understanding of sadness. And the Mountains Echoed was no exception.
This novel is divided into nine chapters and almost each, with a little help from the preceding chapters, can stand on its own as short stories. You know Khaled Hosseini is a confident writer when you find him introducing new characters so late in the novel. Sometime I even wondered why. If I think about characters like Idris, Timur, Roshi and Amra, I realize that they are not very necessary to the central theme of the novel. They are a part of the backdrop, brought to life because of the writer's whim and later, the thread of their story is left loose, again at the whim of the writer. I did not so much mind the fact that Timur and his lot were not so relevant to the central theme; these characters were beautifully developed and they lent so much insight to the general wave of the story. If I look at this chapter of the book, I would say that this is one chapter that most highly qualifies as a very well written short story. But when I look at these characters as a part of the novel, I cannot help lamenting their abrupt dismissal from the pages.
What surprised me so much in this book were the very strong female characters. The women in this book took care of their own fate. Be it little Thalia who faces the world with a scarred face and takes up the job of a plumber/IT person in her later life, because she has an inquisitive scientific mind or be it, Nila Wahdati, who defies accepted norms of female modesty in her poems and life or Pari, who decides against marriage for the time being so that she can take care of her dying father; the women in this book does not live in the shadows of the men around. From a pedantic point of view, it would be interesting to study individually the women in this book; they are independent, forgiving, adamant, insightful and interestingly, never very rich.Also, what I did not expect in a Khaled Hossieni novel was homosexuality. What happens when a man pining for a married woman discovers that he is the object of affection of her husband? Khaled Hosseini, through his novel, beautifully drives home the point that it is superficial to label love as homosexual or heterosexual. If you understand love, you will respect both and not judge one against the other.
The novel begins with the sale of Pari, a very young girl. Separated from her loving brother Abdullah, she goes on to live a rich life with her new parents; only to be separated from her new father when her new mother decides to abandon him. This is the central theme of the story; the tip of the iceberg. As the story unfolds, we see many more people come in and out of each others lives, and all of them would leave a mark in the mind of the readers. The pages will charm you into thinking that somewhere in this world, these people really live.
Would I recommend this book to my friends? Yes, I would. But I would also warn that you should not read And the Mountains Echoed for its story; you should read this book for the characters travelling through the story . They are the real winners here :)
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