Abdullah and Pari and their Uncle and Father made for wonderful characters right from the start of the book and so as I turned each page I found myself attaching to them. I need not tell the story as so many reviewers have done so already. If you liked Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, you'll love And the Mountains Echoed.ĭespite The Kite Runner being a debut novel for Hosseini, it achieved what only a handful of contemporary novels have been able to do. In that way, the story engenders humility when it comes to judging any person’s motives and actions, making it more difficult to condemn or exalt in a reflexive manner.Even then, love is not unsullied by selfishness, or selfishness necessarily condemned, but rather is sometimes portrayed as a legitimate struggle to fulfill one’s destiny. It gives insight into the true nature of love and its nemesis, selfishness.The novel unblinkingly sheds light on the glory and the tawdriness that is human nature, dissecting it to show its varied shades of good and bad.How does Hosseini enlighten us in And the Mountains Echoed. It’s no wonder that empires, past and present, floundered in their attempts to conquer her.Īs it was for Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Afghanistan is just the setting, the background, for a profound exploration of the human soul, its capacity for good and evil, paradoxically often at the same time and by the same person. Likewise, no mere reporting or film documentary can give as lucid an account of the cruel decisions forced on people living on the verge of destitution, of the nuances and characteristics of such an ancient, complex and reactionary, but proud country as Afghanistan. No amount of factual history can give as deep and vivid a sense of the reality of Afghanistan in the last seventy years as this story gives.

When she is torn from him and her family at the tender age of three, the stage is set for the suspense that will last as long as the story: will they ever meet again? Pari, as she is named, is loved by her older brother beyond words. Khaled Hosseini’s story tells of a little Afghan girl’s unlikely journey with her family.Īnd the Mountains Echoed is a love story of a different kind. This is an epic tale set in the mold of Doctor Zhivago, in which the lives of the characters are determined, often tragically, by great historical circumstances and events that they are powerless to control. Expert Book Reviews presents a comprehensive review, analysis and plot summary of Khaled Hosseini's novel And the Mountains Echoed.

And the mountains echoed book