If there are
stories coming out of the enchanting wild of Africa, it is through Wilbur
Smith. And if from Afghanistan, well it has to be Khaled Hosseini. The
world-renowned author has previously penned down bestsellers like ‘The Kite
Runner’ and ‘The Thousand Splendid Suns’. This is his third novel (And The
Mountains Echoed), after a gap of around six years. Again, this novel is, too,
back staged against the stony, windy land of Afghanistan. From the Hosseini’s
novels, it stands out that this land knows nothing but hardship and tragedy and
pain.
"You want
a story and I will tell you one," Hosseini begins and takes us to 1952.
A father is
telling his children a tale as old as time as they begin their journey through
the deep valleys and majestic mountain towards Kabul. Pari, the three-year-old
daughter, has an unusually powerful bond to his elder brother Abdullah. He has
been her protector, a shoulder to rely on, and a source of happiness to each
other all this time. The two siblings do not understand the horrible fate that
is approaching them, the echoes of the coming event will change their course of
lives upside down. A sacrifice has to be made, a decision, like a small ripple
in the water, that's all it takes, which will haunt through the leaps of time.
There will be loss, deception, trauma, and age-old scars yet redemption with a
bit of twist.
Hosseini is
the magician who can take his reader throughout the story with a flow like
poetry. Though this book is severely intense and one of the hardest to read,
yet, this could keep you hooked with a yearning you hoped from the very
beginning.
This novel was
high on hopes for the Hosseini fans. You might enjoy as how the author took his
own sweet time to narrate this story from the perspective of his multiple
characters (kind of interconnected short stories). It may surprise you to see
how every character was developed intense, how each of them had an equally
important story to tell. It almost seemed like an invisible chasm between all
of them which unknowingly caused a bigger contribution soon. How with the
unraveling of the mysteries of their lives, their actions echoed.
Above
everything else which may have appealed to you most is that this old
Afghanistan is full of privation, it scares people who live there and who left,
there is conflict, oppression of identity. Yet the book celebrates the magical
bond between a brother and his sister.
It shows
people with passionate and unconventional desires, their choice of expression
and freedom, we see both sides of our close-to-heart relationships. This book
is highly recommend to anyone who wants to experience a heart-wrenching story
with twists and turns along with a tapestry of true chemistry of emotions that
will leave the readers thinking and speechless.
Good one.keep writing
ReplyDelete