And the Mountains Echoed

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Khaled Hosseini's fans do have to wait a long time between books, its been five years since A Thousand Splendid Suns. I can truthfully say that this is certainly worth that very very long wait. Nila Wahdati is a young French-Afghan woman renowned for her sexually charged poetry who is married off to a wealthy Kabul businessman. According to Hosseini, many aspects of her character were derived from women he encountered during parties his parents hosted in Kabul in the 1970s, many of whom he recalls as "beautiful, very outspoken, temperamental...drinking freely, smoking". [16] At some point prior to the beginning of the story, she was apparently sterilized while undergoing treatment for an illness, leading her to buy Pari as an adopted daughter. Described as unusually beautiful and discontent, she later relocates to Paris following her husband's stroke and eventually commits suicide. Hosseini explained that he was unconcerned with making Nila likable—"I just wanted her to be real – full of anger and ambition and insight and frailty and narcissism." [16] Compulsively readable, in large part because [Hosseini] probes his characters’ psyches in a nuanced and poetic manner . . . And the Mountains Echoed attains a greater level of complexity than its two predecessors . . . and signals the ongoing maturation of a gifted storyteller.”— The Miami Herald Balee, Susan (June 23, 2013). "Tales 'we're not entitled to' ". Philly.com . Retrieved August 25, 2013. 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)

Valdes, Marcela (May 20, 2013). "Book review: Khaled Hosseini's 'And the Mountains Echoed' is riveting and complex". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 25, 2013 . Retrieved September 5, 2013. Perhaps because I had read his other 2 books and loved them so much, I was expecting something more similar to those. I wanted the entire story to be about Pari and Abdullah and their families, to me they ARE the story, way too much time was spent with what I considered unimportant characters and their lives. Doesn't Hosseini know his stories shouldn't be about internet, television, and airplanes?? He does so well with the culture of his country, and the traditions that form it, that's what I wanted from this book but it just wasn't there. While camping out for the night, Saboor tells the children a story about another poor farmer who was forced to give up a beloved child, but the significance of the tale doesn't register with Abdullah. The book comes full circle when Pari, who has no memory of the event, learns of the circumstances of her adoption - and realizes why she has always felt that something was missing in her life.

It is only after they arrive at the home of the adoptive parents in Kabul and he visits a bazaar to buy things for Pari that Abdullah realizes what is happening. Martin Wrenn, Jill (June 24, 2013). "Khaled Hosseini on parenthood and political asylum". CNN . Retrieved September 5, 2013.

Hosseini stated his intentions to make the characters more complex and morally ambiguous. Continuing the familial theme established in his previous novels, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, And the Mountains Echoed centers on the rapport between siblings. Besides Abdullah and Pari, Hosseini introduced two other sibling and sibling-like relationships—the children's stepmother Parwana and her disabled sister Masooma and an Afghan-American doctor named Idris and his cousin Timur. Hensher, Philip (May 23, 2013). "And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini – review". The Guardian . Retrieved September 5, 2013.

Saboor’s bedtime story to his children opens the book. To what degree does this story help justify Saboor’s heart-wrenching act in the next chapter? In what ways do other characters in the novel use storytelling to help justify or interpret their own actions? Think about your own experiences. In what ways do you use stories to explain your own past? Discuss the question of wrongdoing and rightdoing in the context of the different characters and their major dilemmas in the book : Saboor and his daughter Pari; Parwana and her sister, Masooma; the expats, Idris and Timur, and the injured girl, Roshi; Adel, his warlord father, and their interactions with Gholam and his father (and Abdullah’s half brother), Iqbal; Thalia and her mother. Do any of them regret the things they have done? What impact does it have on them? Wrought with mastery, And the Mountains Echoed is not just a well spun tale, but an accomplishment of the most elusive of literary challenges—the humanization of a war ravaged population in the eyes of the very people complicit in their ruin. To be honest, I'm not a fan of formulaic things. Yet, when it's Hosseini telling a story, I listen. I give in. I let his words curl around me like a blanket. I fall in love. And when it's all over, I clutch the book to my chest and weep like a child.

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)The narrative jumps to the story of Parwana’s youth. Her twin sister, Masoona, was so beautiful and amiable that she eclipsed her in all aspects of their lives, including their relationship with Saboor, the young man they both fell in love with. One day, as they were standing on the branch of a tree Masoona confessed her hope of marrying Saboor thus triggering her twin’s jealousy. In an act of cruelty, Parwana pushed her sister off the branch causing her to paralyse. Years later, she is the one taking care of Masoona while Saboor is a widower with two young children. Sensing the burden on her sister, Masoona insists on being left alone in the desert and gives Parwana her blessing if she wishes to marry their childhood love. In addition to all of the important family relationships in the book, there are also many nongenetic bonds between characters, some of them just as strong. Discuss some of these specific relationships and what needs they fill. What are the differences between these family and nonfamily bonds? What do you think the author is trying to say about the presence of these relationships in our lives? And the Mountains Echoed is the third novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2013. These are all separate stories, yet Hosseini takes care to connect each of them, in roundabout ways, to the central narrative of Pari and Abdullah's ruptured family. By tracing the paths of many characters from their birthplaces to various diasporas, he has expanded his familiar themes of betrayal and redemption into a narrative edifice that is much grander than the plainer architecture of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. And he has accomplished this without losing the homespun emotional forcefulness that distinguished those earlier novels. An author with a less urgent calling might be willing merely to manage the brand of his or her success, recycling the same magic formulas that initially captivated audiences. Not so for Hosseini, a popular-fiction writer of the highest caliber whose talent is as agile and wide-ranging as his new novel itself.