The plot of ‘And the Mountains echoed’ is set as a circular
course which begins with Abdullah and his little sister Pari who is separated
from him at the onset of the story and completes with them re uniting again. As
the tale unfolds further, many more characters surface up with each having a
quite descriptive and often painful account of their respective pasts. Destiny
takes an unforgiving turn when the Soviets raid Afghanistan and Pari, who has
been adopted by a wealthy family and has no recollection whatsoever of her past
is forced to move to Paris with her Maman
or step mother. After many intervening years when Pari is old and graying, she
receives a letter written by her uncle in which he gives a detailed account of
her life which is as diminished and hazy in her memory as is her brother who is
now living in San Francisco. She finally decides to meet him only to find him
in an ailing and heart wrenching medical condition in which he remembers his
little sister but not the old woman who stands before him.
It is authors like Khaled Hosseini who possess the gifted
ability to bestow such commanding force to words that the narrative containing
them becomes an inescapable vortex. Through his characters, his pen very
cruelly rips open the most fundamental layers of human heart and soul and
blasts away the imagination of the readers with every letter acting as a
shrapnel. The liquid ease with which he manages to make the reader helplessly
vulnerable and puncture the deepest and closely guarded emotional realms is as
unbelievable as it is brilliant. He never fails to impress the reader with his
splendid usage of imagery and precision in words that are nothing less than
beautiful. His attention to detail in giving shape to every character, in
drawing the core of its psyche, in chalking out its emotional and mental
silhouettes is the pure genius of a true craftsman.
However, I wish I could say the storyline was as perfect and
tightly knit for which Hosseini is known. No matter how compelling and profound
his way of storytelling might be but the insignificance of some of the
characters appears as tiny cracks in the otherwise seamless tale of love and
longing. Though in isolation, these characters are given an exquisite treatment
and yet the central plot doesn’t seem to accommodate them deservingly and these
characters are lost, in a rather disappointing manner into the depths of the
plot. Often, the story meanders from its purpose to distant shores which are
difficult to justify with the context. The sheer delight and pleasure one
derives being in the company of such gorgeous words is, to some extent, taken
away by the length to which they are described.
Had it not been Hosseini, I would not have been much
disappointed with the way the story ends but this is the inevitable burden of
expectations that writers of such caliber and repute are doomed to carry. After
all the heartbreaks and endurance of grief, I was looking forward to an ending
that could comfort me with a sense of contentment and fulfillment. But sadly,
the climax of the book is nothing like that. It left me suspended with an
unquenched feeling that one gets savoring a really delicious dish from which
one essential or key ingredient is missing.
In the end, this new book might or might not be Hosseini’s
best work but it is, though not in its entirety, a great book.
