Grumpy Reader

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I loved 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'. I wanted to love 'And The Mountains Echoed', but....I couldn't.

For me it was one of those books where the intentions of the author were clear - namely, to tell a panoramic, heart-rending tale of loss and redemption that spanned several generations, not to mention global conflicts....

But it is one thing to have an intention, and quite another to 'deliver' it. Indeed, an author's 'delivery' of a story to a reader should be seamless, effortless, dazzling with a narrative that leaves no room for any pausing to wonder what the author is aiming for and how he/she is trying to achieve it. Hosseini's first two books were exactly like that: heart-stopping page-turners that made me root for the characters from the first page to the last, willing them to survive, to find love, to find happiness. While reading 'And The Mountains Echoed' however, I kept thinking that was how I was 'supposed' to be reacting, rather than actually managing it.

That said, Hosseini's writing is always excellent and there are some gripping episodes, especially at the beginning when Pari and Abdullah are separated. In fact, if the story had just followed on sequentially from that, tracking what happened to each of them, I think I would have been as spellbound as I wanted to be. The time-jumps - while I could see their purpose - depicting the big Canvas of Life - detracted from the early momentum of the story.

A good read though. And maybe the wettest UK January on record has made me a grouch.



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