The novel is bereft of a definite plot and makes a giant sweep across time. Still, it manages to hold one’s attention and never becomes sluggish, says Sonal Prakash
And The Mountains Echoed
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury, Rs 599
The book, And the Mountains Echoed, yet again proves that Khaled Hosseini is a master storyteller who knows his craft too well. If his The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns were set in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan which was being targeted by the Americans as a part of the strategy to launch the ‘war on terror’, And the Mountains Echoed sweeps across a broader time period starting from the repercussions of the erstwhile Soviet rule in Afghanistan, the victory of the mujahideen, the Taliban occupying the centre-stage, and the American war against terrorism. This giant sweep across time comes alongside a similar one across space, leading the reader from one country to another including Afghanistan, France, Greece and, finally, the US.
It is significant that the characters in the novel are, for the most part, indifferent to the above mentioned tumultuous developments in Afghanistan; starting from Nabi, the chauffeur and cook of the Wahadatis, to the Wahadatis themselves; from young Adel, whose father is an intimidating mujahideen, to others like Idris, a doctor in the US. It almost seems as if the people in the novel deliberately want to turn a blind to these unpleasant events wrapped up, as they are, in themselves.
The novel is bereft of a definite plot; however, the strong bondage between the pair of brother and sister, and how they finally meet with each other links up the entire gamut of characters and the landscape that Hosseini paints for us. One’s heart aches for little Pari, who was forcibly made to part from her elder brother Abdullah. The rest of the characters are directly or indirectly connected with this brother-sister duo.
One wonders at times what was Hosseini’s motive behind including so many characters who, for the most part, remain unconnected. Self-contained in themselves, these different personalities — even as they make an engaging read — leave the reader guessing as to why they were necessary in the entire scheme of things. They appear and disappear, the majority of whose traces are lost with the closing of the chapter. For instance, one wonders what happened to Adel and his Janus-faced father, Adel’s friend Gholam or, for that matter, Timur and Idris or even Roshi and Thalia.
The author could have wrapped up the story in three or, at the most, four chapters, but he has stretched it to something like 400 pages. It must be admitted that had it not been in Hosseini to sustain the readers’ interest in a plot that is a disparate one with scattered links between the men and women portrayed in it, this reviewer would have taken no time to dismiss the book. It must be said of the author that reading him seems like hearing a tale that is woven by an elderly storyteller who narrates it impromptu.
Interestingly, Hosseini by giving voice to Pari (the protagonist Pari’s niece and namesake), and making her narrate in the first person, covertly articulates the desperation that her religion drives her to in the form of the compulsory Quran and Farsi lessons and how she is asked to forego her night out to the aquarium (because it falls on Friday). One does wonder if Hosseini, in the guise of Pari, is trying to take a stand against religious dogmatism. However, this is only a guess and it would be just as well for it to remain in the realm of speculation.
All Hosseini’s novels starting from The Kite Runner veer towards a kind of drama and emotional trip which are not so common in the works of most Western writers. This is always evident in the way his novels end. The different events described in the novel, disparate as they are, could be filmed quite successfully albeit individually.
Despite some limitations, the pace of the novel never becomes sluggish. Nor is the writing style laboured; in fact, it is full of poise and elegance. The wide canvas of the work may seem unnecessary but the author does not lose the grip over the account and tells the story, or stories, with an ease and gracefulness that befit a gifted teller of tales. The book, once you have started reading it, cannot be put aside. Just as the story drifts away from one character to another in their different settings, the reader, too, is swept across in the same tide, which hurls him or her from one episode to another in an ever changing space and time.