“And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini – The Ripples of Fate

Khaled Hosseini has established himself as one of the most prominent writers of the decade with classics such as The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. In these stories Hosseini spends much of his time focusing Middle Eastern families, their values, beliefs, morals, actions, decisions, and ultimately, their fate. In And the Mountains Echoed, Hosseini follows a similar theme, but needless to say, it is explored from a very different angle than in his previous works of writing.

To give you a brief idea of what the story is all about, it starts off with a father telling his children a story about a young boy who, after being taken by an ogre, discovers that his fate was far from being as terrible as he imagined it. On the next day, the father gives his daughter away to a very wealthy man living in Kabul.

This is where the real story starts, and it spans for a time period of over fifty years, even going from on continent to the next. We basically follow the drastically-different lives and fates of those belonging to the above-mentioned family, covering a whole wide range of different topics such as love, birth, life, death, deception, seclusion, and war. Perhaps more enthusiastically though, Hosseini seems to want to point out that regardless of what we think of one’s motives for committing an action, we really know very little.

Though I felt the book dragged on a bit during certain passages, it is inevitable when the story is so grand and spans over multiple decades and continents with there being a lot of scene setting to do. 

I especially liked how the many different stories were told from various perspectives, breathing some variety into the story and giving the reader insights which would have otherwise never been revealed. More importantly, we get to see how the different characters think and what motivates them to act the way they do.

I have to say that even though book wasn’t very easy to follow in certain places and the first half is better than the second, it still remains a very moving read, with the touching part being the realism of what fate ultimately lies in store for all people.

This is not the kind of book where heroes miraculously swoop in at the last second to save the day; it is set in the real, cold, uncompromising and cruel world that exists today. Definitely worth reading for those looking for an emotional experience in their books.

---

Khaled Hosseini Personal site Khaled Hosseini is an American novelist of Afghan origin, as well as a physician, though he likened that occupation to an arranged marriage. In 2003 Hosseini published his first book, The Kite Runner, and never looked back with the tremendous success it brought him.