She believed that Pari was meant to be the protagonist of the story but that the shifting focus on the numerous other personalities left her "barely [squeaking] through the clutter".
(meta data) TITLE: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: Review | The Star (meta data) AUTHOR: Kim Hughes (meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/torontostar Subscribe now for complete, progressive coverage of local, national and global news. Subscribe Now Subscribe Now 1st month for 99¢ + tax Subscribe Now Subscribe Now 1st month for 99¢ + tax This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com # And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: Review By Kim HughesThu., May 16, 2013timer3 min. read There is a gripping story at the heart of And the Mountains Echoed, the third and latest novel by author Khaled Hosseini, whose previous works, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, have sold jaw-dropping numbers while spotlighting an Afghanistan rarely glimpsed and seldom considered. But Hosseini makes you work for your satisfaction. And the many detours he sets up in the form of smaller, tangentially connected stories tucked around the main narrative is at once the novel's most defining feature and its most exasperating conceit. Sooner or later, you will think: "Can we please get back to the main story?" Also possibly: "Remind me who Idris and Timur are and why they're here exactly." Then again, you may be too swept up in Hosseini's tranquil prose and ridiculously detailed characterizations to care. There's no question And the Mountains Echoed offers a ton of story for your scratch. The book begins in 1952 Afghanistan with a fable told by a father to son Abdullah and kid sister Pari which chronicles agonizing choices parents make in the hope of creating a better life for their children. The story is textbook foreshadowing, and young Pari is swiftly cut away from her poor family to join an upwardly mobile one, triggering the novel's slingshot trajectory between Afghanistan, France, Greece and California and back and forth across the decades up to the present. Smart, cultured, devoted Pari may be the book's protagonist but she is not its obvious star. Between an alcoholic poet married to a closeted gay man, an ornery but heroic nurse, a sentimental man-servant, a selfless plastic surgeon, and not one but two horribly disfigured children variously introduced via posthumous letters, media interviews and misty-eyed recollections, Pari barely squeaks through the clutter once the novel starts rolling. By the time she returns to the narrative forefront near the book's end, she seems pale compared to what has come before and is squaring off against a namesake relative to boot. Readers skim at their peril; keeping track of these multiple characters — several swathed in matching terms of endearment — requires attention (you were warned). Moreover, several of these excursions read like novellas; it's startling to conclude a chapter only to realize the path back to the central story will leave this or that character forevermore in the dust. Other times, these asides — ostensibly to underscore the inner-connectedness of family across time and place — seem, if not pointless, then a lot of work for rather small payoff. When he seizes us, though, Hosseini's grip is unbreakable, and he imparts lavish detail without larding us in self-consciously writerly prose. #### YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN... "The waiter brought the pastries and coffee. Pari focused on the waiter's hands as he arranged the cups and plates on the table, the palms of her own hands blooming with sweat. She had only had four lovers in her lifetime. . . and she hadn't loved any of them — though she had lied to one and said she did — but pinned beneath each of them she had thoughts of Julien, of him and his beautiful face, which seemed to come with its own private lighting." Evocative stuff that, and Hosseini is generous with his descriptive flair, giving each of his characters, even the least consequential ones, heft that makes them feel three-dimensional. He can also paint everyday life so vividly that we feel the sun on our neck. It just takes a while to get where we're going. Still, if you're game for a journey, And the Mountains Echoed offers a very scenic trip. Kim Hughes is a Toronto writer/editor and book obsessive. Get more books in your inboxGet the latest book news and reviews with our Books newsletter. Sign Up NowRead more about: AfghanistanReport an errorJournalistic StandardsAbout The Star ### More from The Star & Partners
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And the Mountains Echoed
Critical reviews.
Susan Balee from Philly.com wrote that it "[captures] at the personal level the history of his war-torn homeland: Fierce loyalties alternate with bloody betrayals". "The Guardian's" Philip Hensher gave a more mediocre review and said, "I enjoyed this novel in a very undemanding sort of way. The shifts of viewpoint would be ambitious if the novel had any interest in varieties of psychology. But it serves its purpose in providing amusement for two and a half hours; a day after finishing it, I had forgotten everything about it." 
 Reviewers agreed that Hosseini's succeeded in making his characters complex. Alexander Linklater from "The Guardian" wrote, "From the moment the realisation dawns that Saboor is going to give Pari to the wife of a wealthy man in Kabul, Hosseini saturates the various layers and characters of his novel with a yearning for the moment that brother and sister will reunite." Soniah Kamal of "Atlanta Arts" was particularly favorable towards Amra, the Bosnian aid worker who cares for and adopts Roshi, as she "stuns with her hope in humanity no matter what callousness she has witnessed". "USA Today" critic Kevin Nance found the story of Abdullah and Pari "devastating" but thought the large cast of characters, "including some introduced fairly late in the proceedings, when the reader just wants to return to the core cast", was excessive. The structure of the book drew mixed reactions, with "Toronto Star's" Kim Hughs describing it as "the novel's most defining feature and its most exasperating conceit".