And the Mountains Echoed: A Novel
By Khaled Hosseini
Read by Khaled Hosseini , Navid Negahban , and Shohreh Aghdashloo
• 14.02 Hours
• 05/21/2013
• Unabridged
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ISBN: 9781101627358
It begins in 1952. Ten-year-old Abdullah and his younger sister, Pari, are everything to each other. What happens to them, at the despairing hand of their father, will test the unshakable bonds of family and irrevocably change not just their own lives, but those of multiple generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Khaled Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honour, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek Island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.
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Summary
Summary
A 2013 Entertainment Weekly Best Book for Fiction
A USA Today bestseller
A Wall Street Journal bestseller
A New York Times bestseller
A Washington Post bestseller
A #1 Los Angeles Times bestseller
A 2013 Washington Post Notable Book
An Amazon Top 100 Book of 2013
A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Month, May 2013
A 2013 Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Book for Fiction
An NPR bestseller
A San Francisco Chronicle bestseller
Selected for the June 2013 Indie Next List
An AudioFile Editors’ Pick, May 2013
A Publishers Weekly bestseller
A 2013 BookPage Best Book
A 2013 Booklist Editors’ Choice for Adult Books
In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Khaled Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honour, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek Island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Transports you whole into the otherworldly realms Hosseini builds in Kabul, Paris, San Francisco, and the Greek islands. . . . There's something primary and beautiful about the simple desire to get lost in a story, and Hosseini is an expert manufacturer of that experience. —Harper’s Bazaar
The story that Khaled Hosseini tells in And the Mountains Echoed is one of loss and love—in that order. At its heart, this tale spells out what happens when a brother and sister are torn apart as children—a father’s choice to do what he hopes is the right thing. . . . Hosseini masterfully moves the story between Afghanistan and Paris, with side trips to the United States and Greece. . . . It’s only toward the end of this beautiful tale of family that Hosseini reveals more about Abdullah, still devoted to his long-gone sister and still, somehow, hoping they will be reunited. ‘ “She was perfect,” he would say.’ The same might be said of this novel. It’s nearly perfect just as it is. —St. Louis Post Dispatch
Sprawling family saga. —Vanity Fair
Ambitiously expansive. —Vogue
Like a sculptor working in a soft medium, [Hosseini] gently molds and shapes individual pieces that ultimately fit together in a major work. . . . Family matters in ways small and large in this novel. Whether or not the connections are visible, they exist nevertheless. Hosseini seems to be telling us that the way we care is who we are and, ultimately, the face we show to life. —New York Daily News
Haunting. —Houston Chronicle
Wrought with mastery, And the Mountains Echoed is not just a well spun tale, but an accomplishment of the most elusive of literary challenges—the humanization of a war ravaged population in the eyes of the very people complicit in their ruin. —Daily Beast
Hosseini delves into the joys, sorrows, and betrayals that alternately bind and fracture families. Once again, Hosseini’s lovingly rendered Afghanistan takes center stage, but in this book he extends his examination to encompass how the Afghan identity affects his characters’ decisions and lives in unfamiliar environments. —Boston Globe
Compulsively readable, in large part because [Hosseini] probes his characters’ psyches in a nuanced and poetic manner . . . And the Mountains Echoed attains a greater level of complexity than its two predecessors . . . and signals the ongoing maturation of a gifted storyteller. —The Miami Herald
Hosseini . . . is back with his beautiful, often harrowing third novel, And the Mountains Echoed. —Chicago Tribune
My main goal in reading Khaled Hosseini’s new book, And the Mountains Echoed, was to avoid crying. I failed within the first 20 pages. And by the last page, I was bawling. So, yes, much like Hosseini’s earlier works, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, his latest book is bathed in sadness and despair, with the requisite occasional ray of hope. Much like those other two books, And the Mountains Echoed is powerful and haunting. And much like the country it describes, it is not easy to forget. . . . You won’t be able to put it down. To those readers who manage to get through it without shedding a tear, well, I tip my hat. —Associated Press
Readers' tears may fall by first chapter's end . . . Introspective and perfectly paced, Hosseini's microcosmic plot spares no expense with sensory details. Each character . . . captivates. Hosseini skillfully weaves the tapestry with universal elements: human fallibility, innate goodness, perseverance, forgiveness, sexuality, jealousy, companionship, and joy. Yet his words are never sugarcoated: The brutality of life is on display, and people are shown just as they are, for better or worse. Poverty and gender roles leave scars, while shifting points of view reveal Hosseini's prism of truth. The heartbreaks are not intended for shock value, but they do linger. And the Mountains Echoed resonates to the core. —Austin Chronicle
Like [Hosseini’s] previous books, the new novel is a complex mosaic, a portrait of the Afghan diaspora as it is folded into the West and of those left behind. . . . The book is elevated by a strong sense of parable and some finely drawn characters and is inventively constructed as it leaps from voice to voice. —Esquire
Fiction Top Pick . . . Engrossing . . . Ultimately, And the Mountains Echoed is about the human endeavor to transcend difference. —Bookpage
And the Mountains Echoed, is a hit. It’s also a surprisingly nuanced, morally complex, exquisitely told tear-jerker. —Christian Science Monitor
Fiction Top Pick . . . Engrossing . . . Ultimately, And the Mountains Echoed is about the human endeavor to transcend difference. —Bookpage
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In And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini presents a multitude of windows into the souls affected by these events. The novel's rich kaleidoscope of images coalesces around one theme: the powerful and often excruciating legacy of family ties within the maelstrom of history. —Shelf Awareness
Hosseini weaves a gorgeous tapestry of disparate characters joined by threads of blood and fate. . . . In this uplifting and deeply satisfying book, Hosseini displays an optimism not so obvious in his previous works. Readers will be clamoring for it. —Library Journal (starred review)
Early reviews are in and they’ve confirmed what we’ve known all along: Khaled Hosseini’s latest novel, And the Mountains Echoed, is a hit. It’s also a surprisingly nuanced, morally complex, exquisitely told tear-jerker. —Christian Science Monitor
Hosseini returns with an instantly relatable novel that follows generations of a troubled family across the Middle East. —Marie Claire
The beautiful writing, full of universal truths of loss and identity, makes each section a jewel . . . Hosseini’s eye for detail and emotional geography makes this a haunting read. —Publishers Weekly
Captivating and affecting . . . A masterful and compassionate storyteller, Hosseini traces the traumas and scarring of tyranny, war, crime, lies, and illness in the intricately interconnected, heartbreaking, and transcendent lives of his vibrantly realized characters to create a grand and encompassing tree of life. —Booklist (starred review)
There is an assured, charismatic new maturity to Hosseini's voice. When he hits his stride, the results are electrifying. —San Francico Chronicle
The genius of Khaled Hosseini's novels—including his best-selling The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, as well as his latest, the masterly And the Mountains Echoed—is that they pull off the neat trick of embodying and transcending the essence of a place. . . . This is an exquisite novel, a must-read for anyone with an interest in what it means to be alive, anywhere and everywhere. —USA Today
The Kite Runner author’s latest is a moving saga about sacrifice, betrayal, and the power of family. . . . More expansive than The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the novel spans three generations and includes overlapping tales of expatriates and aid workers, parents and children, doctors and drug lords. Hosseini shows how easy it is for people to brutalize or abandon those they should protect. But his ultimate achievement is demonstrating the power and persistence of family. —People (4 stars)
“This achingly beautiful book about love, family, and the choices we make to survive…globe trots around the heart.” —Family Circle
[Hosseini’s] beautifully written, masterfully crafted new book, And the Mountains Echoed, spans nearly 60 years of Afghan history as it investigates the consequences of a desperate act that scars two young lives and resonates through many others. . . . And the Mountains Echoed is painfully sad but also radiant with love: the enduring bond of a brother and sister; the irritable but bedrock connection of cousins; the quiet intimacy of master and servant who become friends; the commitment of a doctor and nurse to war's victims. To underscore love's centrality and contingency, Hosseini closes with an image drawn from a dream: a snapshot of bygone happiness all the more precious in retrospect because we know how fragile it is. —Los Angles Times
[Hosseini’s] most assured and emotionally gripping story yet . . . Hosseini’s narrative gifts have deepened over the years. . . . [And the Mountains Echoed] grapples with many of the same themes that crisscross his early novels: the relationship between parents and children, and the ways the past can haunt the present. And it shares a similar penchant for mapping terrain midway between the boldly colored world of fable and the more shadowy, shaded world of realism… [W]e finish this novel with an intimate understanding of who his characters are and how they’ve defined themselves over the years through the choices they have made between duty and freedom, familial responsibilities and independence, loyalty to home and exile abroad… a deeply affecting choral work… a testament both to his intimate knowledge of their inner lives, and to his power as an old-fashioned storyteller. —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
I’m not an easy touch when it comes to novels, but Hosseini’s new book, And the Mountains Echoed, had tears dropping from my eyes by Page 45. . . . It’s hard to do justice to a novel this rich in a short review. There are a dozen things I still want to say — about the rhyming pairs of characters, the echoing situations, the varied takes on honesty, loneliness, beauty and poverty, the transformation of emotions into physical ailments. Instead, I’ll just add this: Send Hosseini up the bestseller list again. —Washington Post
With his third and most ambitious novel yet, Hosseini makes it clear that he's not ready to rest on his Big Name. . . . While it hits all the Hosseini sweet spots—nostalgia, devastating details, triumph over the odds—And the Mountains Echoed covers more ground, both geographically and emotionally, than his previous works. It's not until Hosseini makes the novel small again, for the poignant conclusion, that you fully appreciate what he's accomplished. —Entertainment Weekly (A)
And the Mountains Echoed opens like a thunderclap. . . . [Hosseini] asks good, hard questions about the limits of love. . . . Love, Hosseini seems to say, is the great leveler, cutting through language, class, and identity. No one in this gripping novel is immune to its impact. —O, the Oprah Magazine
“A moving saga about sacrifice,
betrayal, and the power of family…Hosseini shows how easy it is for people to brutalize or
abandon those they should protect. But his ultimate achievement is
demonstrating the power and persistence of family.”
—People (four stars)
“And the Mountains Echoed opens like a thunderclap…[Hosseini] asks
good, hard questions about the limits of love…Love, Hosseini seems to say, is
the great leveler, cutting through language, class, and identity. No one in
this gripping novel is immune to its impact.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“This is an exquisite novel, a
must-read for anyone with an interest in what it means to be alive, anywhere
and everywhere.”
—USA Today
“His third and
most ambitious novel…hits all the Hosseini sweet spots—nostalgia,
devastating details, triumph over the odds...[but] covers more ground, both geographically and emotionally.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“[Hosseini’s] most
assured and emotionally gripping story yet…A testament both to his intimate knowledge of their inner
lives, and to his power as an old-fashioned storyteller.”
—New York Times
“And
the Mountains Echoed is powerful and haunting. And much like the country it
describes, it is not easy to forget.”
—Associated Press
“Transports you whole
into the otherworldly realms Hosseini builds in Kabul, Paris, San Francisco,
and the Greek islands.”
—Harper’s
“[Hosseini’s]
beautifully written, masterfully crafted new book…And the Mountains Echoed is painfully sad but also radiant
with love.” —Los Angeles Times
“Hosseini delves into
the joys, sorrows, and betrayals that alternately bind and fracture families.”
—Boston Globe
“There is an assured,
charismatic new maturity to Hosseini’s voice. When he hits his stride, the
results are electrifying.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Beautiful, often harrowing.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A complex mosaic, a portrait of the Afghan
diaspora as it is folded into the West and of those left behind…The book is
elevated by a strong sense of parable and some finely drawn characters and is
inventively constructed as it leaps from voice to voice.”
—Esquire
“Wrought with
mastery, And the Mountains Echoed is
not just a well spun tale, but an accomplishment of the most elusive of
literary challenges—the humanization of a war-ravaged population in the eyes of
the very people complicit in their ruin.”
—Daily Beast
“A surprisingly nuanced, morally complex, exquisitely told
tearjerker.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Captivating and
affecting…Hosseini traces the
traumas and scarring of tyranny, war, crime, lies, and illness in the
intricately interconnected, heartbreaking, and transcendent lives of his
vibrantly realized characters.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Hosseini weaves a
gorgeous tapestry of disparate characters joined by threads of blood and fate…Uplifting and deeply satisfying.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“The beautiful
writing, full of universal truths of loss and identity, makes each section a
jewel…A haunting
read.”
—Publishers Weekly
Reviews
Reviews
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Moving, but it isn't perfect...
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Damn, And the Mountains Echoed made me cry. I just finished it. Gosh, why did it upset me so much?! And will others react as I have? Is it just stupid me? I can point at a million things that are wrong with the book....and yet, it has done something right since it has undeniably moved me. Rarely do books make me cry.
OK, here is what I think is going on, in my head and in my heart:
I will start with what is simple, but very important. This is the first book I have listened to where I would advise very strongly that you read the paper book rather than listen to the audio version. There are three narrators: the author (Khaled Hosseini), a woman (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and a second male narrator (Navid Negahban). The latter two slur English words to such an extent that you must decipher what is being said by the context of the words. Cheek sounds like chick; swim sounds like "sweem"; breeze sounds like bees; words sounds like wards; shut sounds like shot; launches sounds like lunches. Must I go on? The woman's voice is so muted that you must increase the volume. I liked Hosseini's reading of the introductory fairy tale, but then later he enunciates every darn letter. Quite simply, the narration is unprofessional. Furthermore, why in the world have they even bothered to use three different narrators? The book shifts to different locations around the world - France, Greece and the US. I would have preferred three narrators: one fluent in French, one in Greek and one in American, or just one narrator that speaks fluent English. They all spoke what I think was meant to be English with an Afghan accent; let's just say poor English. Some of the characters lived in France since their early youth. The narration is so poor that it detracts from one's appreciation of the author's words. Read the paper book!
This book is about an Afghan family, starting at the end of the 40s and ending a decade into the 21st Century. It is about the how the 20th Century has split families. It isn't unusual today to find members of one family spread all over the world. What does this do to us? And what is the essence of family....if we do not live near each other and if we do not have daily contact, hands on contact. Are we still bound to each other? Does family remain family?
The book begins with a bedtime story, which is as I originally thought the central message of the entire book. So pay attention. The beginning is also the best part of the book, because there in the beginning you most intimately rub shoulders with the main characters. These characters will have children and grandchildren and spouses and friends and you never really come to know them as you do the first ones. The central theme of the book IS based on the choices that are made by the first characters we meet. Later chapters deal with one family and then another family or friend. They can almost be seen as separate stories, but yes they do all come together at the end. The problem is that the book does not succeed in bringing all of these diverse stories to life. Neither are all the different places brought to life. Afghanistan was well portrayed, but not Paris, not California, not Greece! The book tries to do too much. Or is it that Hosseini has best captured that which he knows best? I will credit him in his attempt to show what happens to "family" in today's globalized world.
But none of the above is really what brought the tears to my eyes. We love someone, and even if we try our hardest to make the best choices, even if we sacrifice our own personal needs, still one can be left with such emptiness. Sometimes that emptiness simply cannot be filled. Sometimes we try our best, but so much is misunderstood. Life is damn messy. There can be a wonderful blessing in forgetting. I know that sounds crazy, but it is true. The book explains this better than I have.
Author
Author Bio: Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. His first novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, published in forty countries. In 2006 he was named a US envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. He lives in Northern California.
Titles by Author
Details
Details
| Available Formats : | Digital Download |
| Category: | Fiction |
| Runtime: | 14.02 |
| Audience: | Adult |
| Language: | English |
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