And the Monutains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

'A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.’

 'So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one. Don't either of you ask for me. It's late, and we have a long day of travel ahead of us, Pari, you and I.'

I bet to my friend that this time, I will not cry after reading Khaled's new book. In the first 20 pages, I lost that bet.

What did I think? I don't know exactly. Like his two other books, Hosseini is an excellent storyteller. He's great with words and produces images that flow like poetry. The story is touching, emotional and speaks of life's hardships and the difficult choices one must make. If you don't happen to shed a tear at some point while reading, you're heartless. He captures your emotions from the very first page. You find yourself transported to 1950's Afghanistan where you smile, cry, and feel pity right alongside the unfortunate characters in this book. But Hosseini tried something different with "And The Mountains Echoed" and that was incorporating a slew of different characters as opposed to just two, like he did in his last two books, and I don't know if it worked out too well. Some people could have been mentioned in passing, or not even at all, as opposed to dedicating whole chapters to them, such as Markos and Thalia's story. Also the Bashiri cousins seemed unnecessary. Even though these characters were unique in their own way and provided food for thought regarding their plights, I still felt like these chapters dragged on when I was more concerned about what was happening with the others. It was like Hosseini deliberately sucked us in, made us get cozy with Saboor and his family just to rip them away from us and branch off onto some completely different writing exercise. As the reader, I just couldn't reshape my feelings to feel another strong connection to these new characters. Regarding the writing style, the book spanned over several generations and then spoke in the first person from the point of view of different characters from the next generation which got confusing at first, especially as he jumps between past and present and even geographical locations. Furthermore, he squeezed in a subplot with Iqbal and the commander and it came off sounding short and incomplete. I feel like the author could have dedicated more pages developing and telling the story of the characters we already got to know and love in the beginning, rather than introducing new, unnecessary ones halfway through the book. This format Hosseini used left a lot of open ends and a kind of longing, leaving the reader unsatisfied.

Not my favorite out of the three but still an enjoyable read

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

“Do you know what the definition of insane is? Yes. It’s the inability to relate to another human being. It’s the inability to love.” – Revolutionary Road


It was an early morning of October 2012. I slept late the other night, and when I was wide awake in my thoughts, I read the pages of the story which I was writing at that time. I read all the 178 pages and didn't find it exciting. Not a single word. Everything was something gimmick from from other writers. Every feeling was not true. I wanted to write something which defined me, which can shout in front of the world and say that This is truely me. This is what I am and These are the reasons why I am writing something. With this thought, and hatred for my own work, I tried to sleep.

When I woke up next morning, my friend suggested me to read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I had already seen the film and found LEonardo's acting very very touching. He was indeed the true Frank Wheeler. I started reading the book, I read, I read and I read. I just couldn't control myself from turning the pages. I read it in one sitting and that's when I knew, What I wanted to write. I wanted a family drama like that one.A relationship which Frank and his wife, April shares is what I wanted to write. This is what, I wanted to feel from inside.

Most of Revolutionary Road’s characters stare at themselves in mirrors with a glint of recognition of mediocrity before they relapse into self-delusion. Self-reflection is a recurring motif. Frank and April are in desperate need of self-revelation and self-revolution. To quote another Yeats, “Surely some revelation is at hand.”

In the 300-plus pages of the novel, nothing all that extraordinary happens to them, at least not until the end: Frank and April deal with dissatisfaction and fear, with pregnancy and ambition, and with the dream of escape. Yet in spite of this lack of surface pizazz, Revolutionary Road seems, each time I read it, ever more moving, and ever more an essential testament about mid-20th century America.

Richard Yates was a famously pessimistic writer, and there's no question that Revolutionary Road, while a hugely pleasurable read, is not an easy one emotionally. Every time I read it, I start to see the world the way Yates did: the clothes hanging on my clothesline begin to look a little shabby, my small living apartment in some desperate need of repair. But that's a small price to pay for Yates' clarity. The deeper I get into the life of marriage and parenthood — Yates' special territory — the more essential I find that clarity to be.

Manuscript Found in Accra

I loved reading The Alchemist a few years back so when the chance came along to read Manuscript Found in Accra, I jumped at the chance. A philosophical literary story, it is a short book at 190 pages, packed with many words of advice that although I was reminded of the books of wisdom from the bible, didn't quite speak to me in the same way.

On the eve of battle, the people who chose to stay and fight, gathered to hear what the Copt and a Rabbi, Iman and Christian priest, leaders of the three religions in Jerusalem had to say about the battle. But rather than prepare battle, the Copt wanted the people to question and talk about how they felt.

"None of us can know what tomorrow will hold, because each day has its good and its bad moments. So, when you ask your questions, forget about the troops outside and the fear inside. Our task is not to leave a record of what happened on this date for those who will inherit the Earth; history will take care of that. Therefore, we will speak about your daily lives, about the difficulties we have had to face. That is all the future will be interested, because I do not believe very much will change in the next thousand years."

And went on to address questions about defeat, solitude, feelings of uselessness, afraid of changing, beauty, which direction to take, love, fate, sex, elegance, luck, miracles, anxiety, the future, loyalty, and enemies. What do you suppose would be the questions on your mind the night before a battle? Certainly not most of those. Given that it is fiction, I couldn't help feeling that many of the things said by the Copt was new age platitudes and fatalistic thinking, since the majority of people expected to die the next day in the siege. I unfortunately didn't appreciate the story as much as I had The Alchemist. Perhaps if it had been written into a story with action, rather than just a question and answer session, it would have been better.