Through all of this, the aspects of Hosseini’s work most responsible for that critical sniffiness are certainly present too: the broad-brush characterisation, the occasional descents into pure schlock, the less-than-startling aperçus. Defying the old rule about not introducing important characters near the end of a novel, Hosseini gives the last chapter to someone we haven’t met before, who, in 2010, finally brings the opening quest back to centre stage. From there, he gives the same detailed treatment to, among others, two boyhood neighbours of the Wadhatis’ returning to Afghanistan in 2003 after decades in America a Greek aid worker visiting his old mother back home and a Mujahadeen drugs lord. Instead, we now move to 1949 for a comprehensive account of the troubled relationship of another pair of local siblings, who then disappear from the novel almost completely.īut, as it turns out, Hosseini is barely clearing his throat. In chapter two, we realise why he chose this particular tale: the next day he sets off with son Abdullah and daughter Pari to Kabul, where, to Abdullah’s horror, he gives the girl away to a wealthy couple called the Wahdatis.Īt this point, a naive reader might well think that the rest of the book will consist of Abdullah’s quest to get his beloved younger sister back.

The nine chapters, each set in a different time and/or place, naturally contain plenty of material that’s relevant to the main plotlines - but also quite a lot that seems to be there largely for its own sake.Ĭhapter one, for example, is a bedtime story told by a rural Afghan father in 1952 about a poor farmer forced to give away one of his children to a horned giant. In fact, the biggest difference from Hosseini’s earlier books is simply that we get a lot more of all of them - to such an extent that at times it feels as if he has more narrative here than he knows what to do with. Sure enough, this is another thumping, family-based, Afghanistan-centred saga that features exile, regret and long-lost relatives across several decades.

The debate is unlikely to be cleared up by And the Mountains Echoed, where all the elements that made his name are again firmly in place. Ukraine’s next move: can Putin be outsmarted?

Khalid hussain and the mountains echoed