And the mountains echoed by Khaled Hosseini

"And the mountains echoed" by Khaled Hosseini. This book is published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2013 and has 416 pages. This is Khaled Hosseini's third book.

Pari & Abdulla are siblings. Their mother is dead and father has remarried. Abdulla is five years older and takes care of Pari like a mother. One day they go to Kabul and Abdulla loses Pari. Nabi works as driver, cook and helper to Suleiman Wahdati & his wife Neela. Years later, in Paris, Pari's mother dies. Pari becomes older and gets a call from Dr. Markus from Afghanistan.

What is Suleiman's secret? Why does Abdulla lose Pari? Will Pari retrace her routes? Can she unearth her past?

Is this the story of Pari or Abdulla or Parwana or Nabi or Idris or Markus or another Pari? Well, it's not of any one of them but of all of them. And that's why it appears a bit scattered. Khaled Hosseini has a knack of story telling. In this book he has woven a number of stories and presented us a garland of a novel. Common thread that runs through this garland is Afghanistan and human emotions.

This novel covers more than 60 years. It starts around 1947 or so and continues till  present day. This is a very big time period to cover. Consequently some periods are covered superficially. Half way through the book, Pari's story is narrated in a staccato burst. Very fast, without making it interesting, like a news bulletin with multiple time leaps.

This book includes stories of a number of people. Although the stories are loosely related the book makes a riveting reading. This book is like a kaleidoscope. A number of items come together to form a beautiful design, though it may not be entirely cohesive. Every time you turn it you find a new design that is hardly repeated again. At the end you can not name one design that you saw just that you saw beautiful designs.

A good book. Read if you have liked previous books of Khaled Hosseini.