It was you, Nabi.
It was always you.
Didn't you know ?
The first time I came across these lines while reading And The Mountains Echoed I thought to myself "That's really sweet." But when those exact same lines returned later in the novel, they totally floored me. Because like Nabi, I didn't know. And looking back, the clues were all there I just didn't see them. When an author can completely surprise his readers by taking a literary theme as common as a love triangle and turn it completly on its' head, he is to be highly commended. Bravo Khaled Hosseini ! And this occurs in just the first third of the novel. Believe me when I say, Hosseini delivers again and again. An awesome novel ! ( )

I give this four stars because although the book was fascinating and beautifully written, ultimately all its separate parts felt disjointed to me. The stories of Parwana, Markos, Adel, and Idris seemed unnecessary. It was jarring to have the narrator's voice change because it sometimes took several pages to figure out who the voice belonged to and what the connection was to the story at the beginning of the book. It's quite possible I thought the book should've been about Abdullah and Pari (and their ancestors/descendants), but Hosseini's intention was to tell a broader story, in which case I just didn't "get" it. ;) ( )

Tri romana u jednoj knjizi.

Nakon objavljivanja svog prvog romana Lovac na zmajeve Haled Hoseini je postao svojevrsno književno cudo i osvojio srca miliona citalaca. Glavna tema njegovih romana je porodica, stoga su i price koje nam pripoveda univerzalno zanimljive. S druge strane, rec je o avganistanskim porodicama, te je u kulturološkom i istorijskom kontekstu njihova sudbina specificna. Dok se u romanu Lovac na zmajeve bavi ulogom muškarca u porodici i avganistanskom društvu, roman Hiljadu cudesnih sunaca posvecen je avganistanskim majkama i ženama. Treci roman, A planine odjeknuše, opisuje odnos izmedu brata i sestre u porodici koja je radi opstanka morala biti razdvojena.

Sam autor obrazlaže izbor ovakve teme za svoja književna dela recima: „To je uglavnom zato što mislim da se sve velike životne teme, sve ljudske teme mogu naci unutar porodicnih prica – ljubav, tuga, sukob, dužnost, žrtvovanje. A ipak, one se odvijaju razlicito od porodice do porodice, i svaka ima sopstvenu strukturu, dinamiku i zapaljive suprotnosti, bez obzira na to koliko su zasnovane na ljubavi. I zato postoje beskonacne varijacije na temu. Porodice su za mene zagonetke koje se odgonetaju citavog života – cesto neuspešno – i volim da istražujem kako ljudi u njima pokušavaju da se povežu, kroz ljubav, dužnost ili splet okolnosti.“

Oni koji su vec citali Hoseinijeve romane znaju da se njihova snaga krije u recima ispisanim bez laži, ukrasa ili prenemaganja. Surova je stvarnost o kojoj piše, i bolna, ali i kada prikazuje portret jedne ranjene zemlje i ljudi cije su sudbine unapred zavijene u veo tuge, on u nama budi izuzetnu empatiju i osecanje katarze.

„Majstorsko pripovedacko tkanje... Hoseini je pisac od cije veštine zastaje dah.“ Evening Standard

„Hoseini poseduje onaj redak dar, dikensovski osecaj za pricu.“ Daily Telegraph

„Strastvena, žestoka, potresna i životna proza.“ Image

Liked it a lot, maybe I should have started with the author's two previous books to be able to give it a more substantial review. Or maybe I should not call this a review, just my personal thoughts about the book itself, so here goes...

The author had a way with words, that's for sure, depicting personal tragedies, deep feelings, impressions of the characters in the book. The story flows with perfect balance between happy and sad, childlike thoughts and mature understandings, almost all the characters contributed something to build the naration of the book, making the story complete from the beginning to end, how a story (from several stories of several main characters) coming to different closures for each of them.

There are not too many characters in the book for me, they did have their own stories and reading them was like 'Ok, let's get back to the start but instead of taking the street to the right, let's take the one to the left, or let's go straight, and see what happens when we get there".

I just wish that the author gave a more in depth, more structural way, more complete 'room' for each characters in the book to expand themselves, to let them imprint something more memorable other than just mentioning them in the middle of the book, a chapter or two, and then just dropped them when we began to think 'I can't wait to know what happened with 'A' or 'B' in the next chapter of the book..."

Because when I finished the book I thought to myself "Good for A/B, or maybe not so good for A/B in the end, even sad. But whatever happened to C or D or E?

But, yes, it was a very good book, liked it a lot, and made me wanting to read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. ( )

Loved it! Great writer! ( )