I just finished reading 'And the mountains echoed' literally about 10 minutes ago and I have no stopped crying, while reading the last chapter, I had to keep stopping to dry me tears, blow my nose, and try and stop my heart from aching, because I kid you not my heart was literally hurting; I was struggling to breathe because of the ache in my chest: true story.
It got me wondering, how many writers can do that, physically make us feel the pain? People have their own opinion about their favourite writer, or the one that inflicts the most emotions upon them, but for me it is definitely Hosseini, no other writer has that control over my heart.
I don't want to go into too much detail because I know it is a fairly new book so many people have not read it yet, but I would like to say that with every Hosseini book, I learn more about myself, and definitely after reading 'And the mountains echoed', I have learnt a great deal about the kind of person I am, and want to be.
This book is genius, because it lets you live the life of many different people, who are all linked in some slight way or the other. Perhaps just the smallest of connections they don't know they have to each other, but it exists. It got me thinking, about the stories in our lives. I often walk around and think to myself I wonder what it could be like to live like them? or I wonder how they're feeling? How they got to be who they are?, but I rarely, if ever asked myself the question, how are we linked? Probability wise, we probably aren't linked, but a connection may exist between the two of us in the strangest, slightest of ways, and we may go our entire lives without knowing it exists. Without knowing that a friend of a friend, had a brother who did something, and this had an effect on someone else who's brother I'm currently talking to.
We live in one society, and this reminds me of the great words from Priestly: "...their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do. We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other."
I hated analysing that play for English, but Priestly had a point, a very important point which he tried to teach in the 1940's, and here we are in 2013, still without learning it.
Another thing it loved about the book is how it made you love and appreciate every aspect of your life. Sometimes, we take way too much for granted, and often I find books try to explain without actually explaining it, by making you read between the lines, which is great because it makes you understand the feelings, but the way Hosseini said it, he explained the words, the exact words, that somebody in that situation would feel, didn't just help you understand the character, but helped you be the character. You could live the characters lives properly without just experiencing the same things as them, but by feeling them, and applying these new feelings to a situation in your own life. That's the magic of Khaled Hosseini.
For example, a character in the book says "I'd been blind to a greater truth, which lay unacknowledged and unappreciated, buried deep within my grievances. It was this: that my mother would never leave me."
This line probably has more impact in context, but I'm trying to keep it as spoiler free as possible (if you ever read the book and get to this part, you'll understand). I'm speaking for myself when I say this, obviously different people have different experiences with their parents, but for me: I argue with them a lot, not as much now as we did before, we have a lot of differences, we don't always get along, and I find myself comparing their parenthood to others and thinking why couldn't I have done ballet when I was three? Why couldn't my parents have done this to me? I don't remember my parents doing this for me?, and I never second guessed myself. This was natural, I wasn't being rude, I was just thinking about different prospects of my life, but I was deep down ungrateful and felt cheated upon, and now I realise that was wrong. I was lucky, incredibly lucky, because, as mentioned above, the greatest gift of all goes unnoticed and unappreciated by children like me who've had ups and downs in our family relationships. My parents will never leave me. I know that. I've always known it, but never acknowledged it, but now I do, and I realise that in a world where people are treated cruelly and parents leave their children every day, mine never would. That's the faith I have in them, and it's a good faith, and I thank them for giving it to me, and I thank Hosseini for making me realise it.
Another thing (the same character) said was: "They saw that much of what they were, would be or could be, hinged on the symmetry of their bone structure, the space between their eyes, their chin length, the tip projection of their nose, whether they had an ideal nasofrontal angle or not."
It's been explained to us so many times by the media that beauty isn't everything and it's what's inside that matters (the same media that shows images of what an ideal beautiful person is like), but none describe it the way that Hosseini does. No one really captures the essence of the stupidity of society. The fact that a few millimetres between the nose or a few millimetres on the length of the nose could literally define your place in society? Surely, that's not right?
Further along the book, another quote got me thinking. This time for a different character:
"All my life I have lived like an aquarium fish in the safety of a glass tank, behind a barrier as impenetrable as it has been transparent... I think I have grown accustomed to the glass and am terrified that when it breaks, when I am alone, I will spill out into the wide open unknown and flop around, helpless lost, gasping for breath." I think that summarises life. We're kept so secure for so long, but eventually the security ends and we're forced out into a world that's horrible beyond compare, that's rude and inevitably sucks. It leaves us lost, damaged, frail and weak, the world kills us all. At the same time, I feel as if the world can save us. Hosseini describes a beauty in the world, this particular character gets out into the real world and deals with her glass breaking by finding beauty that gives her the security that she needs, and I believe I can so that too, if I ever get out into the real world like she did. Not just me, but I believe everyone has the ability to find someone or something to cling onto, and in the end, that is the one thing we all really strive for.
I couldn't possibly describe all of the things I felt during the book because it will take far too long and there are far too many feelings for me to write. I feel like a new person after this book, and I think I need some time to recover. It's going to be some time before I can pick up another book and read it, because honestly, I don't want to be disappointed if it's not as good as 'And the mountains echoed'. Eventually I will read another book, and it'll be good, but I have a love and a passion for Khaled Hosseini's books I can get out of no other writer, and so I am desperately waiting for his next book, but preparing myself for disappointment, because we all know how long he takes to get a book out. That being said, we only have three books, but we have three heart-breaking, breath-taking, flawlessly executed, wonderfully sad, and emotionally traumatising books that cannot compare to if we have had ten that weren't as good.
I'll just leave you all with this quote: "I know now that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely and without recourse." and I think this is a basic summary of this book, my feelings towards this book, this world, and the way I believe a large number of people in this world feels.
I feel like I've written some kind of literature essay, but obviously this was more fun because I wasn't analysing, I was understanding. (Maybe this is how English teachers feel?)
I'm also still crying when I think of this book, and I don't know if my heart will ever stop hurting.
I found a sad little fairy
Beneath the shade of a paper tree.
I know a sad little fairy
Who was blown away by the wind one night.
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