A moving book but not everyone’s cup of tea?

WHILE LECTURING our tiny class of 16 students, sociologist and author Andre Beitelle had remarked, “There are two types of people in this world. Those who like a happy ending and those who prefer a less happy one. What you read determines who you are.” He was speaking in half-jest, of course, while trying to make us see the alleged “beauty” in Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism, eminently more confusing when compared to the easy-peasy read of Emile Durkheim’s Five Rules of Sociological Method. Our good professor was joking, yet I believed he had made a wise statement. Books we read—ones we keep going back to— manifest how we are as people. Do you see what I am doing here? I am pulling a Linda Goodman. I am stating that if your afternoon demands an Agatha Christie along with an accompaniment of pickles— or if you read The Book Thief too early in the morning and looked haunted for the rest of the day—or never read one of the Great Books at dusk; you must be a biped! (Personally, I never read a Marquez too late in the morning or a Coetzee too early in the night.) After reading And the Mountains Echoed, I’ve decided— well, not to read another Khaled Hosseini, altogether. Unless I can help it. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with Hosseini. The fault lies (squarely) with me. After much introspection I’ve come to realise that as a particular “type” of a reader / person, I can not (and I have tried really hard) invest myself into Hosseini’s narrative style as faithfully as he demands of me. I am a Hosseini first-timer. Not having read the earlier (equally hardhitting I am told) Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns there is no point of reference, for me, to the author’s usual “style”. So, it would be foolish and arrogant on my part to comment on readers / people who take an interest in stories which Hosseini presents, and so, no ‘hardhitting’ analysis here. But having read the book, I am left with a niggling feeling that Hosseini’s readers come from the “western” part of the world. While reading an earlier interview, my suspicions were partly confirmed. But Hosseini is not only read by a chunk of western audi-ence, he is also a gateway for a lot of Afghan expats scattered across the world. The author is a ticket “home”, and the good doctor plays his part earnestly. No one can blame Dr Hosseini of trying to “fake it”. A humanitarian with an international repute, born and raised in Kabul, Hosseini is not out to exploit situations or his people for the sake of his stories. It does seem that his intentions are to put stories of his people out there. The problem is how he chooses to do so; via a merciless piling up of tragedies till a reader gets a little paranoid to turn the page and—I am embarrassed to add—just a little bored and jaded. I am more than vaguely aware of the state of affairs in this world. Yes, our world is tough—merciless, if you will. There is demise—of people, relationships, meaning—everywhere. Does that mean that there should be death of pithy writing as well? Does every event need to be hammered out over five pages when five lines could suffice? And The Mountains Echoed fell short of my expectations as it dragged on, mulling over tertiary, secondary stories to ultimately lose the main plot which was to be the story of brother-sister duo Abdullah and Pari. And The Mountains Echoed started beautifully enough, full of promise, with a nursery rhyme and a magical and poignant bedtime fairy tale told by a father to his two children. As I progressed through the chapters, I lost myself in a labyrinthine network of secondary stories and somewhere in the middle—I lost my patience as well. At the end, I was moved, till I felt like picking up Laleh Khadvi’s The Walking again and give that a thorough read. Once more, it is not Dr Hosseini’s fault. He is just not my mid-morning or midnight author.