I recently finished reading this beautiful book by Khaled Hosseini. This is his third book and a highly anticipated one considering how beloved The Kite Runner and A 1000 Splendid Suns were. Pressure was surely on him to deliver another masterpiece but I got to hear what the thought process was behind this new book after I got the chance to be among the audience to whom he exclusively gave details during his Book Promotion tour here in Toronto. He did say that he felt the pressure but that he was able to close it off and write this book for himself. He said that while he is blessed to have touched so many millions of life across the world,his true intention behind writing has always been about himself. As to something he would read and feel 100% connected to. I think that's a great way to approach a piece of work when it comes to writing. You can feel the genuine emotions throughout. This is a picture of me getting my book signed with him:
Blurry but at least I was able to convey my genuine love for his work. As for the book itself, surely it wasn't on par with what has to be one of my all time favorite, The Kite Runner. That being said, it was a book that yet again touched me in ways I wouldn't have really thought about, let alone feel it. Without giving away any spoilers, the story basically begins with a heart-wrenching allegory which acts as a backdrop for the whole book followed by the equally painful separation between a pair of sibling. Pair being that of Abdullah and his younger sister of 3 years old, Pari. What follows across the book is what really happened in the lives of those involved. No one life is without its share of pain and misery and the ones that Khaled highlighted throughout were something that are recurring in our society but goes under the radar because of how common they have become. It delves into areas of betrayal, cheating, limitless love, suppression, shallow rush of emotion and many other. But it's the beautiful way of his story telling that really made you take all these instances and feel something more than what you would have imagined before under similar circumstances.
One recurring theme was the fact that at times we get adrenaline rush out of things that come out of nowhere. Maybe you finally hear that your long lost sibling for over couple of decades is still alive. Or maybe you happen to be a doctor who can treat a patient without which that patient may well give up on life. You have all these instances where you want to make a difference and you want to make it right now. But then due to the circumstances that you may face, that rush starts to die. It isn't as exhilarating as it was initially. It feels so distant now. Might as well give up on making the difference happen at all. And that's what happened and Khaled highlighted this common occurrence with great subtlety. Subtlety because we all have faced such rush of emotion to do something that would be deemed of high value to not only ourselves but those around us and that we too at times just give up on it,making countless excuses to just simply back out of it and make it seem less important. The failure to make those desires come true does come back to haunt us at a later time in life and this book portrayed that haunting feel rather impeccably well.
Here are some great quotes that I felt really were the highlights for me:
This is a book that I am going to recommend just because of how simple it is yet filled with great moments that sometimes end with great pain or with immense joy. Both are subjective terms because what might have been painful for you may well be an optimistic closure for me, but you'll understand what I mean once you read it.
Rating: 9/10
