J’aurais dû être plus gentille—I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.” A character in the story Saboor tells his children, Baba Ayub is a simple farmer forced to make an impossible choice: he must sacrifice one of his own children to appease an evil creature, the… As for Abdullah, he ends up in California, running a restaurant called Abe’s Kabob House. He and his wife have named their only child Pari, after his long-lost sister, and the younger Pari will dream of reuniting her father with his missing sibling. After her mother dies, and her father begins to suffer from dementia, Pari decides to postpone her dreams of going to art school to take care of Abdullah.

He walked for many, many days. He walked until the sun was a faint red glow in the distance. Nights, he slept in caves as the wind whistled outside. Or else he slept beside rivers and beneath trees and among the cover of boulders. He ate his bread, and then he ate what he could find—wild berries, mushrooms, fish that he caught with his bare hands from streams—and some days he didn’t eat at all. But still he walked. When passersby asked where he was going, he told them, and some laughed, some hurried past for fear he was a madman, and some prayed for him, as they too had lost a child to the div. Baba Ayub kept his head down and walked. When his shoes fell apart, he fastened them to his feet with strings, and when the strings tore he pushed forward on bare feet. In this way, he traveled across deserts and valleys and mountains. I can’t do it,” she said to her husband, shaking her head. “I cannot be the one to choose. I couldn’t bear it.” The beautiful, troubled wife of Mr. Suleiman Wahdati, Mrs. Nila Wahdati is an unpredictable, romantic, and undeniably talented woman. When she first appears in the early chapters of the novel, she’s desperate to have… Saboor’s bedtime story to his children opens the book. To what degree does this story help justify Saboor’s heart-wrenching act in the next chapter? In what ways do other characters in the novel use storytelling to help justify or interpret their own actions? Think about your own experiences. In what ways do you use stories to explain your own past?All her life, Mr. Hosseini writes, Pari has felt “the absence of something, or someone, fundamental to her own existence”: sometimes “it was vague, like a message sent across shadowy byways and vast distances, a weak signal on a radio dial, remote, warbled. Other times it felt so clear, this absence, so intimately close it made her heart lurch.” The daughter of Saboor and the brother of Abdullah, Pari plays a major role in more chapters of And the Mountains Echoed than any other character, and so is another contestant for the novel’s… You say you felt a presence, but I only sensed an absence. A vague pain without a source. I was like a patient who cannot tell the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.”

Hawthorne, Fran (May 18, 2013). "Khaled Hosseini's new novel captures the Afghan experience at home and abroad". The National . Retrieved August 25, 2013. I thank you. The div grinned. May I ask what evil I have committed against you so as to warrant death? The chapter is intercut with portions of an interview that Nila gives for a poetry magazine. In the interview, Nila explains that she never had a romantic relationship with Mr. Wahdati, since he was “in love with the chauffeur.” She also talks about her father, a cruel man who often beat her. Shortly after giving the interview, Nila kills herself by slitting her wrists. a b c Pera, Mariam (July 3, 2013). "Khaled Hosseini Discusses Unforeseen Consequences". American Libraries Magazine . Retrieved November 2, 2013. Balee, Susan (June 23, 2013). "Tales 'we're not entitled to' ". Philly.com . Retrieved August 25, 2013.The third chapter is told from the perspective of Parwana, Saboor’s second wife, and Abdullah and Pari’s stepmother. Parwana—as the chapter begins, a single woman, not yet married to Saboor—takes care of her beautiful twin sister, Masooma, who has recently had a horrible accident, and can no longer walk. While they were growing up, Parwana and Masooma were competitive with one another, and Parwana in particular resented Masooma for being prettier and more popular than she. Parwana developed a crush on Saboor, then a young, handsome man. Because Parwana was shy and cautious, Masooma was able to “swoop in” and claim Saboor for herself. Masooma and Saboor became a serious couple, and a few years later, they announced their engagement. Parwana was so jealous that she caused Masooma to fall from a tall tree, causing the injury that left her a paraplegic. For the next few years, Parwana, overcome with guilt, took care of Masooma at all times. Meanwhile, Saboor married another woman, who died while giving birth to Pari. As the chapter comes “full circle,” Parwana learns that Saboor is interested in remarrying, and wants to court her. Masooma, who senses that Parwana and Saboor may become a couple, tells Parwana to leave her. At first, Parwana is reluctant to abandon her sister. Eventually, however, she decides to marry Saboor. She leaves Masooma, and never sees her again. Then all your children would have perished, the div said, for they would have been cursed anyway, fathered as they were by a weak man. A coward who would see them all die rather than burden his own conscience. You say you have no courage, but I see it in you. What you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. For that, I honor you. Valdes, Marcela (May 20, 2013). "Book review: Khaled Hosseini's 'And the Mountains Echoed' is riveting and complex". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 25, 2013 . Retrieved September 5, 2013. I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn't care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.”

The book raises many deep questions about the wavering line between right and wrong, and whether it is possible to be purely "good"—or purely "bad." What do you think after reading the novel: Are good intentions enough to create good deeds? Can positive actions come from selfish motivations? Can bad come from positive intent? How do you think this novel would define a good person? How would you define one? a b c Merschel, Michael (June 7, 2013). "Khaled Hosseini struggled with 'And the Mountains Echoed' ". Dallas News . Retrieved September 5, 2013.The wealthy head of the Wahdati’s household, Mr. Suleiman Wahdati is a mysterious character throughout most of Chapter Four of And the Mountains Echoed. After his wife, Nila Wahdati, and adopted daughter, Pari… They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”