But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

That’s a quote from And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, which I just finished reading. It’s certainly a true sentence and this year off has taught me that very well. There are only six weeks left of my sabbatical and I keep thinking, where did the time go?! I know I’ve done a lot during this time off, but I feel I haven’t done as much as I wanted. Sooo many things I planned for, sooo many things left to do. You never have as much time as you think.

In any case, I wanted to write a combined review of And the Mountains Echoed and A Thousand Splendid Suns because they are very different books by the same author. I got through both books in about three days and have very different reactions to them.

First, I absolutely loved A Thousand Splendid Suns. Hosseini is an amazing writer, and I couldn’t put it down. Thank you Charlene, for lending me the book! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get to it, but I’m glad I did. It is a story about two women whose lives intersect in extraordinary ways in Afghanistan. It is a story of love, sacrifice, motherhood, and hope. It is a sad story (I cried several times) and for a feminist like me, soo frustrating throughout the book to read about violence against women, male dominance, and societal structures that just don’t make sense to me. I kept reading and reading as things got worse and worse, and I just kept thinking, “There better be a happy ending to this!” I won’t say if there was, but, damn, the book is heartwrenching and gripping and so worth the read. I hear there is a movie about to be made as well, so I’ll watch out for that.

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns prior to reading And the Mountains Echoed, and I expected the same type of story arc. I was a little disappointed when I didn’t get it though. And the Mountains Echoed is a great novel, but it wasn’t as enthralled with it as A Thousand Splendid Suns, mostly because I didn’t feel all of the characters connected as much as I would’ve liked. It was more or less nine or 10 different short stories with some familiar characters overlapping, but I think it lacked an overall major story which weaved its way into the others. I felt because the stories were told from very different viewpoints in each chapter that it was difficult to connect all of them. I also felt one story, about Markos, was very unnecessary and took up so much space for a character that had a small but very meaningful role in the book. I wanted to know more about Pari and Abdullah, a sister and brother in rural Afghanistan who lose their extremely close bond when their father sells Pari to a wealthy family in Kabul. I wanted to know more about Nabi and Mr. Wahdati’s relationship which spanned something like 50 years with both never really truly happy until the end. Their stories were too rushed though, I thought, when they should’ve been the focus. All the other characters’ story lines could’ve been shorter. In any case, I would still recommend reading it, because as I said, Hosseini is a great storyteller and the themes he addressed of family and loyalty and the way each of the characters handle both are both amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.

In any case, it’s been great to read again during the sabbatical. I have a lot more time on my hands since the municipal election ended and in between wine tastings and watching Hannibal, I’ve carved out lots of time in my day to read.

Since I’m here, I thought I should write quick reviews of the other books I’ve read and have yet to comment on.

So, I know I promised not to read a political book, but I simply couldn’t resist picking up Common Ground, by JT. It was an easy read and I enjoyed learning a few new things about the future PM. 🙂 I think it was strategically good for him to write this now and try to define who he is in his own words and what sets him apart, but I think he tried too hard to distinguish himself from his father, and picked at too many little things to try to show he was a leader. The one thing that resonated with me, however, was his use of ‘common ground’ as a way to define his party’s way forward. He wrote that Canada works because of our differences, and it’s the only country on earth to do so. There is ‘common ground’ among all of us that makes this beautiful country work, and it’s what has united us and will continue to in the future, despite the track we have gone down in the last 10 years. One line in the book reminded me of a comment one of the Brazilian volunteers I was working with in Nepal said to me. He said he was mistaken for being Canadian and he asked if he looked Canadian. I said yes, because Canadians look Brazilian like you and they look Lao like me, and they look Nepali, but we are all Canadian. It reminded me of the time we went to a Canada Day party at my friends Natalie and Nic’s place, both of whom are permanent residents from Ireland and France respectively. It amazed me that they embraced their adopted country so wholeheartedly and I remember thinking this is the essence of what Canada is. This is our shared identity and it’s something we should be proud of to share in, rather than exploiting our differences for political gains here and there. In any case, I won’t go too much into it because, well, I want to steer clear of federal politics for the time being, but I would recommend it as good, light reading but with serious issues to consider.

While I was in Nepal, I also read Dear Life, by Alice Munroe and Inside, by Alix Ohlin. I read Dear Life very shortly after reading Unaccustomed Earth, and was severely disappointed. Dear Life is a collection of short stories similar to Unaccustomed Earth, but without the intrigue and emotional connection. I wanted to read it because Munroe had just won the Nobel prize for literature. It is an okay book, but I didn’t relate to any of the stories (a lot of them were about people in rural Canada in the 1950s and I just couldn’t get into them) and some of them seemed to just end abruptly. I wasn’t attached to any of the characters and really didn’t want to read more. Of course it is well written but I guess it just wasn’t my kind of novel.

Inside, however, was better. I started reading it on my last day in Nepal, after I returned from Bhutan and getting ready to come home. It is a book about psychology and mental illness. All of the characters are interwoven nicely together, it is well written and way better Canadian fiction than Dear Life. Mental illness fascinates me mostly because I don’t understand it, so I want to keep reading to find out ‘why.’ This book certainly did that for me. I would recommend it!

And finally, I also read Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, by Helen Fielding. The book picks up where the last Bridget Jones book ends, but sadly, there is no happily ever after for Bridget and Mark Darcy. I wanted to see how Fielding would write this book and it is true to the previous books. It’s an interesting mix with the two kids she has, but otherwise, it’s old, clumsy, clueless, over-the-top Bridget back with her shenanigans. I did miss Mark in it though and the ending was kind of abrupt which I didn’t like. I won’t say why (it has to do with a boy) but it still full of laughs and comedic adventures. Daniel Cleaver also makes intermittent appearances which also added to the humour. It was an easy, light book to read which I enjoyed as you can tell from the others I’ve read this year, this was the only one that was funny and not so serious. It was a nice departure and I would recommend it if you are a fan of the series. If you’re not, it’s likely too ridiculous for you to enjoy it. 🙂

And, that’s it. That’s eight books so far that I’ve read, not close to the 20 I wanted to read originally, but seriously way more than I’ve read in likely the last five years!! There are still six weeks left and I will continue reading fiction as much as I can!

–Bea