Book Review: The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini on amazon.com

Reader Rating: 10/10

Salaam! Have just finished yet another incredibly moving and insightful novel on Afghanistan and its history and culture and peoples: The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. BTW--I got this book as a new hard cover on amazon.com's "New & Used" for about $10 with shipping; there's one listed now for $7.57 + shipping on amazon.com and at abebooks.com there is a paperback version listed for $5.51 + shipping.

This is another book born out of the real-life experience of an Afghan who grew up in the "good old days" under the rule of King Zahir Shar, prior to the first coup staged by the king's cousin Daud in 1973, which in turn led to the communist take-over, the Soviet occupation, the years of bitter internecine mujahedin civil war, and the rise & fall of the Taliban. The story evolves out of the deep, yet tragic, relationship between a young privileged Pashtun boy growing up in Kabul and the son of his father's Hazara servant. The sad history of rival ethnic relations between the Pashtun and Hazara is painstakingly evident, though I believe the novel ultimately attempts to break down the wall of separation (& discrimination) that has existed for so long between these two groups. There is a glimmer of hope by the novel's end, though the agonizing events up to that point have given little reason to expect it.

Kite flying and fighting and "running" (chasing and capturing other kites whose strings have been cut) are one of the factors at the heart of the deep bonds the two boys develop; these activities are also at the heart of the resulting tragic developments in their relationship. Story reading/telling, a father's influence on his son, and a rather "cowardly" search for some sort of redemption are another factors at play in the main character's life--and along the way there are some wonderful insights into the complexities of Afghan family and social life.

This is a story of sin, loss, deception and redemption told in a genuine voice that stirs the soul at very deep levels. A skillfully told first story from a writer whom I trust we will hear much more from in the near future.

-------------
The Kite Runner
By Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead, $24.95
368 pages, ISBN 1573222453

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption. And it is also about the power of fathers over sons -- their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvasses of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject -- the devastating history of Afghanistan over the past thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.

Read Chapter One

 ==============================================
"Here’s a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan’s tragic recent past . . . Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible."
==============================================

An Afghan hounded by his past
Khaled Hosseini's shattering debut work, The Kite Runner, is the first novel to fictionalise the Afghan culture for a Western readership
Amelia Hill
Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer

In this, apparently the first Afghan novel to be written in English, two motherless boys who learn to crawl and walk side by side, are destined to destroy each other across the gulf of their tribal difference in a country of dried mulberries, sour oranges, rich pomegranates and honey.

It's a Shakespearean beginning to an epic tale that spans lives lived across two continents amid political upheavals, where dreams wilt before they bud and where a search for a child finally makes a coward into a man. The Kite Runner is the shattering first novel by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan doctor who received political asylum in 1980 as civil conflict devastated his homeland.

Whatever the truth of the claim to be the first English-language Afghan novel, Hosseini is certainly the first Afghan novelist to fictionalise his culture for a Western readership, melding the personal struggle of ordinary people into the terrible historical sweep of a devastated country in a rich and soul-searching narrative.

Over the last three decades, Afghanistan has been ceaselessly battered by Communist rule, Soviet occupation, the Mujahideen and a democracy that became a rule of terror. It is a history that can intimidate and exhaust an outsider's attempts to understand, but Hosseini extrudes it simply and quietly into an intimate account of love, honour, guilt, fear and redemption that needs no dry history book or atlas to grip and absorb.

Amir is a privileged member of the dominant Pashtun tribe growing up in affluent Kabul in the Seventies. Hassan is his devoted servant and a member of the oppressed Hazara tribe whose first word was the name of his boy-master. The book focuses on the friendship between the two children and the cruel and shameful sacrifice the rich boy makes of his humble, adoring alter ego to buy the love of his own distant father. 'I ran because I was a coward,' Amir realises, as he bolts from the scene that severs his friendship with Hassan, shatters his childhood and haunts him for the rest of his life. 'I actually aspired to cowardice.'

The book charts Amir's attempts to flee culpability for this act of betrayal, seeking asylum from his hellish homeland in California and a new life buried deep in black velvet portraits of Elvis. Amir's story is simultaneously devastating and inspiring. His world is a patchwork of the beautiful and horrific, and the book a sharp, unforgettable taste of the trauma and tumult experienced by Afghanis as their country buckled.

The Kite Runner is about the price of peace, both personal and political, and what we knowingly destroy in our hope of achieving that, be it friends, democracy or ourselves.

=============================
"If you're not standing on the Edge,
you're taking up too much room."
=============================

Book Review: An Unexpected Light

An Unexpected Light on amazon.com

Reader Rating: 10/10

Salaams! An excellent book written with an elegance of prose seldom found in "travel" literature. Being his first, and as far as I can tell, his only book, this a remarkable feat for a young writer. A real joy to read. When will this guy write again?

"...I see first the light that I have seen nowhere else and which consumes in a single leap the impurity of distance so completely as to reveal the speck of a man two miles away; I see the profile of a mountain twenty miles away...I see three fantastic summits like spears with white tips rearing up to twenty thousand feet behind us, and down by the water's edge where the valley broadens, forests of small trees glowing gold and ginger in the winter sun with delicate pointed leaves and crimson berries the colour of a country girl's lips."

It is filled with engaging writing that pushes past surface description, interacting with and analyzing personal, historical, geographical, and cultural issues. Elliot is constantly pushing out to the edge and is transparent about his anxieties, fears, and growing confidence as he becomes a "veteran" through hardened experiences.

The book ranges far and wide across geographical and historical Afghanistan; Elliot weaves a rich tapestry of various local and expat characters (including some interesting comments on some of the M's he encounters!) on his various trips through some of the most inhospitable corners of the country. Here's one snippet that stuck out to me which relates very much to our own work and need for going deep in language/culture and building relationships:

"And I was staring not just because his face [a local commander] was utterly unlike the faces I knew from home but because I felt all of a sudden that if I were to attach myself to him, apprentice-like, and follow him to his home and enter into his life and language and hardships and battles and pleasures, I might learn something substantial about the country and its culture and all that was hidden from the casual onlooker I really felt myself to be, able only to observe what was most superficial."

Lots of gems--too many to recount here. You'll have to read it yourself--which I highly recommend you do! I'll leave you with one such gem:

"Not because the East is mystic or inscrutable, but because it reveals its secrets at a pace which the Western visitor is so seldom prepared to embrace: you need time."

Product Details:
• Paperback: 473 pages
• Publisher: Picador USA (October, 2001)
• ISBN: 0312288468

First Sentence:
So much has happened in that part of the world where our paths first crossed that it's hard not to think of our time there, and of the time in which it was contained, as an island, now submerged. Read the first page

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
An account of a trip through war-torn and poverty-stricken Afghanistan, this remarkable book could have been titled "An Unexpected Beauty." Elliot, who first traveled to the country as a 19-year-old enthusiast of the mujahedin, has no illusions about the inherent shortcomings of travel writing ("a semi-fictional collection of descriptions that affirm the prejudices of the day"). He also dismisses the journalistic method, which relies on a single bombed-out street in Kabul to monolithically represent an entire nation. So it is not without some self-deprecation that he offers his own strange and improbable adventures in the country's lawless stretches and perilous mountain passes. "I had in mind a quietly epic sort of journey," he explains. "I had given up on earlier and more ambitious schemes and was prepared to make an ally of uncertainty, with which luck so often finds a partnership." Humorous, honest and wry, a devotee of Afghanistan's culture, Elliot strives to debunk the myth of "the inscrutability of the East" and paint, in careful detail, a portrait of a deeply spiritual people. For a first-time author, his literary talents are exceptional. His sonorous prose moves forward with the purposeful grace of a river; it reads like a text unearthed from an ancient land. (Feb.) Forecast: Already lauded in England, this book announces the arrival of a major travel writer. It should capture the hearts of armchair travelers who long for the grace, wit and irreverence of an era long gone.

=============================
"If you're not standing on the Edge,
you're taking up too much room."
=============================

Book Review: The Weight of Glory

The Weight of Glory on amazon.com


Reader Rating = ********* (9/10)
Date: December 13, 2004 4:19:19 PM GMT+04:00

Salaams! Recently finished another of C. S. Lewis' books, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Revised & Expanded Edition, with a good Introduction by Walter Hooper, who worked with Lewis not long before he passed on). Some wonderful stuff in here on lots of different topics. Here's a quote from each of the chapters to whet your appetite:

1. "The Weight of Glory:"
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--to flippancy, no superiority, no presumption."
2. "Learning in War-Time:"
"I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with 'normal life.' Life has never been normal."
3. "Why I am not a Pacifist:"
"All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you from all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions...On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing."
4. "Transposition:"
"'We know not what we shall be;' but we may be sure we shall be more, not less, than we were on earth. Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like pencilled lines on flat paper. If they vanish in the risen life, they will vanish only as pencil lines vanish from the real landscape, not as a candle flame that is put out but as a candle flame which becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the blind, thrown open the shutters, and let in the blaze of the risen sun."
5. "Is Theology Poetry?:"
"The picture so often painted of Christians huddling together on an ever narrower strip of beach while the incoming tide of 'Science' mounts higher and higher corresponds to nothing in my own experience...Long before I believe Theology to be true I had already decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was false...And once you accpeted Theism, you could not ignore the claims of Christ. And when you examined them it appeared to me that you could adopt no middle position. Either He was a lunatic, or God. And He was not a lunatic."
6. "The Inner Ring:"
"And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside, that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric, for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ringer can ever have it."
7. "Membership:"
"It was one of the Wesleys, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another. In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life--that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual's hour of leisure--is at once paradoxical, dangerous, and natural...We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship."
8. "On Forgiveness:"
"I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing."
9. "A Slip of the Tongue:"
"This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to the Sea (I think St. John of the Cross called God a sea) and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal....Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We make our returns truthfully. But we dread a rise in the tax. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary."

The Weight of Glory
by C. S. Lewis "If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them, would reply, Unselfishness..." (more)

Enlightening addresses, February 1, 2000
Reviewer: David T. Bennett (Kingston, OH United States) - See all my reviews
     
Lewis is at his best in this collection. As the preface mentions, the sermon "the Weight of Glory," deserves to be placed on the level of the Church Fathers' writings because of its elegance and insightfulness. In this sermon Lewis looks at the afterlife, which we get glimpses of while on earth. He makes some excellent observations, and I was left thinking, "Of course!" and "Why didn't I see that before?" One of the unqiue observations Lewis makes is that all humans are truly "immortals." Cultures and the earth are mortal, but your neighbor, children, etc, are all immortal, and we need to treat them as such. The other sermons are very good (though "The Weight of Glory" has to be the best). For instance "Is Theology Poetry?" examines a topic many of us probably have never thought of examining, i.e. is our theology poetry? The address "On forgiveness" separates forgiveness (which is totally undeserving) from excusing (which is where we did something wrong, but have some valid excuse) and goes from there. Overall the points Lewis makes are enlightening and useful to our everyday lives. These are some of the best sermons I have ever heard or read.

=============================
"If you're not standing on the Edge,
you're taking up too much room."
=============================

Book Review: Under A Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan

Under A Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan on amazon.com


Reader Rating = ******* (7/10)
Date: November 16, 2004 3:48:04 PM GMT+04:00

Salaams! Good insightful description of the author's incredible 1,500 miles journey in 1984 to far-flung parts of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Hodson, a Brit, studied Farsi in university and could converse with the Mujaheddin he travels with and meets along the way. He also has interesting discussions with others in the local population--like the Nuristanis, who are "disdained" by the jihadi fighters for being lazy and having no interest in the war. Nonetheless, they end up making a good living off the thousands of Mujaheddin who traverse their villages to and from bases in Pakistan. A good, close-up portrait of the Afghan Mujaheddin and their fierce determination to face any/all odds in order to rid their country of the hated atheistic usurping power, back when there were no Stingers and they were heavily outgunned (mainly using old Lee Enfield WWII rifles). Hodson has some very interesting spiritual conversations/debates with various Mujaheddin over meagre meals and bowls of hot chai in/beside mosques, their most frequent overnight abode. He meets up with two other journalists and soon after narrowly escape a surprise Soviet offensive on the Panshir Valley--replete with Mi24 attack helicopters and MiGs on low-altitude bombing runs. Hodson and one of the journalists have malaria and/or hepatitis and yet, incredibly, in their weakened state, push hard night after night, over towering mountain passes, till finally reaching the Pakistani border.

-------------------------------
Book Description
In 1984 journalist Peregrine Hodson crossed the Pakistan border into Afghanistan with rebel mujahedin smuggling arms and ammunition, beginning a thousand-mile journey through the war-torn nation. Fluent in Farsi, he was able to observe the war with stunning intimacy and eloquently capture the essence of the Afghan people and their culture. As the travelers survived bombings by Soviet aircraft, an ambush by a rival faction, and becoming swept up in a major offensive, Hodson would come to gain a unique perspective on their hopes for peace and religious devotion. Bringing together travel writing, war reportage, and history, this is a richly rendered portrait of a complex people. "Gripping and moving ... [a] powerful account of a war that has often been described as 'forgotten.'" -- Gail Pool, The Christian Science Monitor "Will long remain the most vivid account of a strange and horrible wrong." -- Ahmed Rashid, The Independent (London) "Vivid and intriguing." -- Jonathan Kirsch, -- Los Angeles Times Book Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In the spring of 1984, British journalist Hodson traveled 1500 miles in Afghanistan, walking, living and dodging Soviet attacks with mujahedin, the rebel fighters. In this well-written, vivid, poignant account, he paints a portrait of a struggle that seems to resemble the Vietnamese battle against U.S. forces 20 years ago. Soviet helicopters and jets dominate the skies and seem to have "free-fire" zones, but despite their high-tech edge, they have no effective control in the countryside. And the fighters Hodson met are instilled by a deep conviction in their cause. Typically one mujahed states, "If all the country is burnt, all the trees dead and all the rivers dry, we will still fight. Afghanistan is a battlefield in a war between God and Satan." Hodson's experiences are an adventure tale full of incongruities: he hikes through dangerous territory listening to Bob Dylan and Bach on his Walkman. He accompanies men bringing weapons into the country from Pakistan who then lose their munitions when they are ambushed by rival mujahedin. He loses most of his luggage fording a river and argues about religion with his hosts. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Disguised as a native, British journalist Hodson traveled in 1984 in northeastern Afghanistan with some mujahedin resistance fighters. Although his account includes friendly camaraderie, beautiful landscapes, and interesting market towns, the gripping emphasis is on the hazards and hardships and the Islamic fervor that inspires the Afghans in their struggle against the Soviets. There are long grinding marches, the author's agonizing digestive problems and fevers, frequent danger in dodging... read more --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
=============================
"If you're not standing on the Edge,
you're taking up too much room."
=============================

Book Review: The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain on amazon.com


Reader Rating = ********** (8.5/10)
Date: November 11, 2004 4:50:17 PM GMT+04:00

Salaams! I'm working my way through some of C.S. Lewis' classics and have just finished up The Problem of Pain. I decided to read this little volume, as in our house church recently we have been studying through I & II Peter and have been challenged with what really makes up a theology of suffering. This is a deep and dense little book that covers a lot of ground in Lewis' typical non-traditional manner: divine omnipotence and goodness, human wickedness and the fall of man, human and animal pain, and the idea of heaven. While trying to answer the common question of why a loving God would allow suffering, Lewis directs the reader's focus to the character of God, as well as to the various meanings (and implications) of what we call pain or suffering. Bottom-line: God can take even that which is bad--and done with evil intent--and turn it to His higher purposes in our lives (both here and for the here-after). As he says:

"The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word 'love,' and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not even exist for his own sake...To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God."

My favorite part of the book was actually the last chapter on "Heaven," and I will leave you with a quote from it for your own meditation:

"Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desire and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear...Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions."

---------------
The Problem of Pain, the first of a series of popular works on Christian doctrine, was written in 1940, twenty years before his beloved wife, Joy Davidman, died of cancer in the third year of their short-lived marriage. In the book Lewis considers the problem of suffering from a purely theoretical standpoint. Years later, struck with a daunting grief of a mourning husband he will write another classic on pain, a masterpiece of introspection: A Grief Observed. It takes courage to live through suffering; and it takes honesty to observe it. C. S. Lewis had both.

The existence of suffering in a world created by a good and almighty God — "the problem of pain" — is a fundamental theological dilemma and perhaps the most serious objection to the Christian religion. The issue is serious enough already in Theism. Christianity aggravates the problem by insisting on Love as the essence of God; then, unexpectedly, it makes a half turn and points to the Mystery of suffering — to Jesus, "the tears of God."3 Lewis does not propose to penetrate the mystery. He is content enough with approaching pain as mere problem that demands a solution; he formulates it and goes about solving it. "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both."4 With a characteristic conciseness and clarity Lewis sets the stage for the entire book in the first paragraph of Chapter 2. "The possibility of solving [the problem] depends on showing that the terms 'good' and 'almighty', and perhaps also the term 'happy', are equivocal: for it must be admitted from the outset that if the popular meanings attached to these words are the best, or the only possible, meaning, then the argument is unanswerable". In the remaining nine chapters, Lewis will develop this basic statement through an in-depth reflection on divine omnipotence, divine goodness, human condition, human and animal pain, and last, but not least, hell and heaven.

The main argument of The Problem of Pain is preceded by a presentation of an atheist objection to the existence of God based on the observable futility of the universe. The book starts on a personal note: "Not many years ago when I was an atheist … ". There follows a compelling picture of a universe filled with futility and chance, darkness and cold, misery and suffering; a spectacle of civilizations passing away, of human race scientifically condemned to a final doom and of a universe bound to die. Thus, "either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit". On the other hand, "if the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? […] The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been ground for religion: it must always have been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held". But, where should we look for the sources?
---------------
----------------------
A quick warning to those who have been pointed to this book but are not Christian: you are not the audience Lewis is speaking to. This book cannot be fully grasped in its original context without some degree of belief or acceptance of Christian doctrine. It is apologetics at its best, but cannot be considered in the "self-help" category like many contemporary titles are.

That said, this must be the finest treatise on the apparent contradiction between the existence of pain and the existence of a supposedly loving God that has been written.

Succint, well-organized, thorough, yet "The Problem of Pain" still reads like it was written by a human being rather than a scholar. Some chapters bring conviction. The chapter on Hell brings fear and dread, and respect for Him who can "destroy both body and soul in Hell". The chapter on Heaven, which Lewis admits is his own philosophical foray, no one else's -- brings hope and reassurance that Heaven is your true calling, your one True Home.

This is not light reading, at least not at first. This may not be a book to recommend to someone at the height of a crisis; Lewis taxes your attention and does not take any short cuts. A "Cliff Notes" version of this book would miss the point. Pain is one of the toughest theological problems a Christian can face, either in their lives or the life of another person they know -- and Lewis does not want you going in armed with half an argument or some "Precious Moments" sentiment.

From a non-Christian POV, I would be surprised if this book made much sense -- so many of the pillars are set on Christian theology, philosophy, and tradition. If you cannot (or will not) accept the possibility of the existence of Heaven, Hell, or God, this book will be just so much incomprehensible babble.

But, as I said, it is not written for that segment of the market. This book is best read by the thinking Christian who has reservations about aspects of Christianity that seem to gloss over, avoid, or ignore the issue of human suffering.
----------------------

=============================
"If you're not standing on the Edge,
you're taking up too much room."
=============================

Book Review: The Bookseller of Kabul

The Bookseller of Kabul on amazon.com


Reader Rating = ******** (7.5-8.0/10)
Date: November 5, 2004 1:31:57 PM GMT+04:00

Salaams! Just finished up another book with some very good insights into Afghans/Afghanistan: The Bookseller of Kabul, by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad. Reading Rating: 7.5-8.0/10

There are limitations to her portraits that should be taken into consideration, of course: she was only in Afghanistan for a total of 4 months and lived with this family for 3 months, she does not speak Dari/Farsi, and she is a young, blonde westerner/outsider (& journalist). As one reviewer mentions below, I sometimes questioned the author's descriptions of the character's internal thoughts, but this "documentary as novel" approach does make for a very readable writing style. Given these limitations, though, I think she does a fairly good job at giving one a "behind closed doors" peek at an urban (and fairly well-to-do) Afghan extended family. Would that we in our sub-region had many of these "life inside the local community" careful observers and recorders!

Some of the insights I appreciated: marriage arrangements, male/female relationships, the sadness/complications arising from multiple wives, father/son & employer/worker relationships, and the aspirations of the younger generation who can often feel overly controlled and claustrophobic. I think what's missing in the book is a better explanation for the cultural framework that guide and determine much of the way things are. Some of this can definitely be picked up by readers who already have an understanding of the cultural context. I'm afraid your average American/European, though, is just going to be encouraged to maintain his/her slanted, prejudiced, western-freedom-loving-everything-should-go-as-long-as-none-are-hurt, culturally-superior attitude. Women will be thought of as "enslaved," rather than seen as being protected and accorded respect/regard in the midst of an environment beset with dangerous pitfalls (with extremely damaging and life-long consequences) around every corner. Not that there aren't things that are in need of being transformed/redeemed...just like there are in our culture!

Good book that I recommend. But, be ready to see the darker and difficult side of life and culture...and for good balance (as the last reviewer below points out), to remember that there is also much to be admired and incorporated into our lives/culture from the family/community-minded Afghans.

A few different reviews below to tickle your reading senses (and I recommend "Books & Culture" if you haven't seen/read it yet):

------ from Christianity Today's "Books & Culture" ------
Books & Culture's Books of the Week: Remember Afghanistan?
By Albert Louis Zambone | posted 11/10/2003

The Bookseller of Kabul
By Asne Seirstad
Little, Brown
320 pp.; $19.95

In opinion pieces and editorials, it has become almost obligatory these days to say that Afghanistan has been forgotten by U.S. policymakers since their attention turned to Iraq. But recent events seem to indicate that Afghans are doing their best to enter the Western world. No, I don't mean that they are building new roads, opening up to the forces of globalization, and overcoming the last remnants of the Taliban. It's that they are learning the pleasures and benefits of litigation.

For her part, Seirstad seems to have delved deeper than her subjects liked. A journalist seemingly without fear, the blond Norwegian reporter was one of the brigade of media that invaded Kabul along with the forces of the Northern Alliance in November of 2001. There she met an urbane bookseller, Sultan Khan (as she re-names him in the interests of his privacy).

Seirstad was fascinated by a man who had been arrested three times by the Communist regime for selling banned books; whose bookstore had been repeatedly ransacked by the Taliban; who was passionately committed to Persian poetry, to Sufi mysticism, and to the preservation of the culture of Afghanistan. When she told him that she wished to write a book about him, he simply said "Thank you" and, in Seirstad's words "opened his family to me." She joined the Khan household and found herself living in a strange dual world of man and woman. While she slept with the women and heard their complaints and their dreams, she was also allowed to eat with the men and speak with them. Even in the family of a liberal Moslem like Sultan Khan, this was something that no Afghan woman was allowed to do.

It was Seirstad's juxtaposition of the "liberal" Khan, committed to selling the best in books and in preserving the culture of Afghanistan, and the "traditionalist" Khan that led to a lawsuit against her by "Khan" in the Norwegian courts. The bookseller claimed that he had been slandered; clearly the pseudonyms Seirstad employed in her narrative couldn't hide the identity of such a distinctive figure.

Seirstad describes in detail, for example, how Khan took a second wife when his first grew too old for him; it is a living example of polygamy that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the reader. (And, by the way, the best example I can imagine of why Jesus says to the crowds that Moses allowed divorce "because of your hard hearts.")

This story, among others, led to Khan's lawsuit, as well as many questions about the veracity of Seirstad's account, and the "correctness" of a Westerner "judging" non-Western traditions. These questions are undoubtedly helped along by what can only be described as Seirstad's Ultra New Journalist Style. She describes the innermost thoughts of her subjects, so that what purports to be a journalistic account often reads like a novel.

----- from amazon.com ------
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
After living for three months with the Kabul bookseller Sultan Khan in the spring of 2002, Norwegian journalist Seierstad penned this astounding portrait of a nation recovering from war, undergoing political flux and mired in misogyny and poverty. As a Westerner, she has the privilege of traveling between the worlds of men and women, and though the book is ostensibly a portrait of Khan, its real strength is the intimacy and brutal honesty with which it portrays the lives of Afghani living under fundamentalist Islam. Seierstad also expertly outlines Sultan's fight to preserve whatever he can of the literary life of the capital during its numerous decades of warfare (he stashed some 10,000 books in attics around town). Seierstad, though only 31, is a veteran war reporter and a skilled observer; as she hides behind her burqa, the men in the Sultan's family become so comfortable with her presence that she accompanies one of Sultan's sons on a religious pilgrimage and witnesses another buy sex from a beggar girl-then offer her to his brother. This is only one of many equally shocking stories Seierstad uncovers. In another, an adulteress is suffocated by her three brothers as ordered by their mother. Seierstad's visceral account is equally seductive and repulsive and resembles the work of Martha Gellhorn. An international bestseller, it will likely stand as one of the best books of reportage of Afghan life after the fall of the Taliban.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

---------- from salon.com -----------
The hypocrite of Kabul
Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad parachuted into Afghanistan and told the West exactly what it wanted to hear about that nation's women. The truth, as usual, is more complicated.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Ann Marlowe

Nov. 17, 2003  |  There's only one country foreigners write more self-righteous, intellectually assured rubbish about than Afghanistan: ours. To any American who's been asked overseas whether we all -- depending on gender -- wear miniskirts or carry guns, the lurid colors and broad brushstrokes of most journalism about Afghanistan should look familiar. Afghan men, we've been reminded over and over, are savage warriors, jealous of their honor, harsh to their long-suffering women, fanatically religious. And Afghan women -- forced to wear the burqa and be virtual slaves to their husbands -- deserve our pity.

The reality, when I made two trips to Afghanistan in 2002 to teach English and buy supplies for schools, was otherwise. From schoolboys at play to university students, Cabinet ministers to legendary commanders, Afghans were quieter, gentler and more self-contained than Americans. One young man confided that to him and his friends in northern Afghanistan, Americans' body language and loud voices seemed exaggerated, like the gestures of stage actors.

It was hard to pity the women when I lived with an extended Uzbek Afghan family in Mazar-i-Sharif and Maimana for a couple of weeks. A withered 80-year-old widow sat bala, or at the head of the room, and she was the only person who smoked. The family's resources were lavished on a bright teenage daughter, who had her own room and computer and was preparing for her university entrance exam. And the men were tender with their children and treated their wives, sisters and mothers with dignity. I felt at home more quickly than I ever have in an American household, and the fondness and respect I saw between young and old and men and women gave me new yardsticks for my own life...