Book Review: A Journey Through Afghanistan: A Memorial

A Journey Through Afghanistan: A Memorial on amazon.com

Reader Rating: 9/10

Salaams! Interesting title, eh? A Journey Through Afghanistan: A Memorial . Why a “Memorial?” Because Chaffetz wrote this book back in the mid-1970’s BEFORE Afghanistan started going down the tubes and so much of the face and feel of the country was changed by revolution, communism, Soviet invasion, civil warfare, and the Taliban/al-Qaeda regime. It was still, in some ways, a time of “innocence,” when two young American students could ride on horseback freely around the rural northwest of the country.

This was a difficult book in the beginning for me to get into; part of that was the writer and his friend were in stuck in one city (Herat). The writing style, though, grew on me over the first few chapters, as did the story of these two adventurers as it developed. There were some true cultural insight gems in the book, as the author and his friend spent months ONLY interacting with local Afghans. They literally lived in a simple caravanserais, haggled for weeks on end to buy horses, and then took to the trails of the hinterland in NW Afghanistan, staying in local village guest houses and chaikhanas. Fascinating stuff. In fact, I later went back and re-read the first couple chapters that I had slogged through with difficulty.

A very worthwhile read for those wanting to get deeper insights into Afghanistan and the Afghan psyche and culture.

All for now--wes

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A Journey Through Afghanistan: A Memorial (Paperback)
by David Chaffetz "We sat in the teahouse, my friend and I, drinking tea out of palm-sized cups, sweetening the acrid taste of the drink with soft white..." (more)
Paperback
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 Product Details
Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr (T); Reprint edition (September 1, 1984)
Language: English
ISBN: 0226100634

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
"in the lanes of oblivion", September 9, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
Chaffetz does an admirable job of describing northwest Afghanistan as it was circa 1975 and the effect that the country and its people had upon him. As one who had passed through the country in the late sixties, there was much I could recognize in both the stimulus and the author's response. Particularly gratifying to me was the "update" aspect - the provision of information from that particular time period, of which I had previously read and heard only the barest political and economic facts. Chaffetz ably uses history to inform and frame the life and times he experienced. A further enhancement is the author's knowledge of Farsi and the inclusion of translations into English of words, old inscriptions, and occasional couplets of Persian poetry. The title of this review is taken from one of those couplets. The book is evocative and commendable.

An encounter with Afghanis, March 5, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
A very humane and sensitive account that explores the world view of people far from the beaten track. Despite the differences we are led to understand their concerns which turn out to be far less foreign than the material setting would suggest.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Afghanistan: Whither goest thou, May 22, 2000
Reviewer:
"bin_emir" (United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviews
Chaffetz book "A memorial" is the last in my trilogy of readings on Afghanistan for this year. First, I read about Nic Danzinger's travels through the area in recent years. Next, I jumped back to the 1950's and '60s with Sir Wilfred Thesiger's--"Among the Mountains". I finished with Chaffetz's "A Journey Through Afghanistan". They are all brilliant but Chaffetz's book stands out as a scholarly piece and could well be used in anthropological circles for it's in depth study of the urban and nomadic Afghanis prior and during the Russian invasion. The recent drought that has affected the Hazarajat and Kuchi nomads of Afghanistan was brought that much closer with this book. I had bought this book in the late 1980's but between different trips to the Near East--I had fogotten where I left it. As a result, it took me 10 years to actually get around to reading it and after finishing it, I wondered why I hadn't cracked the spline earlier. Chaffetz' style can be a bit off-putting but his travelling companion is a perfect foil to David's abrasive personality. I would really like to know why Chaffetz was studying Parsi in pre-revolutionary Iran or was that just a cover?