By: Rory Stewart Publisher: Harvest Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Harvest Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: May 08, 2006
In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.
Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.
It's amazing that anyone would even attempt this... walking across Afganistan in the winter with a war going on. It is quite staggering, how many different ways he could die... war casualty, fights with officials, accidents, frostbite/exposure, starvation, food poisoning...
The desolate landscape is hard to envision, although the photos helped. How does one step forward in 4 feet of snow? Temperatures are cited well below zero at night, so besides unease provoked by well armed people he's sleeping with, how does he sleep with undoubtedly cold wet feet?
The descriptions do not bring the walk, the towns or the people alive. Abdul Haq was the only character drawn in a memorable way. Stewart comes to know others, be they guards, hosts or aid workers that surely had a story, but there is dirth of text about them. Some things mentioned in passing crave more desciption, such as the soldiers with eyeliner or how his food is prepared. Not only are women nearly absent from the text, their absence is not discussed by Stewart.
The book disappoints not by what is in the text, but how much more should be there. A few of the drawings and quotes from historic texts helped elaborate, but most appeared to be filler.
Perhaps it's not fair to to Rory Stewart that I had just finished reading Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown, about an equally dangerous journey before reading his book. Theroux is a master in travelogue writer. While The Places In Between, is highly readable, is not up to the Theroux standards for this kind of writing.
For me, this is a 3 star book, but I'm giving it 4 stars because of what the author accomplished, more than what he wrote about it.
Outstanding Must Read book This is an extraordinary book. How many people do you know who would set off alone on foot across Afghanistan just after 9/11 armed with a stick? I had just read Three Cups of Tea so it was not unlikely for me to gravitate to this book, after seeing Rory on a CNN interview. What I did not expect was the sheer grit of the book and the man. This is not a comfortable book to read. It's a highly uncomfortable book to read. This is no walk in the park. This is a journey with a very brave determined soul to delve into the culture of Afghanistan at a critical time in its history (though, honestly, when did Afghanistan not have a critical time in its history?) who does not take the easy way through. Indeed, he opts for a seldom seen path from west to east during winter. The overarching takeaway from this book is the stunning realization of how fractured and compartmentalized and decentralized Afghanistan is as a nation. Juxtapose our current American "plan" to make sense of the country and one realizes the abject absurdity of the endeavor. What has taken years to split apart (indeed, was it ever a cohesive body, ever? I doubt it) will take generations to bring together. There is no there there. Sad reality. Instead we see citizens fighting and hating each other, killing each other, randomly switching sides depending on who is paying them this month. It's a heartbreaking tragedy, a nightmare reality. And dangerous as all get out. The rare kindnesses shown one savors. The rest is a rigid suffering unlike anything I personally have ever read. The biggest heart might well belong to the mastiff and even that ends badly. In spite of this I believe anyone interested in the international affairs of the US of A owes it to themselves to read this book and ensure anyone in policy-making positions reads it as well. It's a wake up call from someone who paid the price to educate us. Thanks, Rory. I'm sorry about Babur.
Totally Changed My Mindset! Okay, so the book has been adequately reviewed by some 150 readers. I doubt that I can add much to that score. On the other hand, this book has forced a recalibration of my mindset relative to the challenges the U.S. and other western nations have vis-à-vis this corner of the world.
Toward the end of the book I was struck by the power of Rory's first-rate diplomatic skills within a, personally, high risk encounter with the Taliban. Without ruining the story for anyone who has not read, or finished the book, I submit there is something we can all learn from Rory's handling of a truly life-threatening encounter. If ever someone was operating without a net, it was he. So, what am I trying to say? Not sure, except Mr. Stewart demonstrated an ability to respectfully, but assertively confront, and eventually confound his otherwise unyielding fundamentalist interlocutors. These men were judge & jury and, had Rory got it wrong, I'd be writing about him in the past tense.
Clearly, the lesson from the book is: these are societies (however "developed" they may be) that have almost amorphous rules of law that are a function of yesterday rather than a guide for future inter-tribal dependence. Rory seems to do his greatest work by pointing out the true disparity between Western and Afghan conventional wisdom... We want to create democracy; they need clean water. We want to create gender equality; they need even the most rudimentary medical care. We want to create an Afghan military/police force; they need to develop a level of trust, across tribal boundaries to ever make this possible. How to do this? Perhaps, it's a matter of helping the Afghan people develop an infrastructure with what we might consider the barest of necessities... Perhaps we stop trying to change a tapestry of ancient cultures with war and alien democracy, and embrace the ideas that the Afghans, themselves, must see the value in their past cultures; the value of preserving what they have; and the value of lifting their war-weary children above the fundamentalist mistrust, violence, intolerance, and extreme tribalism.
Total Disappointment This was a truly awful book on Afghanistan. It provided little new information about the country, its people, or its history. The book also was dull and lacked a coherent theme. The best part of the book was the short anecdotes on Babur Shah and the brief descriptions of the Ghorid dynasty, which once ruled parts of central Afghanistan. While I acknowledge that the author took great risk in walking from Herat to Kabul shortly after the fall of the Taliban, I question his motives and am fairly convinced that his self-promoting journey did little to improve the lot of the Afghan people.
Taste the Culture of Afghanistan Scotsman Rory Stuart defies the odds and hikes across Afghanistan during winter. His encounters with residents and descriptions of Afghan history and culture give the reader firsthand experience of the complexity of this Ancient land.
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