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The Places In Between
written by Rory Stewart
Studio : Harvest Books
by Harvest Books
Publisher : Harvest Books
Released : 2006-05-08
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780156031561
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 159 reviews)
List Price : $14.00
Our Price : $4.70
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Product Description |
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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.
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A snapshot of Afghanistan in 2001 |
I read this book right after having seen "Charlie Wilson's War", so the impact on my knowledge of Afghanistan is probably influenced by the light and ironic interpretation of the movie.
Rory Stewart a journalist and former fellow of the Carr Center for Human Right's Policy has written a diary of his one month journey on foot through Afghanistan.
The many reviews and the apparently great fortune of this book rely on it's subject, Afghanistan, it's timing, right after 9/11, the way the Author traveled, rigorously by foot with the company of a dog.
Let's start from the end. Traveling by foot or trekking is the most primitive and essential type of travel that unites the detailed coverage of the territory (how can we know something better than having walked it down) to the pure joy and hypnotic exercise of walking. Only true walkers can understand this feeling. Rory Stewart is apparently a great walker and in his book he underlines the importance of the way he traveled in many occasions, reversing Machiavelli's "the end justifies the means" with "the means justifies the end". The timing: after 9/11 and the fall of the Taliban was a dangerous and apparently insanely chosen moment, but in reality the displacement of the pre-existing equilibrium consented a "free window" to the penetration of the soul and the soil of the country. The subject: Afghanistan is one of the last places on earth each of us would travel through but at the same time it is the focal point of world politics, the tail of the cold war between Russia and America, the cradle of Islamic integralism that is shattering our deepest national securities (and here I'm talking not only of the US but also of Europe).
The company of a dog named Babur after the emperor that traveled the same route in the Fifteenth Century touches the heart strings of many animal lovers and consent s a digression in the monotony of the trip.
The Author has well studied his travelogue technique and it would be unthinkable that a young Scottsman hadn't read Kipling, Robert Byron, Darlrymple, Newby, Chatwin, Thubron and other English travelers that have visited the same country. From these Authors he draws his well oiled writing technique that guaranties the immediate and enjoyable readability of I repeat a monotonous journey.
The idea of following a previous historical traveler, that in this case is the emperor Babur is not new and the excerpta from the Barburnama are a little to long and sometimes do not make a point.
All together subject, timing, trekking, company and writing technique make an interesting book that appears like a snapshot in time of the unfortunate country of Afghanistan. However we never really manage to touch the soul of the Author or of the country he visited. Its only through the plethora of people and situations described that we can build an idea of the Afghan reality. This unemotional description of reality is probably modern and scientific but leaves me hungering for a more participating traveling companion.
This book was published in fortunate circumstances and this I think is one of the reasons for its great success, but I think it will not stand the test of time or become a classic of travel literature.
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A Little Boring |
A little boring in terms of the story...perhaps that's because I live in Afghanistan now. But the book is probably as realistic as it is boring. However, the description of geography is great. For someone "trapped" in Kabul this is a decent substitute for getting out and seeing it myself.
I work with one of the characters in the book, His Excellency Ismail Khan, former warlord. I find the reputation that Ismail Khan has developed over the years, including the one projected by the book to be fascinating...and trust me, in real life he is absolutely surreal. That's not to mention that he personifies so many ironies of Afghanistan.
I recommend it if you are very interested.
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Meh |
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What Mr. Stewart did was brave, and interesting in theory, but the narrative that emerges is unavoidably monotonous, as the areas he walked through are pretty much the armpit of the world. Blah blah snow blah grudgingly given sleep space in the mosque blah left the next day blah Kalashnikovs blah they threw rocks at my dog again. I was hoping for a much more eventful story as I love travel writing and have been wanting to know more about that part of the world... and it turns out, not surprisingly, that it's primitive and poor and cold and isolated and just not real interesting. And this is not to denigrate Mr. Stewart: on the contrary he should be admired for telling it like it is. |
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Lone travel adventurer |
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At times I was so bored with this book, but then a gem would strike and egg me on. It was also good background material on the Islamic mentality before coming to Saudi Arabia. And who doesn't love those who put themselves at risk to recount their stories so the rest of us can live adventurously through them, all from our comfy living room couch without even having to obtain a visa? |
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A Singularly Important Book |
This goes on the IMHO List for Top 5 most important non-fiction books. It is a fascinating book if you want to vicariously go to a place you would never go to (rural Afghanistan) and do something you would never (in your right mind) want to do, walk across it. But it joins "A Bright Shining Lie," "Cycles of American History," "The Devil Came on Horseback, and "Parting the Waters" as books every American should read.
"A Bright Shining Lie" tells the story of the generation-defining war in Vietnam through the life of someone who believed in it. "Cycles of American History" explains our historical, psychological (schizophrenic!) tension between the private and the public. "Parting the Waters" chronicles the Civil Rights movement, not as some mythologized magic moment, but as a movement of fallible individuals responding to a system of disenfranchisement and terror. "The Devil Came on Horseback" explains Darfur, and how easy can that be?
"The Places in Between" explains a culture that is very, very alien to us. But it does it by introducing us to people, who have had to adapt to a harsh land and a harsher history, but they are still people, just like us. If I were to caveat my glowing review of this book, I might say that it is best if read along with another non-fiction story of great compassion and understanding, "Three Cups of Tea," also about Afghanistan. |
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