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Terfex.com - The Places In Between
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List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $11.20
Your Save: $ 2.80 ( 20% )
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Manufacturer: Harvest Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.810447
EAN: 9780156031561
ISBN: 0156031566
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2006-05-08
Publisher: Harvest Books
Studio: Harvest Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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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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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Tangible Realism
Comment: Rory Stewart's The Places in Between is a riveting account of modern day Afghanistan. By walking from Herat to Kabul in the middle of winter Stewart's journey unwraps the indescribable chaos caused by 25 years of war and western intervention. He does not make excuses for war. Rather his historical notes and cultural insights help to give shape to why western efforts to aid war torn Afghanistan are largely unsuccessful. His authentic account of rural Afghan culture and history illuminates the vunralbility to both Taliban and super power influences.
Stewart does not push a post modern agenda of democracy, human rights, and gender equality--or even "the war on terror". In some respects his writing seems self serving and arrogant. He is not in Afghanistan to help, but rather to complete a self driven mission--to walk across Asia. Yet, because of his drive he is able to communicate to the western world a first person account of areas that are largely untouched by the media. This is what makes his work important.
His writing is humane, respectful to the people that he meets along the way and his prose is often without emotion. It's his deadpan that captivates. His is a journey not many would undertake. Along the way he has many fellow walkers--some armed guards, some local village people, and a dog he names Babur. The incredulity of walking across a land that the world considers deadly shows both his tenacious spirit and his Scottish stubbornness. But readers are thankful that he made such a trek, because his journey helps teach and we are the better for having read it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A snapshot of Afghanistan in 2001
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Little Boring
Comment: 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.
[...]
Customer Rating:
Summary: Meh
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lone travel adventurer
Comment: 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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