Everyone here rated this book around 4*, I rate it 1/2* and here is why:
The book was choppy and has disorganized timeframe. Hard to read, as the story is jumping from between years and people from page to page, you often get Taliban, American, and Russian eras mixed together in that order on the same page. The story line is weak and wavers between different characters and side stories, and mingles with the narrators story.
The only time the book got interesting was when the author was telling side story of one of the unimportant characters, the bookseller's shuned first wife, the carpenter, or the poor relation (10 year old boy) he made into his personal slave (for food).
This book can open a picture for a clueless person into one man's life in Taliban ruined country. But you don't get a clear picture of women or the lifes of other people under Taliban's rule. Someone who has been in that area can see that this is a common story of a cruel man made into passive-hero because of his ability to be shrude and plagerising businessman. (Anyone who experienced totalism knows the value of forbidden articles on the black market and the risks of selling/owning them.) His story is not special, his character is over glamorized and the writing is hard to follow.
I don't see what made the female author so impressed about this heartless, showinistic, and selfish example of humanity to return to Kabul and put him into this book. The man was selling mostly postcards not books, he made big show of 'resisting' Taliban but he him self would have been happy if the man (carpenter) who stole a pack of his postcards (plagerised pictures reprinted) to have his hand cut off as the Islamic fundamentalist would have done. The author never notes that taking someone's work: be it postcards or authors rights to the pictures is stealing. She glamorizes the bookseller but condems the carpenter, and yet they are both thiefs. The only difference is that the carpenter is stealing for survival and the 'book' seller for greed.
The book it self is like the main character, interesting enough to keep you plowing thrugh the 80% of blah. The story or the writing is mediocar at best. There are others, worthy of having their story told, those who took greater risks, Secret teachers, TV-satelite-PC-music-alcohol sellers who did live on the edge, not to mention the northren resistance...
Honestly request "Dear Zari: The Secret Lives of the Women" instead.
The book was choppy and has disorganized timeframe. Hard to read, as the story is jumping from between years and people from page to page, you often get Taliban, American, and Russian eras mixed together in that order on the same page. The story line is weak and wavers between different characters and side stories, and mingles with the narrators story.
The only time the book got interesting was when the author was telling side story of one of the unimportant characters, the bookseller's shuned first wife, the carpenter, or the poor relation (10 year old boy) he made into his personal slave (for food).
This book can open a picture for a clueless person into one man's life in Taliban ruined country. But you don't get a clear picture of women or the lifes of other people under Taliban's rule. Someone who has been in that area can see that this is a common story of a cruel man made into passive-hero because of his ability to be shrude and plagerising businessman. (Anyone who experienced totalism knows the value of forbidden articles on the black market and the risks of selling/owning them.) His story is not special, his character is over glamorized and the writing is hard to follow.
I don't see what made the female author so impressed about this heartless, showinistic, and selfish example of humanity to return to Kabul and put him into this book. The man was selling mostly postcards not books, he made big show of 'resisting' Taliban but he him self would have been happy if the man (carpenter) who stole a pack of his postcards (plagerised pictures reprinted) to have his hand cut off as the Islamic fundamentalist would have done. The author never notes that taking someone's work: be it postcards or authors rights to the pictures is stealing. She glamorizes the bookseller but condems the carpenter, and yet they are both thiefs. The only difference is that the carpenter is stealing for survival and the 'book' seller for greed.
The book it self is like the main character, interesting enough to keep you plowing thrugh the 80% of blah. The story or the writing is mediocar at best. There are others, worthy of having their story told, those who took greater risks, Secret teachers, TV-satelite-PC-music-alcohol sellers who did live on the edge, not to mention the northren resistance...
Honestly request "Dear Zari: The Secret Lives of the Women" instead.
