An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan

If you read any travel books this year, I believe this is your best choice. It was written in 1999 when very few people in the developed countries had any interest in the average person's plight in Afghanistan at all. Jason Elliot doesn't seem to have a pre-set agenda or an axe to grind, and I'm guessing that newer books are going to have plenty of both.I'm a great fan of travel books, and I'm stunned by just how well-written Elliot's first book is. I'd only rank Colin Thurbon above Elliot, and I think Elliot is a bolder traveller. What really makes this book memorable are the short sections such as the Koran text wroven into his reflections upon his visit to the shrine in Mazar or the Wordsworth quotes at sunset in remote hills. Amidst a great deal of historical and cultural material that doesn't detract from the adventure, Elliot makes the point that Afghanistan has already been destroyed and abandoned, and that the Taleban are but one of many very bad things to happen to the people of Afghanistan. I came away with a much better understanding of the isolated tribal nature of mostof Afghanistan. After reading this book, I've come to the conclusion that bombing this broken land of hardship hardened yet somehow still friendly souls is another mistaken US foreign policy choice. I'll pray for end to their and our suffering, and write a check to the twice bombed Red Cross, even if I am unemployed right now.

Mr. Elliot, obviously, is well connected in contemporary Afghan circles, both outside and inside Afghanistan. This fact enabled and encouraged him to travel in a most unusual and remote country during a most difficult and turbulent era. The author did not travel on a preplanned itinerary but from the start surrendered, instead, to encounters and events. This underlying current gives the account much of its unique quality and realism. The book is richly strewn with delightful coinages, penetrating insights sensitive observations, humor, historical and other intriguing information and descriptions. The, included, short introduction to Sufism is quite good. Puts Afghanistan and its people on the map. Erudite. A gripping and moving account of people and places entangled in the web of war-time meshed with the author personal inner-journey. A tribute to the human spirit.

Of the currently posted reviews, it is interesting that they either rate this book at the top or at the bottom of the rating scale. This is a sign that the book elicits much more comment on the reviewer's state of mind than on the book itself. My review will be no different.While I second those who extoll the book's poetry and its vivid portrayal of the Afghan land and culture, to me the real value of the book lies in its deepest appeal to the conscience (or lack of conscience) in the reader. Mr. Elliot's report is unique in that it covers two or three visits that he undertook that span the time during and after the Soviet war, just prior to Taleban occupation of Kabul and the roughly 90% of Afghanistan that it occupies today.During this time, under extremely difficult circumstances, Mr. Elliot had access to people and places that would shortly be cut off and, in many cases, destroyed during the ensuing Taleban onslaught. The result, both of the circumstances and Mr. Elliot's reporting on them, is a tale filled with longing--a longing for some of what is, much of what was and has been lost, and what may never be recovered, an innocence and deeply human sympathy ravaged by the cynicism of the world.Afghanistan was never an easy place to live, but it was long a place where humanity reigned supreme in the daily lives of common people. Some have called it the height of civilization, low-tech though it was. It had long been the seat of a kind of basic (and advanced) hospitality that has been all but lost, though much imitated, in much of the rest of the world. Elliot's deep love and intimate knowledge of these people and the remaining remnants of their culture informs every page of his vivid account.In the end, he leaves those of us with the conscience to respond with a deep sense of loss, yet with a vivid picture of hope for the future of our common human destiny. Yes, he makes us want to visit what was once Afghanistan, the Land of the Free. But even more, he makes us accutely aware of the Jewel that has been lost and that we must all find again to restore the vital center of our own particular human culture where we happen to live, among the common people of our daily lives.

An extraordinary book that transcends the bounds of travelogue and gives us deep and personal insight into one of the most the world's most inaccessible regions. Elliot's Afghan friends and travel companions convey, in the midst of the grief and difficulty of war, an enviable warmth and humor that has made the country a favorite of travelers for decades before the Soviet invasion. There are many hair raising trips in overloaded trucks over vertiginous mountain passes, lavish descriptions of ruins seldom seen by westerners, and intriguing historical facts from this crossroads of peoples for the traveler, adventurer and historian. Elliot writes from the heart and out of love for the Afghan people and land and this shines through on every page more than any such book I've read since Thesiger's Arabian Sands (and upon inspection, even Thesiger's motives begin to seem cloudy compared with Elliott's affection and respect for his subjects). You will put this book down with a profound respect for the Afghan people and immense desire to visit this land... I cannot recommend this book highly enough - if you read it you will soon find yourself searching through old travel guides and looking for a way to travel the roads of Afghanistan first hand.

Jason Elliot's travels in Afghanistan are told with evocative poignancy of a land racked through the centuries by invading armies. Ravaged most recently by the Soviet Army and now by internal strife Afghanistan endures. Whether telling the tale of the Afghan warrior beckoning the rocket-shy author to step out of the cold but protected shadows of a Kabul doorway into the warmth of the sun, or the harrowing tale of a mountainous truck ride under the light of a crescent moon, Elliot shares the beauty and poetic delicacy of a rough but resilient land. This is classic travel writing which enraptures and enables the reader to smell and taste the smoke and dust of the journey , to feel the sharp bite of the cold mountain air as night descends, and captures, as the author says, " a ray of beauty out of the backdrop of harshness." The dignity of this land and its poetic people is shared with respect and startling skill by the author.