Rating: 
Summary: a ray of hope
Review: It's impossible to measure how many people this missive reached or the effect it had upon American opinion. It seems fair to say though that it did serve to demonize the Taliban (deservedly so) and helped Americans to distinguish between the oppressive government and the down trodden common people of Afghanistan. Perhaps most importantly, at a time when it might have been easy for an angry and frightened nation to take out its fury on its own Muslim population, this message showed that Muslim Americans were just as horrified by what had been done in the name of Islam as anyone else. At a moment when the visceral American reaction was inevitably to see Muslims as profoundly "other", the e-mail was a reminder that no matter how different some aspects of their culture, Islamic immigrants were, and are, Americans too. In this memoir, Tamim Ansary tells the story of growing up in Afghanistan and of the culture shock he endured moving from a traditional Muslim culture to
modern America. Improbably enough, Mr. Ansary's mother was American--his parents may have been the first Afghan man and American woman ever to marry. His father was a government official, so the family was reasonably well off by Afghani standards, living in comfortable houses in Kabul and sending the kids to good schools, but they were still very much connected to the customs and rhythms of ancient Afghanistan, a way of life that is dominated by the extended family, the clan, and Islam. Mr. Ansary's depiction of this world he grew up in is, I think, the most useful part of the book. He moves Muslim life beyond the caricatured way in which we currently perceive it, with its angry mullahs and its suicide bombers, and reveals a very appealing face of Islam, in which the aspiration is to peace and justice and where the communality and regularity of the daily prayers are more important than anti-Zionism and anti-Westernism. The Afghanistan of his childhood featured an Islam that still defined itself and was sufficient, rather than measuring itself against the West and failing the test. At age sixteen, Mr. Ansary left Afghanistan for high school in America and has lived here ever since. He became a writer and, oddly enough, a part of West Coast counterculture. But when his brother, Riaz, became something of a Muslim extremist himself, Mr. Ansary undertook a long journey through the Islamic world, just as it was being radicalized in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution. The middle portion of the book describes his experiences in this transformed world and is futile attempt to return to his occupied homeland. He found, traveling mainly from Northern Africa to Turkey an Islamic world that was increasing focussed not just on the comforting and familiar Muslim traditions and observances, but on the strict observance of sharia: 'The sharia,' I said. 'Yes, that's what people have trouble with. It seems like such a harsh legal code. The cutting off of hands--' 'You have to understand that the sharia is much more than a legal system,' he said, interrupting me. 'All the elements of the sharia--the rules of inheritance, the punishments set down for different crimes, the proscriptions about food and dress and all the rest of it--are like markers. They show where the road is. That's what sharia means--it is the way. The rules are not restrictive, as people think, because within the sharia, a Muslim is free. So long as the people of a community stay on the road, they progress toward the light. When they stray from the road, that's when they get into brambles and thorns.' Confronted by this much more legalistic and authoritarian form of Islamic life, Mr. Ansary realized that there was no longer any place for him in the East and he returned to the West for good, becoming "Tamim Ansary, American guy". Or so he thought, but then the events of last September intervened, and he found himself caught between his native and his adopted lands and between two cultures in conflict. His email expressed some of his angst over the dilemma, this book--though not always astute in its analyses of situations; rather elliptical, even opaque at times, in its storytelling; and not particularly distinguished in terms of style--further adds to our understanding of what it must be like to be
caught between Islam and America. As Mr. Ansary says : Growing up bicultural is like straddling a crack in the earth. Whether intentional or not, this seeming metaphor cuts awfully close to the reality of September 11th, when the earth swallowed the Trade Centers, but it also captures the sense of how this outrage divided the soul of Mr. Ansary and folks like him (or revealed the divides that already existed). There's more than enough anguish to go around in the wake of that awful day, and many people were affected much more directly than Mr. Ansary--specifically the dead and those they left behind--but West of Kabul is an important reminder that many of our fellow citizens were affected in a unique way, as one culture they love suffered grievous harm at the hands of another culture they love. Perhaps they can also serve as a unique source of healing as we try to close the divide between the two. At the very least, they can teach each culture something about the other, and about the good they see in each. GRADE : B
Rating: 
Summary: There is humanity in a split soul.
Review: Mr. Ansary will introduce you to his families. He will crak open the walls of the secret Afghan compound and show you the hidden Eden inside. He will introduce you to his Muslim clan, his Jewish-American wife, his torn self. He will prove to you that we're all family. Open this book, and you open a great heart. Trust me. Stop watching CNN and read this. Ansary moves seamlessly from tragedy to comedy to romance to history lesson to odyssey to farce. A man with 2 homes lives in eternal exile. Ask the exiled what home means.
Rating:
Summary: A real page turner. Loved it.
Review: One of the best memoirs I came across. An amazing story. I highly recommend it to all of those who believe that 'growing up bicultural is like straddling a crack in the earth'. Beautifully written!!!
Rating:
Summary: A must read.
Review: Tamim Ansary's book is a must read for anyone who has even a passing interest in Afghans and Afghanistan. Because what they will discover between the covers is different from most what has been written about Afghanistan since the events of Sept. 11th. Most of that has been about the Taliban, their unforgiving ways, their mistreatment of women. Those are important and riverting stories and they must be told. And they have been. Tamim Ansary's memoir hails back to an Afghanistan most people have forgotten, one I personally remember fondly, an Afghanistan living in peaceful anonymity, a "lost world" of walled villages, extended family networks, a world where instead of television, "we had genealogy." His prose is rich with the sounds and smells of this old world, but it transcends mere nostalgia. Tamim's memories serve as tools for his keen observations about the social and political mores of that time, about ripples in the calm way of life which led in part to the communist coup -see the chapter "Unintended Consequences." Tamim's book will also resonate with anyone who has ever lived in a foreign land, anyone who has ever felt part of two worlds. Tamim is as American as he is Afghan, maybe more even -his mother is American and Tamim has lived in the U.S. for almost forty years. The book will resonate with anyone who has felt the dissonance of being part of two cultures, strugged to reconcile the two, and -as often happens in such cases -faced a crisis of identity and faith. His trip to the middle east and his hunger to revisit Afghanistan will strike a chord with anyone who has ever wondered about their own roots, anyone who has sought to better understand their religion and ancestry. And his tale of merged identities, a middle ground between the sister who became entirely "American" and his devoutly Muslim brother, is told in a touching, affable manner that is prevasive throughout this entertaining -and important- book.
In the end, America is a land of merged identities and, to me, Tamim Ansary's book is as much about that as anything else.
Rating:
Summary: A rare and wonderful life
Review: The reader who seeks an inside perspective on Afghanistan under the Taliban (especially given Ansary's famous e-mail) should be forewarned that this book does not really provide such a perspective, as the author lived in the United States during Taliban rule. Ansary's book is instead an unusually eloquent account of his childhood in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, his later life in the US, and his travels back into the Islamic world. However, for whatever reason one picks up the book, Ansary's life story is a compelling one, well worth following, and it is difficult to imagine anyone feeling disappointed by it.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the most important book you'll read this year
Review: This book was just one insight after another for me: a door into another world. I first heard of Ansary when I got a copy of his e-mail, which the book explained also to have been received by millions of other people. When I saw the book on the library shelf, I almost felt as if this was a personal friend, since I'd gotten his letter. I feel even more that way having read this delightful book. The first part of this book is about the author's childhood in Afghanistan. He weaves a lyrical myth out of his memories. The paperback version has a lovely addendum about his returning to Afhanistan. The author also contrasts living in a clan to his basement office in California. There arises a clear dialectic between freedom and potential loneliness in the US on the one hand and having connectedness with a clan in Afghanistan, but considerably less freedom (particularly for women), on the other. This is a fascinating thing for Americans to think about. The second part of the book was about the author's experiences in the US and as an adult travelling through Muslim countries. We learn that the Ansary surname designates a descendant of the people who helped Mohammed escape from Medina. Reading this Ansary's writings, I wonder if he will help Islam escape from the clutches of those horrible fundamentalists. Ansary has very interesting information about the historical roots of fundamentalism in Islam and dissenters from that fundamentalism. He explains how one can be Muslim and not fundamentalist. The writing quality is excellent: flowing, congenial, sometimes ironic, often deeply sincere, and with a certain innocence and idealism that is particulary wonderful in a middle aged man. Ansary has the ability to enjoy a great diversity of people, not feeling overly judgmental about any of them. The book is also mercifully short, despite being chock full of information. I never got bored.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A WONDERFUL OF AN AFGAN AMERICAN
Review: This book was so good and I can't my thoughts and feelings into words.
Rating:
Summary: fast moving tale of afghanistan then and now
Review: this was one of the first books i read on afghanistan. come to find out quotes from this book are all over the web. it is apparently a well known work. the author does a superb job of explaining his life and past living in afghanistan prior to the state the country is in now. with well defined images of the area, people, and culture, the authors tale will keep you reading without stopping. there are also great clarifications of terms and language used that is not familiar to those who are not privy to the language of aghanistan. the travels the author takes as a grown adult also give great insight into other areas, such as algeria, and has tales of interesting interaction with those who follow varying degrees of islam. a great read even if your not heavily into the afghan cause or culture.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but an unanswered question
Review: Very readable, very moving. I especially like his account of travelling in Morocco and Algeria. One thing stands out: how wrong the famous "e-mail" turned out to be. In brief, it said: the Taliban are monsters, but we can't bomb them, because that would kill too many innocents, and we can't invade by land, because Pakistan would never allow it, so I guess we'll just have to let them be and hope for the best." (Mr A, forgive me if this is an unfair paraphrase; it's how I read it). Obviously, things didn't work out that way. So why no acknowledgement from Mr Ansary? Maybe a post-script called The
E-Mail Revisited or something similar? Yes, I know there is still fighting in Afghanistan (in the Pashtun areas that had been favored under the Taliban), but his e-mail, while heartfelt, was mostly wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but an unanswered question
Review: Very readable, very moving. I especially like his account of travelling in Morocco and Algeria. One thing stands out: how wrong the famous "e-mail" turned out to be. In brief, it said: the Taliban are monsters, but we can't bomb them, because that would kill too many innocents, and we can't invade by land, because Pakistan would never allow it, so I guess we'll just have to let them be and hope for the best." (Mr A, forgive me if this is an unfair paraphrase; it's how I read it). Obviously, things didn't work out that way. So why no acknowledgement from Mr Ansary? Maybe a post-script called The
E-Mail Revisited or something similar? Yes, I know there is still fighting in Afghanistan (in the Pashtun areas that had been favored under the Taliban), but his e-mail, while heartfelt, was mostly wrong.
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