Storyteller's Daughter

Rating:
Summary: Opening Western eyes to an Eastern Culture
Review: As an American curious as to what exactly is going on "over there" where our boys (and girls) are fighting, THIS book has helped me most, with insights not just into the facts of the centuries-long fighting in Afghanistan, but also insight into Afghan culture--heart understanding.

The author writes a narrative, but skillfully weaves in Afghani tales of old that help to clarify the viewpoint of those of a culture foreign to most Americans....foreign to most of the West. The author is the daughter of an Afghani father and Indonesian mother, and was raised in England. It is apparent, as she reveals to us her own struggle of East versus West, that she is attempting to be as fair as she can to both viewpoints, and even more than that...she is trying to carve out the truth between the two.

Sometimes the truth hurts. The myth of the Afghani Mujahidin, the Northern Alliance, the "rescue" of the Afghani people by the West...all is revealed. It would seem that such a thing would leave the reader in dispair, but instead the author leaves the strand of hope for the future.
Anyone who is interested in understanding Afghanistan or simply understanding other cultures will find some insight in this wonderfully written book.

Rating:
Summary: A Valley of Song that will change you
Review: Saira Shah continues the tradition of her esteemed family with a compelling and personal travelogue and object lesson that meets the high standards set by her grandfather, grandmother, and father (Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, Morag Murray Abdullah, and Idries Shah). This book is necessary reading for all Americans, considering our relationship with her ancestral homeland of Afghanistan over the last twenty-plus years. Those who seek easy answers, who rely on programmatic belief-structures and simplistic views of the complex phenomena that are human nature and culture... are, as usual, advised to seek elsewhere. The combination of ancient wisdom, colorful people and locales, horrific atrocities, and the hope that is endemic to humanity despite everything... is wonderfully realized here, and will change the reader, much like the characters in a story Ms. Shah presents and from which the title of this review is taken. I believe it remains incorrect to jump to any conclusions about her being placed in some sort of jeopardy or other by her father's ideas; first, because it was her interpretation of those ideas, not the ideas themselves, that led to the jeopardy; second, because her father made it clear that if she grew up she would not need to go; third, because he warned her of a need to compromise or she might get herself killed; fourth, because, given his participation in the struggle against the Soviets, it would have been hypocritical for him to stop his adult daughter doing what she could about the situation; fifth, because her father did not believe in forbidding as a teaching method, and it would have been inconsistent for him to use it in this case. Given the time span and events involved in this narrative, it goes almost without saying that things were omitted; it is unknown, perhaps even to the author, what steps were taken by others, and at whose behest, to minimize the risk of her capture or death. But what is here rings of truth, and is more than sufficient; indeed, it is excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Eroding our ignorance about Afghanistan
Review: Saira Shah sheds light on the complex and subtle religion, culture, and politics of the diverse people in Afghanistan. It's a thoroughly engrossing book with all the qualities described in other reviews.

"The Storyteller's Daughter" helps us towards a better understanding and away from an appalling ignorance about a country that the U.S. has chosen to interfere with. Reading it deepens my concerns that we're meddling in places that we have little or no understanding of and may never be able to understand.

Shah views the divisions within Islam based on fanaticism versus mysticism rather than schools and creeds. The Afghani's are inclined towards the mystic, whereas the Saudis follow a more fundamentalist and austere Islam. Here's an Afghan joke that demonstrates the shared commitment to waging war but the differing approaches: "Every Afghan fighter wants to be a ghazi, a hero, but the Arab wants to be a shahid, a martyr. That's why we try to help them along by putting them on the front line!"

When Shah writes about the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan in 1986, she notes that the U.S. wanted to see the conflict as a fight of democracy against Communism and failed to see that its "allies" were fighting a war between "extremist political Islam" and Afghanistan's "outdated traditional society," and the U.S. was funding the extremists.

Family history and allegiances are complex and go far into the past. She explains how a long history of invasions of Afghanistan, Afghan invasions of other countries, and internal wars between families and tribes has resulted in men who are fierce, brutal, and fearless fighters.

One of these fighters is a twenty-four-year-old Taliban commander who began fighting at eleven and has never lived during a time of peace. He's fought both for and against the Taliban based on who offers the best weapons. He carries photos of smiling fellow warriors before an attack and cassette tapes of battles in which he has fought. "`I always record my battles, I can play them later for relaxation and so that my name will live for ever.' Between explosions, the cries of the wounded are audible on the tape. He points to the child who will soon be joining the fray. This is the commander's favourite battle because during it the child's father was martyred. The tape reminds him that his friend is now in Paradise."

The book is compelling and unforgettable.


Rating:
Summary: A Multifaceted Jewel of a Book
Review: Saira Shah's stunning new memoir is one of those rare and wonderful books that's hard to classify because it touches the reader in so many different ways. A jewel of many facets -- from high adventure to geopolitics to the wisdom of the ages -- it takes us on a journey of the human spirit as compelling as it is rewarding. The setting of the book is Afghanistan, a country that, despite its recent prominence on the world stage, remains for most of us little known and much misunderstood. Shah opens up Afghanistan for the reader, revealing it to be far more complex and culturally rich than the evening news would lead us to believe; and in so doing, she opens up much, much more. An acclaimed London-based journalist whose powerful television documentary "Beneath the Veil" exposed the horrors of the Taliban to the world just prior to Sept. 11, Shah comes from an accomplished Afghan family of ancient pedigree. Her brother, Tahir Shah, is a celebrated travel writer, and her father, Idries Shah, who died in 1996, was a well-known Sufi philosopher whose 30-plus books have been translated into a dozen languages. But growing up in England, where her family had settled, Saira Shah's main contact with her Afghan heritage was through the stories her father told her and her siblings -- timeless stories of fairytale mountain landscapes peopled by proud and fearless warriors upholding a centuries-old code of honor. THE STORYTELLER'S DAUGHTER is built around her search for her own identity as she attempts to reconcile the romantic Afghanistan of her father's tales with the country's reality after years of devastating civil war. In gripping fashion tempered with gentle humor, it recounts her clandestine forays into Afghanistan with the mujahidin as a fledgling reporter in the mid-1980s, as well as her equally risky trips there in 2001 to film "Beneath the Veil" and its follow-up documentary, "Unholy War." In the process, it sheds considerable light on the conflict that has ravaged that country for decades, as well as on the upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism -- quite alien to Afghanistan's moderate, Sufi-influenced tradition -- that has given rise to al Qaeda. But the book goes far beyond those things in scope and appeal and, like the very best literature, serves as a lens through which the reader can gain a greater self-understanding. Thought-provoking, moving and beautifully written, THE STORYTELLER'S DAUGHTER is, among many other things, a timely reminder that we can rarely fit the world's complexities into the narrow confines of our own preconceived notions and oversimplifications.

Rating:
Summary: A thrilling story
Review: Saira Shah, raised in Britain far from her ancestoral homeland, Afghanistan, attempts to rediscover the Afghanistan of her father's stories. At a young age, she becomes a journalist, and heads to Afghanistan to cover the war against the Soviets. Traveling secretly with the mujahidin, she enters Afghanistan and gives us a view of the war from the point of view of the people living through the war. The adventures that she relates in this book are quite exciting. It provides an excellent idea of what the situation in Afghanistan is like. It's interesting and the writing style is easy to read. I really recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately this writer's not a good storyteller
Review: The writer's father and other ancestors may be good writers or storytellers, but Saira Shah certainly isn't. This book is a unstructured enumeration of detailed events during the writer's travels to her home country, but it lacks to give the larger picture the reader is looking for. Events or stories described in the book sometimes just span 1 sentence or 1 paragraph. Everytime I asked myself: "what was the point of writing this ?". I was also hoping to get a better insinght in the regions past and present, and the book almost failed completely. It's arrogant to call this book "memoirs" when the writer was barely 35 or 40 (my best guess) when she wrote it. There's just not enough substance and the reader leaves the book with a great hunger. The editors have done a bad job coaching the writer and editing the book.

Rating:
Summary: Exciting and Enlightening
Review: This book is both a series of tales of travel in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as the personal memoir of a young woman in search of the Afghanistan of her father's stories. It is studded with unforgetable characters and situations, a world away from typical western concerns. The writing is excellent. The author is fully engaged intellectually and emotionally, and has the ability to inspire that engagement in her readers as well. Further, anyone with a familiarity with her father Idries Shah's writings will find it of great interest that he left at least one member of his own family struggling to understand his broad claims about the wisdom and nobility of the Afghan people (see his Kara Kush, for instance). His ideas led his daughter, per her own admission, into some terribly dangerous situations during the Afghan conflicts.