Even though The Places In Between by Rory Stewart is not a post-apocalyptic novel, it certainly is the story of survival in extreme conditions.  Rory Stewart, a Scotsman, walked across Afghanistan in early 2002 right after the fall of the Taliban and this tells the story of his adventure. 

 

  

My initial reaction to this book was that this guy must be whacked, and this opinion did not change by the end of the book.  I am all for adventure but he walked in the middle of the winter through the most remote area of Afghanistan on unmarked roads, without a map, and would just arrive in these villages and sleep on the floors of the villagers huts.

The book was fascinating because I did not know much about the history, religion, geographic landscape, or the politics of Afghanistan but now feel a little more knowledgable than I was.  However my fascination was matched by frustration because Stewart discusses Afghanistan as if the reader knows the country as well as he does. 

Each village is run by a different tribe with different religious and political beliefs.  Halfway through the book, I was so confused between who was who and which village were descendants of Genghis Kan versus the Shia or Sunnis that I somewhat gave up trying to figure it out.  There is one map at the very beginning of the book that I kept having to flip back to but even that didn’t help much.  I think that if Stewart had given an introductory chapter on the history of Afghanistan and who ruled when and how it evolved to its current situation, it would have been much easier to understand and appreciate all the characters he met along the way.

My other disappointment in the book is that you never really got to know Stewart.  What motivated him?  Why did he make this trek?  The preface begins with

I’m not good at explaining why I walked across Afghanistan.  Perhaps I did it because it was an adventure.”

I would have thought that by the time he wrote the book that he would have figured out his motivation and perhaps allowed the reader to get to know him better.

The other aspect of the book which fascinated me was the hospitality afforded Stewart.  Apparently there is a basic Muslim concept that you must open your door and provide food and a place to sleep to any traveller.  In every village, Stewart found a house/mosque to sleep in and was provided a meal.  Could you ever imagine that happening in the US?  If someone knocked on your door and said they were walking across the country and could they sleep at your house for the night - you would slam the door on them and probably call the police.

I did enjoy the book and definitely learned more about Afghanistan and realized how similiar it is to the current Iraq situation.  In fact, in late 2003, Stewart was appointed to be a provincial governor of the Maysan province in Southern Iraq as part of the coalition govenment.  He just published a book, The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards about his year long experience as a governor and the reviews I’ve seen said that the book offers great insight into the chaos in Iraq.