PDF Download An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan, by Jason Elliot

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An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan, by Jason Elliot

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From The New Yorker

As a nineteen-year-old on holiday from his native England, Elliot crossed illegally into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and spent weeks with the mujahideen in the mountains near Kabul. Ten years later, with the Taliban gaining strength, he returned to the country as a journalist, his cowboy streak only slightly tempered by age. What saves this book from being just a swashbuckling travelogue is Elliot's far-reaching knowledge of Afghan history and his willingness to mock himself. After begging the Afghan fighters to take him on a military operation, he finds himself crouched in a cornfield and suddenly homesick: "I knew then that I lacked the qualities necessary for guerrilla warfare." Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Review

“The most sustained firsthand description of life in Afghanistan to be produced by a foreign observer in recent years . . . exciting.” ―Richard Bernstein, The New York Times“A work of substance and style, witty and moving by turns, never less than wholly passionate . . . What raises the book to the level of a classic is its intensely personal meditation on the magic of unplanned adventure, of the pain and pleasure of pushing into the unknown.” ―The Times (London)“The surprise of the year: a lyrical, unrestrained and enthralling account of a journey into Afghanistan . . . I loved this book.” ―Daily Telegraph“This extraordinary debut is an account of Elliot's two visits to Afghanistan. The first occurred when he joined the mujaheddin circa 1979 and was smuggled into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan; the second happened nearly ten years later, when he returned to the still war-torn land. The skirmishes that Elliot painstakingly describes here took place between the Taliban and the government of Gen. Ahmad Shah Massoud in Kabul. Today, the Taliban are in power, but Elliot's sympathies clearly lie with Massoud. Although he thought long and hard before abandoning his plan to travel to Hazara territory, where 'not a chicken could cross that pass without being fired on,' Elliot traveled widely in the hinterland, visiting Faizabad in the north and Herat in the west. The result is some of the finest travel writing in recent years. With its luminous descriptions of the people, the landscape (even when pockmarked by landmines), and Sufism, this book has all the hallmarks of a classic, and it puts Elliot in the same league as Robert Byron and Bruce Chatwin.” ―Library Journal“An Unexpected Light is often unexpectedly funny and constantly perceptive, but it is also profound.” ―Jason Goodwin, The New York Times Book Review“Elliot is an enthralling writer with a great gift for evoking places, people and atmosphere, from the pastoral calm of a fertile valley to the terrifying sights and sounds of war.” ―Merle Rubin, The Los Angeles Times“Lyrical . . . alluring . . . a poignant remembrance, hued in the mixed reds of war and sunset, that comes close to a place that has already changed beyond imagination.” ―Paula Newberg, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review“Humorous, honest and wry . . . [Elliot's] literary talents are exceptional. His sonorous prose moves forward with the purposeful grace of a river.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred)“An Unexpected Light is an unexpected gift . . . Elliot's account is vivid and should broaden the reader's comprehension of an often misunderstood country.” ―Jonathan Shipley, Columbus Dispatch“The author's impressive knowledge of Afghanistan's history, his seemingly boundless affection for its people, his understanding and respect for their culture and religion, and his flair for the language make this more than a casual travelogue. It is a plaintive love song whose discordant notes are provided by daily encounters with violence, hardship, and poverty.” ―Kirkus Reviews“An Unexpected Light thoughtfully lays out new and overlooked information that policy-makers in the U.S. and the West as a whole need when trying to decide what may work.” ―Robert A. Lincoln, Richmond-Times Dispatch“I am sure this book will soon be among the classics of travel.” ―Doris Lessing“An astonishing debut: one of the most remarkable travel books this decade.” ―Willam Dalrymple

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Product details

Paperback: 473 pages

Publisher: Picador USA (October 2001)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0312288468

ISBN-13: 978-0312288464

Product Dimensions:

6 x 1.3 x 8.4 inches

Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.4 out of 5 stars

70 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#3,182,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

I purchased this book after having read it at my local library because it has to be on my Top 25 list of favorite books of all time. Mr. Elliot lived and travelled in Afghanistan not as a journalist or tourist, but as a human being drawn to the area and its people. This was post-Soviet time and pre-American time, and probably many of the people and places he visited have changed irrevocably. What comes through is his intense willingness to meet people on their terms, without judgement or agenda, and what results is a deep love for the place and people of the land. It makes it doubly sad to know the corruption and continual war leaves so few people with any viable options for survival, let alone a good life--but I for one am very grateful and appreciative of this book and the attitude of its author towards a place and people I can only respect and admire the more for his sharing of his experience. The prose can be very lyrical and at times almost numinous, because he is being touched so by the deeper spirit of this land. Beautifully written with great respect and almost a reverence for the best of what is Afghanistan (hint: it's NOT Karzai). To me, delving into the nature of the place and people, I see that it is utterly fruitless for any other nation to occupy militarily and attempt to "win" any kind of war here. It will never happen, but I don't have another solution either. There is so much we can't understand about a foreign country, especially one with such a long history, but Afghanistan's people deserve peace and prosperity, and I wish it for them, somehow.

This book is more than a travel book. It's an opportunity for the reader to enjoy, know and appreciate the country and people of Afghanistan in the years during and just after the Soviet occupation post 1998. It's more than that too. It's a beautifully written and thoughtful book which is a stand-alone example of literature at its contemporary best. Elliott made at least two trips into Afghanistan as an independent journalist in the 1990 and in this book he chronicles the magnificence of the landscape, the quality of the Afghans, cut off and on their own and the warm and the hospitable nature of their customs. But don't cross them1 It was a pleasure to read, my only caveat being that Elliott used a map with names and places which don't appear on my National Geographic Atlas (you'll want to read it with a magnifying glass and a good atlas at hand). As travel literature goes it can't be beat!

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.

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