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An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
by Jason Elliot
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Picador (2001-10)
ISBN: 0312288468
EAN: 9780312288464
Dewy Decimal #: 915.810446
Paperback: 496 pages
SKU: 29705
Condition: New
Comments: THE SOFTBACK BOOK! PICADOR, 2001. THE UNABRIDGED 1ST EDITION. EARLY PRINT. SOFTCOVER BOOK AND PAGES ARE IN PERFECT CONDITION! Rapid shipping w/FREE tracking. GREAT PACKAGING . Air Mail. YW.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Part historical evocation, part travelogue, and part personal quest, An Unexpected Light is the account of Elliot's journey through Afghanistan, a country considered off-limits to travelers for twenty years. Aware of the risks involved, but determined to explore what he could of the Afghan people and culture, Elliot leaves the relative security of Kabul. He travels by foot and on horseback, and hitches rides on trucks that eventually lead him into the snowbound mountains of the North toward Uzbekistan, the former battlefields of the Soviet army's "hidden war." Here the Afghan landscape kindles a recollection of the author's life ten years earlier, when he fought with the anti-Soviet mujaheddin resistance during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Weaving different Afghan times and visits with revealing insights on matters ranging from antipersonnel mines to Sufism, Elliot has created a narrative mosaic of startling prose that captures perfectly the powerful allure of a seldom-glimpsed world.
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Customer Reviews
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Read this if interested in Afghanistan or off-beaten path
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-09-16
This was really a memorable book. I have to thank Jason Elliott for being such a brave person and entering this very different and sometimes hostile place. His descriptions of the land, architecture and people are all very well done and his curiosity seems to know no bounds. Much better than his other book about Iran because he doesn't focus as much on architecture.
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In the Top Ten Books I Have Ever Read on the Middle East
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-10-03
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
As a resident of the Middle East for almost a decade, and a professor, speaker, writer, journalist, for over 20 years, I have done thousands of hours of research and read hundreds of books on the Middle East, Islam and the cultures in that part of the world. "Unexpected Light" is one of the best that has ever been written. Elliott did his research on the ground, and tasted and tested a myriad of cultural and historical facets on the peoples in their own environment; an attribute that is greatly lacking in almost all of the teaching, writing, and commentary of the so-called "experts" in the West.
It truly shines the light of "Truth" on a very important subject.
softjihadwatch@earthlink.net
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An Incredibly Engaging Book
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-04-26
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is not simply a travelogue. Jason Elliot is clearly a poet at heart. His book manages to teach the reader about Afghan society and culture while telling of his travels in such a way that leaves the reader spellbound. When I finished the book I felt both sad and happy at the same time; sad it was over and so happy to have had the opportunity to read it. When one can say that about a book, one knows it is truly a great read. Read this book; besides giving you countless hours of pleasure, it will enrich your life.
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Afghanistan Unfolds in Your Mind Drowning Out CNN Forever
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-11-29
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
There are books I pick up that the author's talent makes me slow down as I don't want it to end. If you read as much as me, you begin to yearn for such a book now & again as it just doesn't happen enough (particularly nonfiction). Jason Elliot's first book has taught me more in a hundred pages than I've ever learned about Afghanistan in school or the news. I haven't even finished this book & I had to write about it.
Jason Elliot's prose captures the traditional pace of Afghanistan life as well as discordant notes due to the impact of war & western influence. He also works to unfold the soul of a people. He evokes this via excellent description, historical tales & summaries, his own romance & naivete towards Afghanistan, and the characters who keep him alive even when they can't communicate. I have no idea how he could top these adventures. I'm not sure I've ever read a travel book that has so transported me. I am so thankful I stumbled across this book & I hope it expands your world as it did mine.
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A Must-Read for Anyone Who Enjoys the Unexpected
Rating (4)
Date: 2006-10-16
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."
Rudyard Kipling, "The Young British Soldier"
Anyone who's ever read these words, and, following 9/11, felt even an ounce of empathy for them, should not just read but embrace this wonderful travelogue.
Yes, sometimes the going gets difficult. Sometimes (e.g., at the beginning, after one particularly awkward transition out of a flashback), it may be as tough getting through this book as it was for the author to surmount yet another icy Afghanistan mountain atop a horse named Clockwork. But the rewards for doing so are rich indeed.
If you think all Afghan citizens are "the Taleban," know this: they hate the Taliban and wish the Taliban would go back where they came from - to America!
Hardly the uncouth barbarians that we Westerners, from both sides of the Atlantic, too often have accused them of being, the nationals of Afghanistan, whether Pasthuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, or Turkmen, seem genuinely delighted to greet a foreigner in their midst (Jason Elliot, the author); to inquire as to his health; to command a seven-year-old family member to bring him tea; to pelt him endlessly with questions (including, but not limited to, questions about marriage and sex in that distant province called Anglostan); and to offer him lodging. In fact, one of the only people to turn him out into the cold, just thirty minutes before curfew in Herat, hails not from Afghanistan but France.
This book leaves you understanding the difference between "terrorist" and "Moslem." At dawn and dusk, at lunch-, supper-, and bedtime, locals lay down their plowshares or teacups, unfold their mats, and kneel to share a moment with their maker. "God is good to us," one gentleman informs Elliot, moments after a bomb has devastated a neighboring street. Another bomb, one of thousands which seem as inexplicably and frustratingly common here as the elements, kills several in a group at noontime prayers. Yet life doesn't stop here; prayers and a reverence for God (Allah) don't cease being of the utmost importance. In fact, the Afghans, because of the constant danger rather than in spite of it, seem to live each moment to the fullest. As does Elliot, their guest, while living amongst them.
Ultimately, it is not difficult to understand why it was almost impossible for Elliot to leave.
Postscript: I read this book each day on the subway to and from work. It was frustrating, because I couldn't take my dictionary along. I'd dog-ear each page containing words that confounded me, and, at night, I'd finally learn what "arak"(1) and "tessellating"(2) meant. I considered this not to be a liability but a strength of the book; I relish books that challenge me!
(1) Middle Eastern distilled alcoholic beverage; clear, colorless, unsweetened, and flavored with aniseed.
(2) Assemblage of flat pieces (such as tiles) into one flat surface without overlaps or gaps; Middle Eastern artists were said to be masters of tilework, mosaic work, and other types of artistry requiring both creativity and mathematical skill.
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