Helpful Score: 2
SYNOPSIS:
An American journalist exploring the war zone on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border reports unwanted lessons in its perils in this harrowing memoir. Having traveled with the freedom fighters in the '80s, Van Dyk thought he had the connections and knowledge to navigate the tribal lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but he was captured by a fractious band of Taliban fighters in 2008. Van Dyk (In Afghanistan: An American Odyssey) and his Afghan guides spent 44 days in a dark cell. Well-fed but terrified, he felt a nightmare of helplessness and disorientation. Dependent on a jailer who mixed solicitude with jocular death threats and a ruthless Taliban commander who could free or kill him on a whim, the author performed Muslim prayers in an attempt to appease his captors; wary of murky conspiracies involving his cellmates, he was afraid of everybody, including the children. Van Dyk's claustrophobic narrative jettisons journalistic detachment and views his ordeal through the distorting emotions of fear, shame, and self-pity. But in telling his story this way, he brings us viscerally into the mental universe of the Taliban, where paranoia and fanaticism reign, and survival requires currying favor with powerful men. The result is a gripping tale of endurance and a vivid evocation of Afghanistan's grim realities.
My notes: Tough Experience - Hard Read
Jere Van Dyk went through a harrowing ordeal that should be wished upon no one. This book intimately captures the raw emotions of a hostage that doesn't know what is going on, if he will live through the day, or if he will ever be released.
That said, it is a tough read. It comes as a surprise that Van Dyk is a writer, given his constant use of 3,4, and 5 word sentences. In the midst of these simple sentences come beautifully constructed full sentences that are wonderfully descriptive, so he knows how to write well when he wants to. A second complaint is his jarring and continual use of non-sequiturs by everyone he quotes - Afghan, Taliban, or American. But it's evidently how he thinks and writes. Together the short sentences and non-sequiturs make for hard reading.
From the beginning Van Dyk seems willfully ignorant of the extremely dangerous feat he's attempting. Didn't he know the fate of Danielle Mastrogiacomo, an Italian journalist taken hostage by the Taliban a year before? He certainly knows of Daniel Pearl, whom he mentions in the book.
Van Dyk is strangely naive in his belief that Pashtun cultural norms are absolute and can never be broken. He certainly deserves recognition for his deep knowledge of Afghan culture and past reporting from there, but he is shocked over and over again that Pashtuns do things he thought were forbidden by their culture. Perhaps because of this Van Dyk assigns his captors almost superhuman abilities of perception, believing that they could tell if he was genuine or not about his conversion to Islam.
He also goes native, for whatever reason, to the point of dressing like an Afghan and trying to speak the language (poorly, it turns out). Contrast Van Dyk's attempts with Paul Refsdal, a Norwegian filmmaker who spent time with the Taliban and was also held as a hostage for several days. Like Van Dyk, Refsdal had spent time with the mujahadden during the 1980s. Unlike Van Dyk, Refsdal didn't feel the need to pass as an Afghan.
Most disturbing is Van Dyk's begruding admiration for his captors and nearly univeral distrust of the Americans he interacts with on release. He even wonders where his captors spent the night after his release and if they were back in village where he was held. He is eager to prove his opposition to the U.S. efforts while in captivity and disdainful of the American Embassy compound after release. All together it makes him an unsympathetic victim.
An American journalist exploring the war zone on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border reports unwanted lessons in its perils in this harrowing memoir. Having traveled with the freedom fighters in the '80s, Van Dyk thought he had the connections and knowledge to navigate the tribal lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but he was captured by a fractious band of Taliban fighters in 2008. Van Dyk (In Afghanistan: An American Odyssey) and his Afghan guides spent 44 days in a dark cell. Well-fed but terrified, he felt a nightmare of helplessness and disorientation. Dependent on a jailer who mixed solicitude with jocular death threats and a ruthless Taliban commander who could free or kill him on a whim, the author performed Muslim prayers in an attempt to appease his captors; wary of murky conspiracies involving his cellmates, he was afraid of everybody, including the children. Van Dyk's claustrophobic narrative jettisons journalistic detachment and views his ordeal through the distorting emotions of fear, shame, and self-pity. But in telling his story this way, he brings us viscerally into the mental universe of the Taliban, where paranoia and fanaticism reign, and survival requires currying favor with powerful men. The result is a gripping tale of endurance and a vivid evocation of Afghanistan's grim realities.
My notes: Tough Experience - Hard Read
Jere Van Dyk went through a harrowing ordeal that should be wished upon no one. This book intimately captures the raw emotions of a hostage that doesn't know what is going on, if he will live through the day, or if he will ever be released.
That said, it is a tough read. It comes as a surprise that Van Dyk is a writer, given his constant use of 3,4, and 5 word sentences. In the midst of these simple sentences come beautifully constructed full sentences that are wonderfully descriptive, so he knows how to write well when he wants to. A second complaint is his jarring and continual use of non-sequiturs by everyone he quotes - Afghan, Taliban, or American. But it's evidently how he thinks and writes. Together the short sentences and non-sequiturs make for hard reading.
From the beginning Van Dyk seems willfully ignorant of the extremely dangerous feat he's attempting. Didn't he know the fate of Danielle Mastrogiacomo, an Italian journalist taken hostage by the Taliban a year before? He certainly knows of Daniel Pearl, whom he mentions in the book.
Van Dyk is strangely naive in his belief that Pashtun cultural norms are absolute and can never be broken. He certainly deserves recognition for his deep knowledge of Afghan culture and past reporting from there, but he is shocked over and over again that Pashtuns do things he thought were forbidden by their culture. Perhaps because of this Van Dyk assigns his captors almost superhuman abilities of perception, believing that they could tell if he was genuine or not about his conversion to Islam.
He also goes native, for whatever reason, to the point of dressing like an Afghan and trying to speak the language (poorly, it turns out). Contrast Van Dyk's attempts with Paul Refsdal, a Norwegian filmmaker who spent time with the Taliban and was also held as a hostage for several days. Like Van Dyk, Refsdal had spent time with the mujahadden during the 1980s. Unlike Van Dyk, Refsdal didn't feel the need to pass as an Afghan.
Most disturbing is Van Dyk's begruding admiration for his captors and nearly univeral distrust of the Americans he interacts with on release. He even wonders where his captors spent the night after his release and if they were back in village where he was held. He is eager to prove his opposition to the U.S. efforts while in captivity and disdainful of the American Embassy compound after release. All together it makes him an unsympathetic victim.
