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A review by worldlibraries
The World is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen
1.0
The title held such promise! Unfortunately, this book did not deliver.
Here are some things I felt the author failed to do:
1) make me care
2) help me understand why she did - that was completely unclear to me
3) what the point of the story was
4) develop my empathy for any of the characters, indeed, I felt the author actually did her characters a disservice. I left the book identifying with the people of the geography less than before.
5) explain carpets in a way that made me feel I knew them better. I felt an opportunity was lost to make the world Afghan carpet snobs, This would have at least delivered something of value to the villagers who hosted her for a year.
6) explain the viewpoints of the Afghans toward their Russian occupiers. Surely they had a viewpoint and since she was Russian, that would have been a good discussion.
7) explain more about the American occupation.
8) make me feel like my time was well-spent. Often I would read five pages of vocabulary new to me (I feel like the author pulled out a pantone color wheel and wrote down every possible color to use in the book), only to reflect and think "ok, what action happened in those five pages - someone loaded a carpet on a bus and drove it to another city." Yawn!
9) why the people didn't leave that God forsaken place.
10) why the women put up with their men living off of their carpet weaving.
11) what putting opium in their children's mouths didn't set off red flags for the villages that "hey! We need to get out of this place. There has to be some place better." That was completely unclear to me why that didn't occur to the villagers.
I will say that the author did make me imagine what our climate-changed future will be like when everything is too dry and there isn't enough water. I looked at all the locations as I read on Google Maps and images. I can see why Afghan landscape has attracted imperialist adventurers for centuries. It looks like it would be a blast to ride a horse there.
This book was badly in need of an editor or a different translator. The grammar was mystifying. This book is skippable.
Here are some things I felt the author failed to do:
1) make me care
2) help me understand why she did - that was completely unclear to me
3) what the point of the story was
4) develop my empathy for any of the characters, indeed, I felt the author actually did her characters a disservice. I left the book identifying with the people of the geography less than before.
5) explain carpets in a way that made me feel I knew them better. I felt an opportunity was lost to make the world Afghan carpet snobs, This would have at least delivered something of value to the villagers who hosted her for a year.
6) explain the viewpoints of the Afghans toward their Russian occupiers. Surely they had a viewpoint and since she was Russian, that would have been a good discussion.
7) explain more about the American occupation.
8) make me feel like my time was well-spent. Often I would read five pages of vocabulary new to me (I feel like the author pulled out a pantone color wheel and wrote down every possible color to use in the book), only to reflect and think "ok, what action happened in those five pages - someone loaded a carpet on a bus and drove it to another city." Yawn!
9) why the people didn't leave that God forsaken place.
10) why the women put up with their men living off of their carpet weaving.
11) what putting opium in their children's mouths didn't set off red flags for the villages that "hey! We need to get out of this place. There has to be some place better." That was completely unclear to me why that didn't occur to the villagers.
I will say that the author did make me imagine what our climate-changed future will be like when everything is too dry and there isn't enough water. I looked at all the locations as I read on Google Maps and images. I can see why Afghan landscape has attracted imperialist adventurers for centuries. It looks like it would be a blast to ride a horse there.
This book was badly in need of an editor or a different translator. The grammar was mystifying. This book is skippable.