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An American Bride In Kabul (2013)

by Phyllis Chesler(Favorite Author)

3.14 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0230342213 (ISBN13: 9780230342217)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Palgrave Macmillan Trade

review 1: An American Bride in Kabul was an interesting book in some respects but I don't think it was very well written. The first part deals with the author's marriage to a seemingly very Americanized Afghan Muslim whom she meets in college who invites her to meet his family in Kabul soon after they marry in 1961. As soon as she lands in Afghanistan, her passport is taken away and she is a virtual prisoner of her husband's family. She is understandably miserable and eventually manages to get out of Afghanistan returning to New York. Her description of the culture of the Afghan people and their family dynamic, polygamy, and treatment of women, including honor killings etc. is alarming to say the least. And it hasn't changed all that much since the 1960s when we didn't have the inte... morernet and most people had no idea what was going on there. The second part of the book (most of it actually) deals with her life once she returns to NY when she returns to college and eventually becomes a feminist writer. The second part of the book reads more like a political essay, complete with many references to articles and books, rather than a memoir. While I did learn some very interesting things by reading this book, it didn't make me want to read any more of her work. I would give it 2 1/2 stars but that's not an option.
review 2: I had hoped and expected that this book might allow me a glimpse of another culture from the eyes of an individual who is not familiar with that culture. I had hoped that I could journey with the author in better understanding her life immersed in a culture different from my own. However, I was truly disappointed with this book. I do not mean to diminish and disregard Ms. Chesler's obviously traumatic experiences, but really, she did not really tell a story. Unfortunately, the psychological trauma she experienced tainted her writing such that I really did not gain anything from this recounting. Most of her writing about her experiences were too much from her own perspective. Even though she stayed in Afghanistan for a short time, the readers don't really know much about what happened because the author was too much inside her own head. At times it was bogged down in nostalgia. At others, it was clearly a delayed retaliation against experiences from forty years ago. She would only recount what she thought/felt/etc while being in Afghanistan. With the exception of her first husband, we really don't get to know any other Afghans. And one gets the impression that her perception of her husband is greatly prejudiced. As she mentions in her book, Chesler was very self-conscious about how her writings are interpreted, and she takes great strides to cover up bias by overloading the work with historical facts and quotes from others who have written about Afghanistan and other predominantly Muslim countries with whom she has hob-knobbed. For a book titled, "An American Bride in Kabul", I did not expect that for most of the book she would be talking about her life in America during and after 9/11 and about Jews (not herself, but others) in Afghanistan. Those seemed to be topics for other books. less

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