Books
In the travel journal An Unexpected Light, Jason Elliot gives the impression of being completely mad (in the best sense of the word). The fact that he isn't dead yet is purely a matter of luck.
This book describes Elliot's various trips to Afghanistan. His fascination with the country manifests itself while still at school; the stories of Russian invaders with the latest technology in weaponry being held at bay by small groups of resistance fighters known as the mujaheddin intrigued him as well as the obvious "flirtation with danger". He didn't realise on that first trip the "persistence with which that first foolhardy act of trespass would reverberate down the years" and how he would continually be drawn back.
So at the age of nineteen, newly out of school, Elliot arrives in Peshawar in Pakistan, forty miles from the Afghan border. He manages to steal over with the help of a guide and spends his summer before university fighting with the mujaheddin. Not only did he risk getting shot or blown up but as Afghanistan was under Soviet power at the time, foreigners could be executed for even entering the country.
The rest of the book describes his most recent travels in Kabul, Herat and numerous remote villages rarely seen by foreigners. He describes the beauty of the landscape, the friendliness, hardiness and amazing hospitality of the people in the face of constant warfare and their enormous interest in what he was doing, British customs and how often British men slept with their wives. His reading and knowledge of Afghan history is immense and he is constantly divulging little-known facts about the country. Particularly interesting in the light of recent events is his account of a trip to Herat, which had just been taken over by the Taliban. New restrictions were being imposed daily. Woman had been banned from attending university or school, the television aerials had all been removed and sport and musical instruments banned. Even the strictest Moslems were unhappy with the changes being brought about. Afghans blamed America in part for the situation the country found itself in. America promised help rebuilding the economy after the war was over. This help never materialised.
This is an excellently crafted book and a fascinating read on a subject the average Briton is woefully ignorant about. I can't help wondering if Elliot will be paying another trip to Afghanistan soon to see how this tragically war-torn country has survived its latest round of bombings.
Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel follows the course of Ned Kelly's life, as narrated by the man himself. Carey evokes the uneducated voice of Kelly (his greatest achievement was becoming ink monitor at school) through an appropriately stumbling but honest account of his life. Kelly writes his story to his new-born daughter, in an attempt to set out to her his motivations for his actions, and the forces at work in his life. Kelly's great love is that for his mother, a role that his lover fails to supplant, and it is this affection that drives Kelly through his life. Carey's version of accounts sets Kelly up as a misunderstood and maligned victim of this impulse to protect his mother; from her various lovers, from starvation, and ultimately from unfair imprisonment. He is seemingly led to crime by circumstance, bad luck and a series of dodgy acquaintances.
The villains of the piece are the policemen, an unappealing group of cheats, liars and idiots. Kelly appeals partly through his innocence, partly through his ability, despite his lack of education, to outwit these characters. The tension is maintained through the novel by the reader's fear that Kelly will become the unreasonable thief and vagabond that the authorities wish to paint him as. Kelly does act in criminal and unorthodox manners, but his narrative convincingly points out the necessity of these actions, and penitently acknowledges the mistakes he makes.
The novel manages to balance the compelling history of a gang of outlaws, forced to increasingly desperate measures, and the touching memoir of a man pursued by an injustice that rankles even for the modern reader. Carey has resurrected a voice from Australia's past, and it is this evocation of the suffering of immigrant Irish in the early colony, the setting-right of a wrong that became a foundation of this new world, which gives the novel a reach beyond that of the personal memoir. This insight is not easily forgotten.
25th Apr 2002