Book Review: Odyssey from 'East' to 'West'

In the confusing aftermath of Sept. 11, I received an e-mail -- one of those "FWD" messages one often deletes unread. For some reason, I opened this one and became instantly drawn to its unique voice. The voice spoke with passion and reason, explaining the reality of the situation, imploring me to understand the difference between the repressive Taliban and the suffering people of Afghanistan.

In those shattering days, here were strength and refreshing clarity. It is trite to say the words electrified me, but they really did during the initial numbing hours. Although the words arrived from a stranger, it seemed like a letter from an unmet friend.

The e-mail was signed Tamim Ansary, a name almost unknown until millions of people eventually received the remarkable "FWD." It turns out Ansary is a middle-aged Afghan American living in San Francisco. He unwittingly sent his message to a few friends who then multiplied recipients through the magic of the Internet. I now know this because of his lovely and at times heart-breaking memoir, "West of Kabul, East of New York," in which he fleshes out the story of his youth in Afghanistan and later emigration to the United States.

I found this book on a table at Kramerbooks on Dupont Circle in Washington. A young boy's face looked up at me from the cover photograph. He appears to be around 9 or 10. On his head is elaborate headgear wrapped somewhat haphazardly. In the center perches a soft white dove-like bird. The boy's mouth is not visible, but his shining black eyes stare at me so playfully, I just know he is wearing a big grin.

This captivating photo is not of the author but inspired cover art. It doesn't matter. The picture perfectly embodies the spirit of the book -- a boy gazing at the world with curiosity, wonder and humor. You want to know him and, fortunately, this articulate book satisfies that desire.

Ansary, a wonderful storyteller, is gifted with an unusual story to tell, beginning with his Afghan father meeting a young Finnish American woman while studying in Chicago in the 1940s. He wore stylish suits and "snazzy" hats and she "didn't consider herself pretty," but the two of them discovered they could tango together -- literally. They married and moved to Kabul to live and raise their three children.

In this first section, Ansary describes his boyhood in poetic and informative language. His family lived in a house inside a compound surrounded by nine-foot walls. Other relatives had their own houses within these walls. The city itself was made up of hundreds of such compounds where families lived intricate and connected lives, moving about and interacting, always together. I picture a vast city of family farms, each with a self-contained life, exotic and fascinating.

As Ansary tells it, in this communal atmosphere, the concept of personal privacy was almost unknown. Yet he was free and protected, roaming with his many cousins and friends, an idyllic life for a boy. Because Ansary is such a good writer, I understand at last what family means to Afghans, how deeply they are rooted in that soil and why the ancestral village is so important.

Ansary always understood the dual nature of his heritage. He and his siblings did not eat with their fingers from the communal dishes as did his relatives -- rather, they used forks and spoons. When he was on the verge of adolescence, his family moved to the tiny town of Lashkargah where his father, a government official, helped manage a huge Afghan/American project of transforming the wasted Helmand Valley into fertile land. During his six years there, Ansary lived what he calls a "quasi-American life."

His father's rank at this outpost commanded privileges and allowed his mother to enjoy parties and social life. In many ways, this period became the happiest ever for the family. Then political forces altered his father's situation and young Ansary found himself back in Kabul at the age of 16, smarting with humiliation. The visible sign of the family's demotion in rank was being issued an ugly Soviet Volga to drive instead of the Mercedes given to higher officials.

Always a good student, he applied to and was accepted at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School. The family emigrated to the States with Ansary, but this began a process of division. Later, his father returned to Afghanistan alone, choosing his large extended family there over his small nuclear one in America.

The late William Maxwell, a fine writer and editor at The New Yorker, once said: "Write as if you wish to be understood by an unusually bright 10-year-old."

This exactly denotes Ansary's style. Woven into his stories are lucid explanations of Islam, the history of Afghanistan, the heroes of his youth, what school was like in bare classrooms with no books, how women lived, the joys and cruelties of Islamic society -- all of it highly educational and absolutely painless to absorb. In addition to "speaking" beautifully, this author is capable of painting large colorful canvases with his words.

The middle section of the book finds a thoroughly Americanized Ansary emerging from the counterculture of the '60s to begin his true adult life as a writer. His family has scattered -- his mother teaching in Maryland, his sister Rebecca living in Pennsylvania and his younger brother Riaz reaching back to the Islamic way of life. Ansary clashes with Riaz about specific brutal practices of Islam, causing a painful rift. Although raised in Islam and even speaking of the Prophet Muhammad as "a really great guy ... a regular guy," the author has drifted far from his childhood religion.

Everything changes again. The Ayatollah Khomeini takes over the government of Iran, Americans are held hostage, Ansary meets Debby Krant, the love of his life, and sets off on assignment for Pacific News Service to report on the causes of Islamic fundamentalism. He has the vague goal of reaching Pakistan and perhaps seeing his father again. This journey from Tangier to Morocco, Algeria and Turkey is full of tense border crossings, losing money from foolish mistakes and backtracking. His exhausting effort to become a "macho journalist" and explain cultures in turmoil is just amazing. Although he never does write the story or reach his geographic destination, Ansary has the courage to portray himself in all his gullibility and inexperience. He ends up is a Paris hotel room reading "The Odyssey" and yearning for a return to Debby -- his own Penelope.

What he does achieve is a grasp of who he is and how at last to integrate his cross-cultural background into a fully mature life. Deciding "the Islamic world is someone else's, not mine," he returns home to "take up my life as one unconflicted soul: Tamim Ansary, American guy." Yet he also found ways to understand his now deceased father, to reconcile with his brother and connect culturally with the growing Afghan community in California.

When Sept. 11 occurred, with all the love inside him for his country of birth and his country of choice, he fired off an e-mail heard round the world. The book closes with the text of that e-mail and, reading it again, I marveled at the density of thought and the economy of his few potent words. He asked if the West had the stomach to go against Osama bin Laden.

I read an article the other day in the Washington Post about the situation in Kabul today. It sounds light years away from the sweet family compounds of Ansary's youth, where uncles sat around endlessly reciting family history. Now the streets are crammed with vehicles and construction goes on round the clock. Expatriate Afghans are flowing back into the ravaged country, earnestly trying to fix up homes and build schools. Slick entrepreneurs try to make a quick buck as many thousands wonder how to make it through the bitterly cold winter.

Tamim Ansary taught me much about his country and its generous, warm people who love music, the spoken word and ancient kinship. His book is one that stays with you, coloring the way you look at bright-eyed boys or listen to the news and think about this world.

("West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story" by Tamim Ansary, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 292 pages, $22.00)