Reviews for Mary Telfair to Mary Few: Selected Letters, 1802-1844

The average rating for Mary Telfair to Mary Few: Selected Letters, 1802-1844 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-09-12 00:00:00 Tim Binion I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks they understand Islam, as well as anyone with an interest in Afghanistan. My experience with Muslims has shown me that there is no more of a uniform, single-minded Islam than there is a Christianity where everyone has the same agenda, values and goals. Reading a memoir of a man who grew up in a form of Islam, and now is an atheist with family and friends in many forms of Islam gives great insight into the challenge we humans have in understanding and interpreting other people's religious perspective. Even the term "atheist" forms an image in most people's minds that Tamim Ansary's memoir challenges. Among the many facets of this book that I enjoyed, probably the one that will stay with me was Ansary's description of the explosive argument he had with his youngest brother who had lived the least amount of time in Afghanistan and has become what the popular media would call a "fundamentalist Muslim" (although Ansary provides context, so that you know exactly what his youngest brother became -- and may not have believed). The argument was one I could relate to: the angry brother attacking the views of his newly converts baby brother and putting words in his mouth -- drawing conclusions that his brother never said and the brother stubbornly refusing to refute the horrible charges. And so the brothers are estranged to this day, and because of differences are religious and real to both of them, it is hard to solve this estrangement. Another illuminating bit of the book was the author's early involvement in charitable giving to Afghan refugees, and how confused and odd those efforts became. I've often read about efforts to funnel money to terrorists via such efforts -- Ansary shows a real life effort to do something good and its derailment. I've enjoyed several books about life in Afghanistan, but this one starts much earlier than most of the recent best sellers -- the author's family came to America before much of the history that we know today (including the Soviet war), and is viewed by Afghans living outside the country. The author's voice in this audio book adds much to the telling of the story. Unfortunately, the publisher failed to edit out several places where Ansary had to reread a sentence to get the inflection he wanted. As a Christian, I've been surprised at what I've learned from thoughtful, cautious atheist writers like Ansary. He is a careful observer of himself, even as he analyzes the beliefs and choices of others. He is able to write diffidently, while having come to disagree with some viewpoint.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-20 00:00:00 E. Suzanne Rowland This book was a comfort because it was not an article you could read in 20 minutes claiming to reveal some big truth - articles like these are so ubiquitous the millennial's internet world. Instead, this book is a full-fledged story about one man's journey towards finding identity, community and belonging within two vastly different cultures, especially amidst growing Islamophobia in America. "West of Kabul, East of New York" is bookended by Ansary's reaction to 9/11 and is filled in the middle with his journey towards a cohesive American-Afghanistani identity. Ansary meanders in his storytelling sometimes but in the end it all comes together. He shares the answers (or more so, non-answers - which I think are much more useful!) he's learned throughout his life. Granted, this is only one man's point of view, so he's likely missing a lot of the picture, but that doesn't lessen his experiences or his interpretations of them. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to understand a different point of view and a brief history of a culture that is so quickly judged by the media and the world. Below are some of my favorite quotes: "...human relationships are the only things that are utterly irreplaceable" - pg. 206 "For all of us, surrendering to diversity is probably the only plausible path left to attaining unity. The international community is supposedly committed to helping [Afghanistan] rebuild, but the lost world will not be reconstituted. Whatever rises from the rubble will be something new, and I suspect I may not have to decide who I am in order to take some part in this impending Afghanistan, because I am a kaleidoscope of parts now - an so is Afghanistan. So is the world, when you get right down to it." - pg. 285 "So you never know. That's what I have concluded. Even the past can change, depending on what happens next -- or at least the meaning of the past can change, which is what counts. Broken friendships can turn out to have been everlasting. Weakness can turn out to have been strengths. The pattern is never visible until it's over -- and it's never over. Endings don't exist." - pg. 300