Journals

Journal Prompt One

The Bookseller of Kabul: April 23, 2011

In the Forward of the book, the author clearly states that all the stories mentioned to her are provided by Sultan [the bookseller] and his family themselves, so any inconveniences with the tone and emotions shown by each character are, to her belief, accurately depicted. As these experiences were not her own, she made sure to check with the actual family members to make sure the documentation was correct, so readers can be reassured of her portrayal. As far as assumptions, we all knew that a majority of the book would focus on the treatment of women, so we were not surprised to see the ill-treatment of such. And though we do not agree with how they treat their kin (and other women for that matter) we do respect that this is a relying factor in their culture. Regardless, we do find them to be victims within the society, and as they are sold from their families fairly young, somewhat unhappy as well. Yet we do feel that some of the women are hypocritical about how they go about the doing things despite the fact that it is a common thing to gossip about how others act even if they do similar things [same goes for our culture as well]. Because of this, the book as a whole draws more of a women audience then men. I would assume that most men would not pick up a book if it contained a [semi] feministic view on the treatment of women in Kabul.

Even though the story line is told from someone outside of this culture, the way the author shares each characters experiences makes us believe that she was actually there. She elaborates rather well with all of the characters, yet manages to make us second guess how we feel about the main character Sultan. Even though Sultan is an intellectual and a man who has faced many hardships, we have a hard time deciding whether or not to like him because of the way he treats his family. In one chapter he will slave over his work to make school books for children, and in the next chapter abandon his first wife or yell at his son. It makes it hard to relate to him because their views of how a family should be are completely different than what we’re used to and no matter how hard we try the way they treat woman will always make us cringe.

While the author writes about these instances she will put in a [rather long] historical account before going into the events that happen. Through this we do get a sense of how and when certain laws or rulers came into effect, but we all agree that sometimes these history lessons could be a little shorter. Not being acquainted with this culture makes some of the historical figures mentioned seem rather pointless to include because we have no idea who they are. We could however look up these things, but sometimes even with an explanation we don’t have enough history with these persons to see how they’ve affected the region they ruled [not all of us are buffs for history].

Some similarities we found within the book to our class thus far have been the patriarchal dominance with both The Latehomecomer and The Bookseller of Kabul. Both societies have a male dominance that seems a little extreme, but with the Latehomecomer it seemed to evolve a little after they moved to America. With The Bookseller of Kabul however, they seem to be going in the opposite direction and giving women less freedom than they had before the wars taking place now. So though they relate one one level, they differ on another with the degradation of one and the advancement of the other.


Journal Prompt Two
The Bookseller of Kabul: April 29th, 2011.

Throughout the book it is made clear how the power in the Khan family is distributed. By nature in Afghanistan the oldest male of the family has the most power, and in this book, Sultan is the eldest once after his father died. He reigns over is mother (who is second in command) and all the rest of the family. This is important to know while reading because Sultan makes important decisions that influence the family. For example he marries off two of his sisters, one for free because she is disabled. Another time he had an argument with is younger brother, Farid, about working in Sultan’s bookshop and Sultan banned him from the family. This is a big decision because Sultan allows no family member to contact or see him (though, many do while Sultan is at work). Along with making important decisions, Sultan is also the provider of the family living in his house. Even though everyone must obey Sultan’s law, some of the power in the house is taken for granted. For example Mansur, Sultan’s eldest son, torments his aunt Leila and treats her like a slave every chance he gets.  He knows he can get away with it, so he continuously agonizes her. Knowing how the power is distributed is an imported ideal to understand throughout the book to understand the Islam culture.

The material in this book can be used in our daily lives such as being thankful for our feminist freedom. Our group consists of all girls from the same generation we take for granted women’s rights.  In this generation we do not have anyone making us stay home to cook and clean or telling us we are not allowed to become educated or work. We also have the right to marry whom ever we would like and do not have someone chosen for us. In our society we would consider this a devastating event because we are being forced to love someone. In the book forbidden love is a disgrace to the family and results in punishment. Two unmarried people of the opposite gender cannot even sit on the same bench or share a taxi together without bringing shame upon their families.  Another aspect we have to appreciate is our freedom to wear clothing that fits our style and body type; we do not have to be stuffed in a burka not allowed to show our face to men. If this were the case we would have a hard time finding a man because the first thing a man notices are looks and then personality, so this would be hard if our faces were hidden behind a burka.  Although our society may find these strict rules against women a little extreme, this is part of the Islam culture; and by reading this book we can grasp an understanding of the culture.

Another similarity we found between this book and the class pertains to the mini-unit regarding male and female roles.  In both societies males are consider the strong, dominant supporters of the family; while women are portrayed as the gender that stays home to cook, clean, take care of the kids, and tend to the husbands.  Even though our society has changed, whereas there are lots of stay-at-home dads and accomplished workingwomen, the view of male dominance will always be there.  For example during the class activity where a person would write on the board a word that described the opposite sex, the males still had the upper hand on the dominance part.  Many women saw men as strong and protective, while women were described as emotional and having to do housework. These descriptions portray the characters in the book as well. Sultan is very protective and cares for his family, while also supporting everyone financially; and Leila, Sultan’s youngest sister, does all the cooking and housework for the family. Even though the level of severity differs between the two cultures, males are generally found to be the more dominant gender.

Journal Prompt Three

The Bookseller of Kabul: May 6^th, 2011. Journal 3

Seierstad takes an interesting position as she writes the book. Rather than making her presence obvious by using words such as “I,” her presence becomes lost in the stories of the characters. This makes the book more like a story rather than a documentary. Additionally, this gives her writing even more power. This allows her to subtly slip in biases into her writing. Rather than saying “I think,” she phrases things more subjectively and sometimes in ways which makes it seem as though that is what is thought by the characters. In many instances, Seierstad mentions individual’s thoughts or writes in a way that makes it appear as though it is the thought of the individual. It is unknown whether these thoughts are coming from the individuals themselves or what she believes and infers they are thinking. For example, when Fazil was not answered one of his teachers many questions, she writes the following: “He must surely be the stupidest boy in class. The pain was nothing compared to the shame of standing there” (196). Through this short paragraph, we feel as though we are in Fazil’s head at the moment and feel his humiliation and loss of confidence. There is so much more power in this, rather than saying “He was probably thinking he was the stupidest boy in class” or “He told me he felt like the stupidest boy in class.” Another great example where she goes inside the head of one of the characters is through Aimal in the chapter “The Dreary Room.” Seierstad writes “It felt better that his heart bleed for the dead minister rather than his own lost childhood,” after he feels saddened upon hearing of the minister’s death (213). Most likely Aimal did not tell her this but by writing as though we are in his perspective and he is thinking this makes it so much more powerful and gives the reader a more personal connection.

The word choice and the omission and addition of certain words in Sierestad’s writing are something to take note of. In “An Attempt,” she describes how Sultan has paid his future fiancé’s parents to spend to sleep with her before the wedding night. She describes Sultan as “bribing” her parents and they were “silenced with ready cash,” allowing Sultan to do something that was “unheard-of” (185). She briefly writes about the night saying “Gradually he prepared the sixteen-year-old for the great night” (185). There would be a different tone while reading it if it had just said “Gradually he prepared his fiancé” instead of re-emphasizing that she is only “sixteen.” This is another way in which she gives power and more connection to the issues she writes about and her defense towards women’s rights. She also does this in writing about Sultan’s power over those around him. Seierstad says things such as Mansur would “not dare incite his father’s wrath” (238), “Sultan’s word was law” (188), “No one, but no one, is going to steal from him and get away with it” (217), and continuously refers to Mansur as “free” (229) when Sultan leaves. These are all great examples of short words and phrases which could be easily read past, which say a lot about his character and are an essential way in which Seierstad conveys her ideas.

One scene that was very memorable was when Mansur was talking to the police officer about the different punishments for different crimes in Afghanistan. It was surprising to hear that stoning and lashing is still done. This is mainly a punishment for adultery. The women were also more severely punished than men for the same crime. However, if the couple is unmarried, the couple is generally just forced to marry. It was dually interesting to hear how the police officer would then overlook crimes such as drinking alcohol, which according to the Sharifa Law is a “gross sin and should be severely punished” (235). The Koran suggests 80 lashes as punishment. This helps put things in perspective on why the women are so fearful of committing such crimes. Also, it’s interesting how drinking is the one thing that is overlooked, considering the fact that men would most likely be the culprits of illegal drinking. 

Journal Prompt 4

The Bookseller of Kabul: May 13th, 2011.

There are many questions that you can ask yourself while reading The Bookseller of Kabul. Many things happen during the chapters of “My mother Osama”and “A Broken Heart”. Throughout “My Mother Osama,” We found it interesting that the author bashes journalists in a way. She is a journalist herself, so you would not think that she would do that to a fellow journalist. Her tone was negative because of the way that the journalist was puttin himself and his translator in danger. We felt that she was mad that this journalists would do that to an innocent person, let alone himself. While writing the book, the author seemed to always tried to act in a way that would not become dangerous at all. In this way, we believe she thought the journalist to be foolish.

With this being the last journal, we feel like we don’t know where to begin on what we have learned from this book! We all came from basically the same background of knowledge going in, so a lot of the book was not that informative to us. However, we learned more about ourselves in the way that we reacted to things that were happening in the book. The women’s treatment especially upset us.The women have no freedom and are property of the men and aren’t wanted to be part of the world.The Taliban made this especially known. While during this book the Taliban had left, the women still were in the same mindset as when they were there. The women wanted to have adventures just like the men, but they werent allowed. The women in Sultan’s family were educated and they still were not able to teach or go to school. One thing that we as a literature group were upset about is the fact that the author never seemed to get mad or disgusted with Sultan and his treatment with women. One thing we learned is that in the back in the author’s notes Asne talks about her true feelings. She was so mad that she wanted to beat up Sultan. We were able to relate more with the author after learning her feelings.

I think that the author should have put more of her feelings about situations in the book. If that information was there, we would have instantly connected with her instead of waiting until after the book was over. We believe that she maintained the tone she did throughout the book because she is first and foremost a journalist, not an author. It was also a nonfiction book. The author wanted it to be factual and paint a true picture of life in Afghanistan. If she would have put her feelings into the book, we as readers would have been biased to her feelings and not the beliefs or feeligns of the family.

Overall, this book was a very interesting book to read. We loved learning more about a family from a different culture. We would all recommend this book to anyone looking for a look at family life or different cultures.