Journal #4: May 11, 2010

What surprised us in the chapter titled, My Mother Osama, was how the U.S involved themselves in reconnaissance sorties with Afghan warlords. From an objective standpoint, we understand that the U.S associating themselves with them was needed in order to retrieve information about the enemy, but at the same time we are the U.S, and are we or are we not supposed to not the spread of terror. We just felt that by supplying the warlords with guns and aircraft that they used upon one another only adds to the conflict rather than by trying to make it come to an end. In the chapter, A Broken Heart, all of us as we read the chapter hoped the Leila would finally get her happy ending. But then at the end of the chapter, we read how she was put in a corner and therefore had no other choice but to say nothing (meaning to accept) when it came to her potential engagement to Wakil’s no good for anything son. Though Leila’s bad luck is realistic to the Afghan culture, since many Afghan women do not usually marry whom they love, we still wanted a happy ending. But we are Americans that tend to expect a happy ending to stories, but that just is not realistic. In the Epilogue, we were and were not surprised on how everything turned out for the Khan family. This is because, Seierstad throughout the book prepared us, her readers, for the ultimate split of the family. She did this by showing Mansur’s disrespect and his actions, along with Leila’s attempts to break free. So when the ending finally came that told us that the Khan family split up due to tensions, we were not that surprised. However, what was surprising was that Sultan, who came across as stubborn in the book, actually let his family go.

With now having finished the entire book, we as a group feel that the ideal audience for this book is really anyone who does not have much knowledge of the Afghan culture, but is interested in it as a subject. With so much of the book dedicated to Mansur and Leila, we feel that it would not be biased towards one gender of the other. Though we all agreed that perhaps women might enjoy the book more than men, due to Seierstad’s more feminine writing style.

As a whole we would recommend this book to others. It gave us a better idea of what life is like over in Afghanistan, and has therefore broadened our horizons just a bit. We think that the book is a good source to begin with when one wishes to learn more about the Afghan culture, since the story keeps the reader’s attention with it’s content and Seierstad’s writing style.