Customer Reviews

The Book of Trouble: A Romance

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At first glance, this memoir-travelogue is a sensitive tale of a love affair that spans two cultures and ignores an age discrepancy. Ann Marlowe has long nurtured an interest in Afghanistan, is leaving her lair, New York's East Village, for four weeks to teach English in a school in Afghanistan. Then she meets Amir. Ten-years younger, he fled Pakistan in 1982, graduated from Princeton and currently works in New York. Although he is an acquired taste, Amir becomes more appealing through their conversations. In his defense, Amir clearly states his position on marriage and his eventual return to his country of origin. Contrary to her friends' advice, Ann keeps her own counsel, savoring the intimate moments with Amir, ignoring the distance he enforces when they are in public.

The book's tempo shifts abruptly with Marlowe's change of scene to Mazar-i-Sharif, her experiences in the Middle East rife with personal reactions to people and place: "I did not feel they were poor because they did not feel they were poor. It's like the morning of the world." She is moved by her host's commitment to family and the land. Marlowe's observations while traveling in Mazar-i-Sharif read like a travelogue, impressions of the country, people, and customs compared to America; the chapters on Amir are more intimate, an examination of the male-female condition, the love affair already doomed, in spite of the ease with which "love" seeps into the relationship.

But as Amir grows more distant and unavailable, Ann reacts with stubborn disbelief, clinging to her memories of their nights together. To escape her heartbreak, Marlowe visits Iraq after the beginning of the war, in travelogue mode again, sharing her views of that country and her approval of the war, including an interview with the infamous Ahmed Chalabi (whom she finds charming). She opines, "Life in post-war Baghdad isn't easy, even for the privileged." Returning to her familiar haunts in New York, nothing has changed, Amir still unavailable, unwilling even to be friends. At this point the author reveals that this great love affair has actually consisted of only five nights of intense physical interaction, a tiny part of the passing months of the memoir. Suddenly I feel gullible, for I have accepted Marlowe at her word, assuming that Amir is equally involved in the relationship, a detail she fails to mention until the end of the book.

Clearly, Marlowe has chosen a doomed affair, such drama grist for the writer's mill; equally suspect are her other observations of the world at large, the true nature of the people she claims such empathy with, her unquestioning acceptance of the Iraq war, a general approval of Saddam's removal, a ready admission she doesn't believe there are WMD's (this is an East Village intellectual?). The author breaks down each topic into cultural specifics, analyzing differences, cousin-marriage (a favorite topic), religion, male-female relationships, war, friends, food, everything categorized, desensitized. The romance, the travel, the ready opinions all assume a facile veneer, a justification for self-indulgence and a fear of personal vulnerability that leaves me confused and doubting her veracity. Oh, and by the way, an effusive back cover blurb is written by author James Frey. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

This is a wonderful, wide ranging, engaging memoir. It's all here - cousin marriage, intergenerational sex, cultural differences (and not the tedious starch you get served up in so much travel writing), criticisms of American society, a strong heart and powerful searching intelligence. "The Book of Trouble" is at the outset a love story. West Village writer meets significantly younger man from Afghanistan. Is he acceptable as a lover? No. Does she even consider him? No. Do they get together? Yes, briefly, savagely, and then sadly: it's all over.
Ann Marlowe is an acutely observant viewer of herself, and those around her: what they say, and what they think. She understands that what love is based on is a kind of tribalism, that you fall for people who reflect or refract the milieu you were raised in. The distance between herself, an American Jew, and Amir, an Afghan Muslim is, as she notes, much less than might be first imagined. Pursuing Amir, Marlowe is also pursuing Afghanistan, and the Middle East, and that chewy topic: America. What do Muslims have that the contemporary US has lost? Can it be retrieved? How? The love affair with Amir is always gently nudged back to politics and place.
Picky giddy people should beware. This is probably not a book to read if you think that someone like Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi cannot be a rogue, and also charming. It's not for you if you imagine it's witty to cast aspersions on the author just because whipping-boy-du-jour James Frey has praised it. It's not for you if you like ideas and events neatly dissected and served on a plate like so much mental sashimi: appetising at the outset, but then an hour later you're hungry again. Yes, "The Book of Trouble" has troubling themes, but their treatment is invigorating and satisfying.

If you enjoy reading stereotypes formulated by white westerners about people of the "third world" then this book is for you. It is complete with a cold and distant virgin wanting man and lots of the authors liberal American buffoonery ie her "love" and "fascination" with Afghanistan. White liberals of the west love to attach themselves to various non European culturals, it makes them feel very righteous and worldly. Ultimately the book is boring, poorly written and full of the expected stereotypes you would expect to find in a book about a Muslim society written by a white westerner. If you really want to learn about Afghanistan I would recommend a book written by an Afghan such as, West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary.

One's desire for a peek inside Afghan culture and it's people should not look toward this novel for truth. Plagued with ideology that is extremely brash and unacceptable in Afghanistan, this book is riddled with stereotypes only Western society can conjure. To get a better view of the Afghanistan that was and is, please read West of Kabul, East of New York by Mir Tamim Ansary. His literary work brings together Afghan society, Western Society, and the Afghan Diaspora having to assimilate, compensate, and come to peace between the two.

An intimate intellectual travelogue about sex and culture at unusual personal depth, Ann Marlowe's The Book Of Trouble read itself quickly. I was saving it for an impending vacation because it seemed a clever choice for traveling with a lover, but I started sampling and wound up consuming the whole thing before I packed.

Training her Harvard-honed overachieving mind on a tasty range of sexual, sociological, and cultural targets, Marlowe manages to turn her pursuit of a younger Afghan man into an exploration of her family's troubled history, womanhood in Muslim society, and the various ways contemporary Americans attempt to control (and effectively suppress) romance and lust.

Marlowe can annoy at times with steely strictures, but that's part of her disarming charm as a writer. Most of the judgments here are about her. Even when she tearfully mulls the wisdom and phrasing of chasing a lost lover, she rarely whines. She struck me as looking for truth in her experiences, as if peeling an onion that she fears her heart has become after decades of hip romancing.

The book is a grand tide of digression, but its structure reliably supports her queries as she falls in love and follows Old Glory to Mazar-i-Sherif, Kabul, and Baghdad, all the while yearning for a perfect intimacy that she fears she wasn't born to have. In asking why this is and whether it must continue to be, she entertains the mind that overlooks the heart and she provokes readers to contemplate their own solitude in this busy "sexy" world.

I liked this book very much and have recommended it to friends. I'm sure I disagree with Marlowe's politics--especially regarding the war in Iraq--as much as anybody else, but that didn't dim my appreciation for her work nor make any of her ideas suspect. She brings her intelligence and the perspective that comes from having led an interesting life to her interesting range of topics; that's a combination that wins my attention and admiration every time. I also found this a very brave work, in that the most tender areas that she probes are located on her own heart.

WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT ANN MARLOW'S EXPLORATIONS INTO HER AFFAIR OF NINE MONTHS WITH A GUY CALLED AMIR-DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUPS, TRY IT FOR YOURSELF AND FIND OUT. BORING IN THE EXTREME-TALK ABOUT PUTTING YOUR TO SLEEP. IF SHE IS A WRITER, SO I AM. IT IS SO VAGUE,SKIPPING FROM POINT TO ANOTHER--CONFUSING. DID NOT LIKE IT-WAS NOT WORTH MY TIME TO READ. DH

Very deep enlightening and well written. I was so struck by this wonderful love, or non love story, that I read it in one sitting ! Ann writes with passion nothing is held back, buy it today !!