What this whole story comes down to is one man’s battle with madness that ultimately benefits humanity.

This book was indirectly recommended to my by Chouse when he was making a broadcast announcement after The Grandville Reads program made it their first recommendation. After seeing that the book received rave reviews from many different people I decided that I would give it a chance.

To paraphrase a wikipedia entry on the book, it is roughly about, Greg Mortenson’s random chance transition from a mountain-climber to a humanitarian committed to reducing poverty and educating girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Through a series somewhat random occurrences, and questionable judgement he ends up the director of the Central Asia Institute which was created by his principle donor while getting started. The CAI seems to be responsible for building over 130 schools (and accounting for somewhere around 60,000 students) in some of the most remote and marginally habitable regions in the world.

After having read the book the first thing I did was check to see if Greg Mortenson was still alive. Beyond all comprehension, he is. This man has done some of the most mind shatteringly insane things I have ever heard of it, and he is far beyond lucky to have survived it. While I do support what he is trying to accomplish in principle, I would never advocate anyone attempt to recreate his efforts.

As far as the book itself it considered, it is pretty poorly written. There is lot of inconsistent perspective. Most of it is in third person, but it seems to switch to first person, this is particularly jarring early in the book. Perhaps the worse problem with the book is that it is just plan boring. I think the events within the book could have easily been cut in half and still got the point across.

The most common thing people are saying about the book is that it is “inspirational.” I honestly have no idea why anyone would say that about this book. I draw virtually no association between the actions of the main character, and the success he experienced. I read the book as a story about a man’s battle with depression and madness, everything else came across as ancillary.

Ultimately, while I agree that education can help contribute to the reduction of hatred I think that financial entanglement is a much strong motivator (i.e. Starbuck’s effect). The CAI has had a profound impact on a small group, but I feel its broader impact is largely negligible. Hopefully I am wrong.

Given due consideration, I have decided to give this book a -2 on my undecim scale.