Far From Brooklyn

The Prince of the Marshes, by Rory Stewart

I know have should have liked this book. All the reviewers loved it.  It was supposed to be a great portrait of a little-known and misunderstood place.

And I did love “The Places In Between,” Stewart’s record of his absurd hike across Afghanistan in early 2002.

But I loved the first book in no small part because of the author’s peculiar stance  – a mix of optimism, naivete, stubbornness, and a dash of British superiority.

Those qualities struck me as charming in a wanderer. Not so much in a man who has been named a governor in post-Saddam Iraq.

Aside from a general irritation with the narrator, the narrative itself was herky-jerky, a series of vignettes with briefly sketched, forgettable characters (who kept resurfacing, like unwelcome guests whose names you have forgotten) in later chapters.

So I bailed after about 100 pages.

I can’t say exactly when I tossed it aside, for unlike so many of the books I read, this was a hardcover – happily snapped up from a remainder shelf at the great bookstore on Venice Beach – and when reading hardcovers, of course, I use the dust-jacket to mark my place, whereas with paperbacks I am a notorious dogearer.