Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between

Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between is certain to be one of the most unusual travelogues you’ve ever read. Unfortunately, however, it is most notable as a lost opportunity for cross-cultural inquiry and a case study in near total lack of empathy.

In the book, Rory Stewart, a British citizen, chronicles his adventures walking across Afghanistan in January 2002, only a few short months after the American-led invasion. Rory travels alone to the extent possible, carries his possessions on his back, and relies on villagers’ hospitality for food and shelter. He times his trip to winter in Afghanistan and so is often pushing through many feet of snow.

Rory gives little background about why he’s decided to do such a trip. He talks about following in the footsteps of Babur, the sixteenth century founder of the Mughal Empire in India. But early on he dismisses this trope as irrelevant to modern Afghanistan (although he inexplicably continues to quote Babur throughout the book). Rory seems to know a bit of Dari (the Afghani dialect of Persian), although rarely enough to get beyond the obvious observations that relationships in Afghanistan are complex and many supported the Taliban out of necessity.

What I strongly disliked about the book is Rory’s unwillingness to humanize the Afghanis he meets. He talks several times about being irritated with villager hospitality and often ridicules (in print) those he met along the road. This seems like simply a case of bad writing until Babur the dog makes his appearance about midway through the story. Babur was an old dog, being barely kept alive by villagers who were too poor to feed him much, who was given to Rory as protection along his walk. Instead of treating the dog as such, however, Rory views him as a pet and spends an undue portion of the rest of his book talking about the dog’s difficulty walking, trying to figure out his emotions, and worrying about this 21st century Babur.

In short, Rory was far more interested in and empathetic towards the dog than any Afghanis he mentions in his entire travelogue. Moreover, when instances arise every night of villagers being uncomfortable or even upset with how Rory treats the dog, he seems unconcerned about anybody involved except the animal. Most shocking to me is when Rory slips Babur meat, a precious commodity in an undernourished country. Rory never reflects on how or why he is able to relate to an animal more than the people he meets, but it comes across as a chilling example of self-absorption and lack of human compassion.