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 great story, pitiful writing May 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I wish Greg Mortenson had come to me to write this book. I could have saved him thousands of superfluous adjectives. He is built up to be a hero for our times....perhaps he is, but David Oliver Relin's prose is so sickening and (to a fellow aspiring writer) embarrassing that the reader wishes to be done with the story ASAP. Save the money from buying the book and instead send it to Greg's charity, the Central Asia Institute, or Pennies for Peace. You can get the book free at your local public library.
"Three Cups of Me" May 16, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book should have been called: "Three Cups of Me: The Auto-Hagiography of a Modern Day Secular Saint & Savior"
Three Cups of Tea is an over-rated book, with a definite political agenda, about an obsessed, but capricious man who does good things for little brown girls, far, far away. He is the "white savior" found in popular American TV programs of yore, such as "The White Shadow", "Welcome Back Kotter", and "Different Strokes", to name but a few.
The author and hero, er, I mean "saint", Greg Mortenson, and his co-author, David Relin, waste no in time establishing his (Greg's) bona fides liberal credentials. Although he was born with three of the greatest original sins - i.e., being white, American, and male, he quickly demonstrates how he has been purified by penance and how he has made amends for those transgressions against humanity. We learn that he is 1) a multiculturalist 2) a multi-linguist 3) an admirer of Che Guevara and Bill Clinton 4) a disdainer of Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush 5) that he eschews financial security and the creation of wealth 6) that he cares passionately about helping people of color, especially women of color, most especially poor, foreign young girls of color 7) that he cares passionately about "saving the planet" and living in tune with nature 8) that he talks freely with his severely handicapped younger sister about premarital sex and birth control and 9) that he is equally respectful of all religions, but moved by none. For example, he has no qualms about bowing to Mecca five times a day, or uttering Buddhist incantations, so long as that's what the people around him are doing, and also want to see him do as well. But he is silent about his own religious convictions, having been raised by a Lutheran pastor. The perfect "NPR/NY Times liberal" - except for the part about the creation of wealth! This pedigree of his literally has his followers demanding his secular canonization to sainthood, commonly known as The Nobel Prize for Peace! This would place him in the pantheon of other Nobel Laureates and saints such as Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Yasser Arafat.
I must state for the record that I do indeed admire the work he has done, i.e. building schools - that is a good thing. However, he seems to view the primitive peoples of the Pakistani Himalayan Mountains, to include, since 9/11, Afghanistan, in the "noble savages" category, a school of thought popular in the mid-19th Century colonial era. For example, he avers that they need his (modern, Western) help, but at the same time he also views their culture and mores as superior to our own (being a good multiculturalist). So, he offers them just a little bit of help; enough to make himself and his financial backers feel good, but not enough to bring them out of grinding poverty, ancient tribalism, and isolation.
The help he offers, which will keep them beholden to him for everything else, is that he provides them with rudimentary, roughly hewn school houses, with poorly trained teachers and "culturally sensitive" textbooks. You may say to me, "Well, at least it's better than nothing!", and I would agree with you. However, Mr. Mortenson, or "Doctor Greg", as he likes to be called, even though he is not a doctor, is very scrupulous to ensure that their culture and way of life is not "ruined" by the introduction of indoor plumbing, heating, and ventilation, or electricity, or television, or automobiles, or computers, or cell phones, or modern agricultural techniques, or the rule of law, or democracy, or a myriad of other "de-humanizing" aspects of modern civilization. According to Mortenson and Relin, not only do most of those things de-humanize us, but they also require energy to power them, and thus they create pollution, and that will destroy the planet. So, it's best if they don't have those things. That's right Doctor Greg, burn Al Gore's "bridge to the 21st Century" behind you!
He bestows more redundant praise for himself and disdain for the United States when he explains that he is working for peace by building schools, in places like Afghanistan, while the U.S. (George Bush) is simply dropping bombs. That claim is either purposely misleading, or willfully ignorant. Again, while building 50+ schools in the villages of the Himalaya's is a laudable accomplishment, it is certainly dwarfed by comparison to the billions and billions of dollars the U.S. has spent in Afghanistan paving roads, putting in water and sewage treatment facilities, building electrical grids, setting up communication links, providing security forces, constructing court houses, sanitation plants, prisons, community centers, and yes, even schools - all, while dropping bombs on international terrorists! But those facts don't jibe with his messianic complex, or with his political leanings, and those of his panting disciples. Only "Doctor Greg" is doing good in Afghanistan.
This book would have been so much more enjoyable to read had Mortenson not co-written this panegyric account of his own
life; even though he tried, unsuccessfully, to come across as just a humble servant. He must be familiar with the axiom, "The surest bait for flattery is humility". Also, if he had avoided the minefield of left vs. right politics, in which he clearly inhabits the left lane, I would have been far more sympathetic to his cause. But he insisted on lobbing those political bombs. And what is his cause? It's teaching young Pakistani and Afghan girls (and boys) how to read, write, and do simple math (hooray!) - and then sending them back to their un-electrified mud huts, which are heated by goat dung, and continue to keep them inoculated from the evils of the First World (boo!)
And what fuels his unquenchable drive to help these people? Is it his faith in Christ, or Allah, or Buddha? No! Remember, he's a secular savior. His followers claim that world peace is his goal. He claims that he is merely trying to raise up brown-skinned, Muslim women and girls. I think he does what he does because he believes the mountain people need him, and he needs them (to need him) and it's a wonderful saintly, salvific, symbiotic - and un-breakable cycle.
 An Educators Education Three Cups of Tea May 15, 2008
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
A most amazing look at the world of Pakistani culture, schools..or lack of
and the story of a man who has chosen to do something about them.
It gives the reader insights into the the conflicts and complications
of war time in Pakistan and introduces her or him to what is really going
on over there. It is not a political view, it is a very well written
humanitarian and "heartarian" look at a brave and struggling people.
Power of One May 15, 2008
An outstanding example of what one person can do when they pay attention to what they are being called to do. Greg Mortenson is doing more to promote world peace than any single country. I really wish I could give my tax dollars to him to build more schools.
Read this book and become inspired to really fight terror May 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Read this Book!! I picked this book up at the airport and couldn't put it down. The storyline is engrossing and exciting while the message is heartfelt and so necessary right now. We need more people like Mortenson. His story of failure followed by a long struggle to educate and enlighten the peoples of pakistan and afganistan even made me tear up a couple times; not for its sadness but for how hard he has worked for so long to finally make a huge difference in the lives of these people and the world. If we truly are at war with terror, we need to start by educating, not terrorizing those we fear.
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