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Three Cups of Tea

One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations-- One School at a Time
Apr 05, 2015krdavis255 rated this title 1.5 out of 5 stars
I wanted to like this book. I certainly like the message: that education is a more powerful and persistent force for peace than military intervention. But even ignoring the accusations that this book is full of exaggerations if not outright lies, I can't recommend it for two reasons: 1) Substandard writing and editing — This is not the worse-written book I've read, but it is pretty bad. The prose is too purple, the metaphors are often mixed. The book is far too long. It is a book about building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but there are several extraneous (and boring) chapters about Mortenson's love life, as well as far more information about mountain climbing than I care to read. It would have been 100% more enjoyable if it was 50% as long. 2) Integrity — Even assuming that every word in this book is true, this book lacks integrity for a variety of reasons. Relin notes in his introduction that he found it impossible to be an objective observer, as a journalist is supposed to be (he failed because apparently Mortenson is just so great a guy). But it isn't objectivity that erodes the credibility of the book — it is the total lack of transparency about sources. Where is the story coming from? Obviously a lot of the material came from interviews with Mortenson himself, and with his family. Presumably Relin conducted interviews with many other relevant people, because he gives direct quotations from these people in the book. But there is no list of sources, no indication of when or where or by whom these interviews were conducted, no indication of who was doing the translating for interviewees who didn't speak English. Were people asked to recall things that happened a day ago? A month ago? A decade ago? Memory is inherently unreliable, and there is little to no indication that Relin even tried to corroborate the events reported through either objective means (like contemporary written documents or records) or through interviewing several people who witnessed the events. I understand that many stories told in the book may have been difficult to verify, because witnesses had since died, or were unable to be found after the fact, or written records were never made. That doesn't bother me; what bothers me is the lack of effort in making it clear to the reader what is verifiable and what is (potentially inaccurate) reconstruction from memory. The book is written like a novel, with minute details described, and all dialogue in quotation marks. This is troubling. This is non-fiction, it is not supposed to be written like a novel because novels are fictional. Neither author has any business putting decades-old conversation in quotation marks or adding in so much detail as if it is indisputable fact — Relin wasn't there, and even though Mortenson was, there is no one on earth who has such detailed or accurate recall. The worst part is that the authors could have been transparent and distinguished what was objectively verifiable, and what they relied on memory to reconstruct, without sacrificing dynamic storytelling and literary flair. I think Erik Larson did this wonderfully in The Devil in the White City. In the introduction to that book, Larson clearly states that some of the scenes are artistic reconstructions of how events may have played out, based on known facts, but everything between quotation marks was taken directly from a written source (newspapers, police reports, letters, etc). Throughout the book he was very careful in pointing out where he was taking an artistic license and where he was reporting on the cold, hard facts. And it was backed up with sources in the endnotes, so the reader knew exactly where Larson got his information from. But there is none of that in Three Cups of Tea, which means that in my eyes, this book is not much more reliable and believable than a novel.