Yet more Kabul in The Black Bull
Apologies to all our readers and followers awaiting this review - we discussed this on 3rd November 2014 but, for a whole host of reasons relating to a group blog, we're just getting to sharing our thoughts with you. Please forgive us.
Firstly the venue. We met for lunch at The Back Bull in Corbridge which is well known for providing good quality pub food and service. On this occasion, the Hussies tested the pub to its limits. One Hussy, already grumpy about how difficult it is to park in Corbridge at lunch time, disappeared at the ordering stage to sort out a puncture, another was feeling too queasy to dine and another had issues with the salmon!
Secondly the book. It was OK. Its main problem was that we all had previous. We had all previously read a lot about women living in Afghanistan - Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", Rodriguez's other book "The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul" and "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad, are the main examples that come to mind. And so, we learnt little new from Rodroguez on this occasion.
In the absence of enlightenment, we sought entertainment - great characters, plot twists and a satisfying ending? Rodriguez writes well, and it was an easy read, but this was neither a page turning satisfying plot nor an autobiography. It was frustrating to wonder where autobiographical fact ended and fiction began.
In reality, the book and the food were probably very good. But somehow, on that cold, queasy, punctured day, the salmon, the tyre and the Kabul Beauty School left us all feeling flat.
Still, the great thing about reading is that there's always another story, another page...so we parted with high hopes for
PS - For anyone interested in 'geographical fiction' then why not visit Guardian World Fiction for inspiration.
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