Addendum to: Krakauer on Central Asia Institute and Greg Mortenson

In that we seem to be waxing well beyond the three-hundred word description of our weekly postings that I had noted in class, I thought I'd throw a few more cents into the bucket. First, slogging through Krakauer's cast of characters felt a bit Shakespearean, intimating to my literary brain the complexity that loomed ahead. However, his clear narrative style and reasoned voice precluded my confusion with two exceptions (Hoerni's wife versus Mortenson's wife and differentiating between the two villages, Khane and Korphe, to which he promised the first school) but a quick scroll back to an earlier reference set me straight, post-haste. And, speaking of literary technique, although the truth-guided investigator wrote without Mortenson’s slight of hand, embellishments with poignant inner dialogue, and fantastic self-aggrandizement or outright fabrications—lies, accountability evasions, fraud, and embezzlement—unless Greg is the embodiment of CAI in a god-like sense, in which case all sacrificial giving to the cause belongs to him anyway and nobody should expect to have a hotline to the deity, right? But, Krakauer did set up dramatic suspense, use flashbacks, and do some personal venting, however much behind the curtain, or in the voice of the man who introduced Krakauer to Mortenson—a satisfying or self-satisfying poetic full circle. In fact, contrasting Three Cups of Deceit with the excerpts of Three Cups of Tea, a case can be made for Krakauer’s poetic brevity and almost lyrical rhythm, for instance: 

• The subtitles ~ “The Creation Myth, Accountable to No One, and Ghost Schools” ~ religious and mystical in association;
•  And the short bold phrases that open the piece ~ “Greg Mortenson doesn’t hide his light under a bushel. / He makes more than 160 public appearances annually, / in all parts of the country and abroad, / and frequently appears in the news.” ~ setting a pace of urgency.

Finally, perhaps the ending is troubling because of its lack of Krakauer rhythm, of a lyricism to match the opening and the stunningly apt title/subtitles, thereby making Tom Hornbein's words at the end jarring, incomplete somehow. It is as if we are waiting for the Great Oz to dispense his all-knowing wisdom with the clarity of a poet and we get convoluted grousing and a wistful if-only instead.