Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea ***

In the early 1990s, Greg Mortenson got lost on his descent after an attempt on K2. The people in the small Pakistani village where he ended up took such great care of him that he promised to come back and build them a school. With luck and persistence, he was able to fulfill this promise, and he went on to build many other schools in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. The moral is that one person can make a significant difference.

The first half of the book tells the story of Mortenson's dawning vocation in vivid, novelistic fashion. (In the third person, surprisingly, given that Mortenson is listed as the primary author.) It is a strong story about a guileless, naive, and somewhat passive protagonist learning about the difficulties of his chosen quest. Once he has completed the first school, the book takes on a more journalistic tone. It is a less strong story that paints Mortenson as a saint who gets things done. Everyone Mortenson meets, from US Congressmembers to Taliban leaders, declares him remarkable and donates to his cause.

I think Mortenson's life provides fantastic material for a finely shaded character study. This book opts for hagiography instead.  He clearly has a magnetic personality that leads people to like him instantly. I suspect his clumsy naivete makes people want to care for him. I can't deny the success he has had, but I believe that the reasons for it are different from the reasons he believes they are.

I would be interested in a biography of Mortenson that explored his talents and faults in equal measure, and thought about how they work together to account for his successes and failures. I think there is a story along the lines of All the King's Men there. I sense some corruption and incompetence even through the positive spin. For example, after Mortenson's foundation gets a huge influx of cash, he uses it to provide a scholarship for one of his lieutenant's daughters. More generally, it seems like Mortenson uses his personal preferences to determine where money is spent, and he takes unnecessary risks to preserve his self-image.