Description With an Agenda

In reading the foreword to The Bookseller of Kabul, I noticed something very telling about the author in terms of her use of description. On the one hand, Seierstad manages to use her journalism skills well and describe through an objective lens. Her simplistic descriptive style is not at all lofty like in the way some writers are. She is removed from her surroundings, but her descriptions are very exact sufficient enough that the reader will fully understand the environment and the situation (page ix, "I was carrying seven books." page xi "On a foggy day in February"). Her voice is very matter of fact. "This is what happened. This is how it was." Little is left to the imagine because her voice is so passive; however, once she gets talking about the gender differences in Afghan culture and the male superiority, her voice becomes stronger. She becomes a writer with an agenda, and her description changes because of that. It is still slightly objective, but also very suggestive. On the bottom of page xiv, her description of life in a berka is told in a very different voice than when she was describing that foggy day in February. "...what if feels like to squash into the chockablock back rows... when the rest of the bus is half empty... what it feels like to squeeze into the trunk of a taxi because a man is occupying the backseat..." These descriptions are far longer than previous descriptions that were seldom longer than two or three words. She becomes increasingly subjective when she talks about her argument, and that subjectivity is reflected in her descritption.