2 novels on Afghanistan, but neither sees what you'd expect

"The End of Manners"

by Francesca Marciano

Pantheon, 257 pp., $23.95

"We Are Now Beginning Our Descent"

by James Meek

Cannongate, 295 pp., $24

Here we have two novels that take place in Afghanistan after the 2001 invasion by coalition forces. One is a wry, episodic tour-de-force about a Scottish war correspondent. The other is a sentimental first-person narrative about an Italian photojournalist.

Aside from the overlap in setting and location — both books' protagonists even attend identical pre-Afghanistan training sessions in the English countryside — these novels could not be more different.

James Meek's "We Are Now Beginning Our Descent" peers through a window at human suffering, then nods knowingly and laughs. Francesca Marciano's "The End of Manners" peers through that same window, but it doesn't see anything. It is too sidetracked by its own wide-eyed reflection in the glass.

Meek's book tracks the life of Adam Kellas, a moody Scottish journalist wracked by a recent divorce, post-traumatic stress and the unpleasant realization that his once-promising career is decidedly mediocre. In the first chapter of the book, Meek treats us to a few deliciously terrible scenes from Kellas' flashy, war-themed novel-within-a-novel. ("I want to make some money. I want to be popular before I die," Kellas explains to a dinner party of snobby literati.)

Kellas' character is so intractable and sarcastic that the pervasive and unapologetic sense of despair that clouds his every move ends up being more funny than depressing — and Meek intends it that way. Meek, a former war correspondent, is one of those authors who seems to take pleasure in torturing his characters with irony. He puts Kellas in increasingly ridiculous and unlikely situations — at one point, Kellas flies to Afghanistan on a whim, after receiving a 29-word e-mail from a girl he barely knows — and then makes him suffer for it.

The result is a delightful shell of hard-bitten humor, laid atop a plot that would otherwise fold under the weight of Meek's themes: war, death, heartbreak, failure.

Marciano's book does not have so deft a touch. Marciano's main character, Maria Galante, is a timid, unadventurous young food photographer who has been roped into going to Afghanistan with a vibrant reporter named Imo Glass. The two women are working on a story about the plight of Afghan women.

While the premise of the novel is promising, this book reads like a coming-of-age television drama, as Maria, an uptight, lovelorn young thing, learns the world is bigger than her last breakup.

The only significant Afghan character in the book is Maria's guide, Hanif, who ends up being only slightly more two-dimensional than Maria herself. Other characters, like Maria's teacher, Obelix, or her "buddies" at the pre-Afghanistan training session, show up for a hundred pages and then disappear forever.

Meek's book is certainly not perfect either — it's sometimes rambling and often outlandish — but, unlike Marciano's, Meek's characters have a sense of humor, and therefore Meek is able to feed the reader kernels of universal truth by coating them in comedy.

In one scene, Meek writes: "Everybody's full of darkness ... Like everybody's full of blood. You need it and it needs to stay on the inside. You try to keep your skin away from sharp blades and you try to keep your soul away from the kinds of cutting that could make you bleed your darkness over other people's carpets."

Moments later, Kellas loses himself in fit of rage and despair and smashes expensive dinner plates all over a very expensive kitchen. Astonished guests look on. Kellas' darkness bleeds all over the slate floor. And still, somehow, it's funny.