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Title: Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger ISBN: 0-14-009514-4 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: March, 1985 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: About the spirit of the land and the greatness of the Arabs
Comment: A book about "the spirit of the land and the greatness of the Arabs."
This is a must read for anyone interested in the tribal Arabs of the desert (southern Arabia). I had this book for many months until I got around to reading it and then I absolutely couldn't put it down. The excursions of Wilfred Thesiger (Umbarak) take place during the 1940s. Thesiger loved the Bedu tribes (Rashid)and he writes from the heart, which is why I think the text is so readable. You relive this phenominal experience with him. Thesiger never fit in with his own people of England. He couldn't bare to live amongst the materialistic culture he found in the western world and felt more akin with his Arab friends yet as a "Christian" he could never be one of them. His relationships with two of the Rashid in particular, bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha and the love, admiration and loyalty he had for these two young men was very moving. Amazingly Thesiger survives many dangerous encounters while traveling in the desert with his Arab companions. How he ever survived some of these excursions is astonishing; between the lack of food, water, heat and cold exposure but mostly other hostile Arab tribes. His companions and he escape being killed by mere hours. By our western standards many people would think Thesiger's companions to ultimately be murderous and barbaric yet I have met very few westerners that held the same unbreakable code of honor that many of Thesiger's Arab companions lived by. Their generosity, faith in god, honor, dignity, strength and endurance is nothing short of amazing. They would give a stranger who stumbles upon their camp the last scrap of food and final cup of water even when starving in the desert for days. As a "westerner" reading this book I realized the immense differences in what we as a culture think is barbaric and immoral compared to these tribes of Arabia. Of course the ease at which they would kill between tribes to settle blood feuds and their "habit" of stealing camels was truly mind boggling when contrasted with their overwhelming personal ethics. As a female reader I didn't miss the lack of discussions about Arab women although I would have been very interested in the various tribal Arab woman's role as mother, wife and sister. What little I did find in the book about women sent chills up my spine. I do feel that female readers would enjoy this book none the less. Many readers will empathize with the author's sentiment as he writes about his dismay and disgust in the way the Western world has invaded the lands of these nomadic people with new mechanical inventions and infiltrated and ruined the unique beauty of this desert tribe (as well as many other indigenous tribes) which are now completely lost and irreplaceable.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best travelbook I have read
Comment: Wilfred Thesiger spends 5 years in the desert of Arabia in the company of the Bedu. This book is very well written and gives us a glance into a life that doesn't exist anymore. The Marsh Arabs is equally interesting, A life of my choice a little bit less. If you like Thesiger try also The lost world of the Kalahari by Laurens van der Post.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Spirit of the Desert Arabs
Comment: An extraordinary book, by an extraordinary man, about an extraordinary people - the desert arabs (Bedu) - before the outside world encroached on their way of life. Thesiger travelled through that inhospitable desert between the Yemen, Oman and the south of Saudi Arabia ('The Empty Quarter') in the 1940s, most of it then unmapped.
He account of exploring this unknown hostile territory, against a background of tribal raids and blood feuds and tensions where many tribes would have considered it an act of merit to kill the foreigner 'infidel', gives these travels an additional level of drama beyond the excitement of new exploration.
The harshness of the Bedu life amid the driven sands with its intense cold, heat, and blinding glare in a land without shade or cloud is the everpresent backdrop to these travels and adventures between scant and bitter wells. Sometimes travelling for up to 16 days between wells, death was often a palpable presence at the very edge of the camel's endurance.
The book is also a valuable anthropological log of these tribes, and their differing customs. The men is his party come alive in the sparse prose and a narrative pace as steady as the unfolding days. Thesiger's companions live in the anecdotes and black and white photographs. Listening to their talk the reader comes to love and admire those 'ships of the desert' (camels) for their patience and endurance and individuality, and to marvel at the simplicity and standards of honour of the Bedu tribes.
This is one of the truly great books of exploration. It is even more significant however as a journal of human encounter, and a unique and tenderly perceptive record of a people whose way of life, which had endured unchanged for 4000 years, was to become irrevocable changed by roads and the impact of oil exploration.
A book that educated Arabs give to Westeners to help them understand the Arabs. (That's where my copy came from). Contains a comprehensive index.
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Title: A Vanished World by Wilfred Thesiger ISBN: 0393050866 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, Evelyn Waugh ISBN: 0864426046 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Among the Mountains: Travels through Asia by Wilfred Thesiger ISBN: 0006551009 Publisher: Trafalgar Square Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard ISBN: 0786704373 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, Lewis Galantiere ISBN: 0151970874 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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