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Title: The Lost Oasis: The Desert War and the Hunt for Zerzura by Saul Kelly ISBN: 0-8133-4103-5 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: An excellent subject, but desperately tedious...
Comment: Given the subject matter of the book, the exploration of the Libyan desert (this forms the historical basis of the movie "The English Patient") and the subsequent forays of the LRDG in World War II, one would expect a gripping tale of explorers, adventurers and action but instead, the author contrives to make this one of the most driest narratives to be found outside of the Gilf Kebir!
The biggest fault is the authors tendency to throw both personalities and place names about with abandon, something tighter editing I'm sure would have resolved. I found myself constantly having to flip back to previous pages to find out just who is this person the author refers to. Place names are also just as overwhelming. It may have been helpful to have maps alongside the text showing the various journeys undertaken, as it was all to easy to lose scope of just how immense some of the exploratory trips undertaken were.
Despite the tedious nature of the writing, I found "The Lost Oasis" still quite interesting in places, particularly the show of Italian brinkmanship over the Libyan/Sudan border. Also, as I came to grips with the distances and places travelled, I became aware of just what an extraodinary time Bagnold and his chums had travelling the desert searching for the Zerzura Oasis.
If you are a diehard desert fan, you probably would get this book for your library, but I would recommend for a casual reader (like myself) to look elsewhere if you want a good read of what was a very exciting era of modern desert exploration.
Rating: 4
Summary: A detailed account of desert exploration and desert war
Comment: This book tells the real story of the desert explorers who inspired Michael Ondaatje to write The English Patient. While the real events were less romantic in the narrow sense, they were even more exciting as adventures. These men -- and one woman who played only a brief part -- were daring and determined, often driving hundreds of miles across unmapped desert landscapes or flying rickety aircraft to remote sites deep in the Sahara. Some of their feats, such as rescuing refugees from Libya, deserve the word heroic. Most of the men observed a code of conduct that now seems like a leftover from the age of chivalry. Their companionships were strained by the outbreak of the war in North Africa, when both sides drew on their expertise. In that context, Kelly introduces us to the little-known exploits of the British Long Range Desert Group. Here and in some other parts of the book, he is too thorough in describing the details of missions. Some careful pruning by an editor would have made this interesting book even better.
Rating: 2
Summary: a good example of marketing and packaging a very weak work
Comment: Hard to believe this gentleman teaches anywhere. This book makes what should be an exciting narrative pathetically boring. He did yeoman's work in the archives of both Britain and Itlay; and for someone interested in this subject, it is certainly a useful as a detailed almanac of documents, at times a microscopic recitation of them. All sorts of larger historical contextual questions come to mind, but are never addressed. Just the plodding on of documented events, with the reader hoping he will break out of his shell and tell it as a story. If any book screamed for an editor, this does. It rides on the cachet of being the 'real story"of "The English Patient".
Infrequently, one comes to clear, plain language passages that summarize the detail he has presented; but these are as rare in the narrative as the freshwater wells in the desert he describes. Most of it is seemingly endless regurgitations of documents, abbreviations, and [arabic place nanme] map locations that are virtually impossible to follow....it begs for a detachable map that one can hold next to the text.
All the published trade reveiws are amazingly kind to this book, which reads like an undergraduate paper in which the author is trying to chalk up as many citations as possible. A good re-write and an editor should have been mandatory. This certainly looks like it was an academic 'press of last resort' publication.
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Title: Long Range Desert Group by W. B. Kennedy Shaw ISBN: 1853674079 Publisher: Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal Pub. Date: 15 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: With Rommel's Army in Libya by Janos Kubassek, Laszlo Almasy, Gabriel Francis Horchler ISBN: 0759616086 Publisher: 1stBooks Library Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.98 |
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Title: The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands by Aidan Hartley ISBN: 0871138719 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Into Africa : The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard ISBN: 0385504519 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Long Range Desert Group 1940-1945: Providence Their Guide by David Lloyd Owen, Sir John Keegan, John Keegan ISBN: 0850528062 Publisher: Leo Cooper Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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