“Five thousand years of history were here and the pattern was still unchanged.”
During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines and treating the sick. In this account of his time there, he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people, describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy and moments of pure comedy, all in vivid, engaging detail. Untouched by the modern world until recently, these independent people, their way of life and their surroundings suffered widespread destruction under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Wilfred Thesiger's magnificent account of his time spent among them is a moving testament to their now threatened culture and the landscape they inhabit.
An excellent read; the writing style is both descriptive and engaging, and the story itself fascinating. The book includes over a hundred photographic plates which augment the story tremendously, especially for the amazing reed mudhifs which are frequently the setting. (The photos and more can be found in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection).
I have not yet read Arabian Sands but reviews of that earlier work complained about Thesiger's primitivism and romanticization of the Bedouin - I didn't see much of that in this book, only shades, and overall the telling is fairly forthright and balanced. Clearly Thesiger is no fan of modernization, but relative to the conditions in more urban Iraq at the time, there are no clear "rights" or "wrongs" on this position. In any event, it doesn't get in the way of the narrative, which captures a disappearing culture in rich depth and perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment