The Doomed Oasis [Paperback]

Hammond Innes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1986

The story of two men and their fight to save an oasis from the encroaching sands of the Empty Quarter. The great desert of the Empty Quarter provides a backdrop to the tragic friction that develops between them.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub (April 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881842346
• ISBN-13: 978-0881842340
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,441,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Doomed to Remain Out-of-Print, April 5, 2005

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Doomed Oasis (Paperback)

In 1954 Innes visited the Persian Gulf with one of the earliest British oil exploration ventures, that trip, coupled with his longtime interest in ecological issues led to this somewhat stilted novel. The story is narrated by a Welsh lawyer, who begins by recounting his involvement in the affairs of a working class family in Cardiff. This dovetails with his handling of affairs for Charles Whitaker, a kind of modern T.E. Lawrence knockoff who has adopted Islam and lives among the Bedouin of the Arabian Peninsula. It turns out that David, the ne'er-do-well teenager of the working class family, is the bastard son of Whitaker. In trouble with the law and obsessed with his absent father, the boy contrives to stowaway and make for Arabia with the minor assistance of the lawyer.

After some years, the lawyer is forced to head to Arabia to track down Whitaker in order to meet concerning his affairs. Once there, he discovers that David has recently disappeared into the desert in suspicious circumstances. His probing reveals a certain resistance from the oil company David was employed by, and some minor assistance from an Italian journalist and an Algerian prostitute leads him to the oasis town of Saraifa (perhaps modeled on Buraimi, near the Saudi/Omani border). The plot then spirals into a muddled mish-mash involving the search for oil, the need for water, border disputes, father-son rivalry, corporate greed, and an accusation of murder. The story is far from being thrilling, and the courtroom climax proves a tepid ending.

The characters are fairly uninteresting, David is a one-dimensional obsessive, his father is the stereotype colonial figure "gone native", the Arabs are all either cunning, cowardly, or steadfastly loyal, the Italian is a sensationalist, etc. The narrator is the most interesting one of the lot, but he exists primarily to tell the tale. An uninteresting work that probably deserves to remain out-of-print.