Customer Reviews

Fayed: The Unauthorized Biography

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You have applied several times to get the British nationality, and at all times you have been rejected.

You lost your son in a tragic 'accident'!!!

Yet, you are still living in the UK, cursing the Queen of England, her husband (in specific) and her son Prince Charles....

Why don't you go back home? To Egypt...

You can read, I suppose, between the lines.

Sooner or later, you, and all those who had been given British Nationality will find out they are being cornered to emigrate.

Right???

This was a really comprehensive biography of the life of Fayed. The book takes you through his lowly Egyptian origin-- his poor family, and first job selling Coca-Cola on the street--through his first successes, and his first marriage. Then the book shows the reader how he completely "remade" his public image, his family, and ancestors!

Most of the book is slower reading because it details all of his business dealings extensively. But that is really what Fayed's life is all about-BUSINESS. I did not enjoy this book as much as Bower's other books, such as the one he did on Princess Diana, but that is because of the type of life Fayed led, not because Bower's writing is not as good. I just want readers to know that this book is NOT read easily, or quickly. But it will answer ALL questions about Fayed, who he is, his life, his brothers, his business associates-friends and enemies--his business dealings, personal dealings, AND what caused all the hoopla about the British Secret Service assassinating Dodi and Diana. Part of it was the "Arab psyche," and part of it was Fayed's effort to take any focus off the driver's inebriated condition.

This book answered ALL of my questions about Fayed, and I am glad I purchased the book. If you are interested in Fayed, by all means, buy this book.

Tom Bower is a relatively able writer who has written biographies of Tony Rowland, Richard Branson, Robert Maxwell and various others who figured prominently in the British news during the 80's/90's.

His subjects all have something in common - they are outsiders, often of foreign birth or extraction, who bought or created iconic institutions and were cordially loathed by the Establishment which they outwitted. Their careers also threw a glaring light on the hypocrisy, greed and bumbling inefficiency of that Establishment, revealing just how ill-equipped it was to deal with such predators.

The subject-matter ought to be fascinating, but in this case, Bower seems to have found disappointingly little dirt about the reclusive, strange man who is Mohamed Al Fayed.

That Fayed lied about his origins (he was the son of a school inspector, born in a "smelly street," according to Bower) is reiterated dozens of times throughout the book. But that is hardly a capital crime - except within the British Establishment, where family pedigrees are still considered a measure of a person's worth (explaining in part how ruthlessly able interlopers like Maxwell and Fayed were able to knock their aristocratic victims down like ninepins.)

Subjects of far greater interest, such as how Fayed obtained his initial millions from Papa Doc, the Sultan of Brunei and other dictators, are apparently beyond Bower's scope, and he does not have the sources to tell us how it was done.

Essentially, the book centres on Fayed's struggle with Rowland for the House of Frazer (including the jewel in the crown, Harrods), but there is nothing in Bower's portrait that we hadn't already gleaned from the media. Fayed the man is just not there.

The mainspring of Fayed's imagination seems to be an intense nostalgia for the golden age of the 1950's. He threw all his energies into acquiring the Ritz in Paris and Harrods in London, and he continues to run both institutions profitably and comme il faut. He burnished the memory of the late Duke of Windsor by restoring his house in Paris and presenting it to the French government. He has bought castles in Scotland and houses in Park Lane. He has managed to get himself close to the British Royal Family. He is the original dinosaur hunter.

The gods have punished the wretched man for this hubris by taking his beloved son, along with that other waif, the Princess of Wales. He is left blundering in blind pain and incomprehension, convinced that the Establishment finally struck back at him.

The real story of Mohamed Al Fayed, I am certain, is far more interesting and terrible than anything Bower has been able to imagine. We will have to wait for a better and more understanding biographer to come along.

Unfortunately not a business biography but more of a London gossip column. Though the first part of the book regarding Mr. Fayed's entrepreneurial life is very interesting, after the first 100 pages it becomes very superficial, leaves out all details and provides no explanation at all on how Mr. Fayed has builded his business interests. Instead it focuses solely on his private life, repeats annoyingly the same issue (the true value and the obscure origin of Mr. Fayed's fortune without providing any insights).

I would like to say that this is one of the best books I have read for a long time. Full of factual information and well written. It kept me enthralled and interested from begining to end.

I'm really sorry to say this and I hope you don't take offence, but there's only one word in the English language that most precisely describes people like Tom Bower: propagandist.