Passages from Arabia Deserta (Travel Library) [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles M. Doughty (Author), Edward Garnett (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Travel Library | Publication Date: July 1, 1984

Originally published in 1921. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014009508X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140095081
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,573,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars The curmudgeon survives..., April 30, 2010

By 

John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passages From Arabia Deserta (Hardcover)

It has been an eccentric lot of Westerners who have chosen to wander the Arabian Peninsula (er... ah, present company excluded, of course). Charles Doughty was a prototype for these wanderers, and he spawned the devotion of others. For those who must tackle this book, and there are valid reasons if you are truly interested, the best news is that this is an abridgment (yes, "passages from...") of what must have been around 1500 solid pages. Edward Garnett was the one who lobbed off four-fifths of the book, and I suppose one should take it on faith that the best fifth survived. Figure that a one week blinding sandstorm, sans provisions, would have been more pleasant than covering the whole 1500. Doughty undertook his almost two year journey of northern Arabia in the late 1880's, and this book may have languished in obscurity save for the promotional work of none other than T.E. Lawrence, who knew a few things about promotional activities. Lawrence's own "exploits" have been proven to be greatly embroidered, by historians such as David Fromkin. And from Lawrence, yet another strange character, Wilfred Thesiger, also championed Doughty's work. The biggest question is: Why?

Doughty traveled from Damascus, along the Haj caravan route, to the ancient Nabatean ruins at Madain Saleh. From there he went to nearby Tayma (Teyma), then on to Hail (Hayil), Kheybar, then Qasim (Buraydah and Unayzah), before leaving via Taif (Tayif) and Jeddah. For sure, the austere beauty of the desert eluded Doughty. His outlook was uniformly dyspeptic, and the reader must wonder why did he continue? He clearly did not like the people, and he seemed to relish the hardships, and many of us have had the personal experience of an acquaintance recounting his/her travels: their essential outlook being that the aspects of another culture that are different are, by definition, inferior, and are a suitable topic of ridicule. Referring to a Bedouin group, Doughty says: "...and for things within their rat-like understanding, Arabians tell me, it were of them that a man may best inquire." Or in another section, the author says: "I was startled from my weariness by the abhorred voice of their barbaric religion!... Those hyenas responded, with a sort of smothered derision, `Would I not pray along with them...'". Doughty was not a good prognosticator either, in commenting on the Haj: "How great is that yearly suffering and sacrifice of human flesh, and all lost labour, for a vain opinion, a little salt of science would dissolve all their religion!" He manages to convey his observations in an archaic, leaden literary style that was not even palatable to his fellow Victorians.

So, Doughty spends almost two years in the heartland of Islam, all the while boldly and obnoxiously proclaiming his moral superiority as a Christian. Even Thesiger commented that it was analogous to someone going around England during World War II professing his faith in the Nazi ideology. It is a wonder that he completed his trip, and certainly at some level a testimony to the tolerance of the hosts he imposed upon. What is missing, and is fruitful grounds for speculation: What did his hosts really think of this eccentric, contrarian "ugly Brit"?

Though I've been uniformly negative myself, I have given the book a 3-star for a couple of reasons: Doughty never could see the desert of Gertrude Bell's The Desert and the Sown: The Syrian Adventures of the Female Lawrence of Arabia but he did have his moments, like when he described the "wothybi", the "wild cow," which is an oryx. And he did give some sort of backhanded compliment to the people of Unayzah, by saying that is where he enjoyed the ONE good day during his entire travels. But mainly it is worth reading for the Orientalism that outlook as famously defined by Edward Said, which holds the cultures of those somewhat different from our own, in the Middle East, up for ridicule and scorn. Then it is also worthwhile to contemplate the linkage from Doughty to Lawrence to Thesiger to Fox News. Alas.