The Oblivion Seekers [Paperback]

Isabelle Eberhardt (Author), Paul Bowles (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

Stories and journal notes by an extraordinary young woman—adventurer and traveler, Arabic scholar, Sufi mystic and adept of the Djillala cult.

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was an explorer who lived and traveled extensively throughout North Africa. She wrote of her travels in numerous books and French newspapers, including Nouvelles Algériennes [Algerian News] (1905), Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam [In the Hot Shade of Islam] (1906), and Les journaliers [The Day Laborers] (1922).

Paul Bowles has taped and translated numerous strange legends and lively stories recounted by Mrabet: Love with a Few Hairs (novel), The Lemon (novel), The Boy Who Set Fire (stories), Harmless Poisons, Blameless Sins (stories), The Beach Café & Look & Move On (autobiography), and The Big Mirror (novella).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Isabelle Eberhardt was an unusual woman, and we're fortunate to glimpse her unique meld of European angst and Algerian verve. We're equally lucky for Paul Bowles's sympathetic, robust biography that precedes Eberhardt's 13 short stories. Born in Switzerland in 1877 and dead by 1904 in Algeria, Eberhardt spent her childhood dressed as a boy and her short adulthood living a journalist's life in Africa, full of luck and illness, passion and melancholy. From that intricate mix, her stories set in the dusty heat of Algerian villages breathe and sigh and radiate the culture and conflicts of her chosen home.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: City Lights Publishers (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872860825
• ISBN-13: 978-0872860827
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #838,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #77 in Books > History > Africa > Algeria

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Oblivion Seekers one of many stories in a wonderful book December 10, 2001

By Bill Young

Format:Paperback

Isabelle Eberhardt captures the oppressed spirit of the Islamic men within her description of the kif smokers holed up in a ramshackle shelter for the night. In this short story "The Oblivion Seekers" she paints a descriptive picture of the backward desert towns of Morocco and aptly draws a subtle metaphor between a captive falcon and the plight of the Arab men.
On a road to anywhere else is the town of Kenadsa in a desolate town with not even essential human comforts, here of all places, "where there is not even a café", Eberhardt discovers a kif den. The Islamic kif dens of the late 1800's were not unlike the crack houses of today; hidden away in unforgiving places, always in poor sanitary conditions. These places are the sanctuaries for the homeless, the lost, the spiritually bankrupt, the wanderers of our day. This one was similar at least with regards to décor. This particular kif den, despite it derelict location, was of higher quality than most. It was in a "partially ruined house behind the Mellah, a long hall lighted by a single eye in the ceiling of twisted and smoke blackened beams". Eberhardt's passage continues, "The walls are black, ribbed with light colored cracks that look like open wounds". Within this apparent squalor are collected together vagabonds, nomads, persons of dubious intent and questionable appearance for the purpose of smoking kif.
Among them, on a "rude perch of palm branches" is a falcon. The captive falcon is tethered to the makeshift perch by a string around one leg. When unencumbered, falcons spend their time surveying the land from the tall branches of mighty trees or soaring in the clouds, high over the desert cliffs, keeping dominion over their land.... Surprisingly, a simple string keeps the falcon terrestrial and prevents him from living out his true destiny.
Just as the owner of the proud raptor goes untold in Eberhardt's story, the oppressor of the Islamic men is neither disclosed; only the oppressed condition in which they all find themselves is described. It could be the politics of the region, the occupation of the land by foreigners, or the poverty inflicted by the desert on all its inhabitants. Reason aside, even the "most highly educated" of Islam can succumb to the oppression of the spirit.
Gathered this evening in the den, among others, is a Moroccan poet, a wanderer in search of native legends; to keep alive he composes and recites verse. There is a Filali musician, rootless without family nor specific trade. There too, a Sudanese doctor who follows the caravans from Senegal to Timbuktu. All, men in search of a medicine to help them forget. To help them forget the futility of their existence - wandering from place to place with no good purpose. These men should be part of a thriving free culture, able to spread their talents to the ends of the Islamic world. The art, music and science are essential pinnings of the Islamic spirit. With a free spirit they wander to the horizons with purpose as surely they, or their predecessors, once did; free to dream and make real those dreams.
Eberhardt writes, "even in the darkest purlieu of Morocco's underworld such men can reach the magic horizon where they are free to build their dream-palaces of delight". The Islamic men are proud men, intelligent men, with dreams and aspirations of freedom and self-determination but their desires, just like the falcon, are restrained. They travel across the desert from country to country undeterred by political boarders. They live off the land - on what meagerness the desert will yield. Yet, a metaphorical string around their ankle binds them tight. The men of Islam can roam freely about the desert but it is their Islamic spirit that is tethered. Consequently, they pursue their dreams in the "clouds of narcotic smoke". Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Mystics and wanderers November 14, 2009

By odmonica

Format:Paperback

I read these short stories before heading off on a trip to the middle east and north africa. Eberhardt's extrodinary life detailed in the introduction by Paul Bowles is as interesting as her stories - especially as a female negotiating the Arabian world of the mystics. Her short pieces are sometimes eloquent petitions for the rights (and the joy and the rewards) of the peniless wanderer. I was inspired and it kept the business of worrying about money, and the motives of the many hospitable and amazing people I have met in these regions in check.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Take one eccentric upbringing ... add Algiers and Paul Bowles June 19, 2006

By M. J. Smith VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Unfortunately, Isabelle Eberhardt died at 27, her major manuscript lost in the flood that took her life. Our loss.

This volume contains 11 short stories, a diary excerpt and a letter to the editor defending her integrity. Paul Bowles has provided in the preface a reasonably detailed account of her life. The book would be valuable solely as a historical piece - a sympathetic view of the natives who are in the process of being subjugated by France.

However, the writing is a pleasure to read, often becoming almost a prose poem. "The dry wind, completing its work of cracking open the earth, whipped against the muscles of his legs ..." from Blue Jacket. "It burns in the sunlight, a dusty stripe between the wheat's dull gold on one side, and the shimmering red hills and grey-green scrub on the other." from Outside.

These are stories of wanderers, soldiers, young girls in love, old displaced farmers, and oblivion seekers. Eberhardt has the ability to make these characters both very specific and universal. Unfortunately, she did not live to produce more of this splendid writing. I have to be satisfied with this slim volume.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing, Suspiscious Collection September 9, 2001

By Julie

Format:Paperback

Isabelle Eberhardt's collection of short stories is intriguing. It is a bit dark yet uses beautiful imagery, esp of the natural surroundings of the Algerian Desert (Sahara). However, be forewarned that most of these stories were put together after her untimely death, and may not all be her own. Only the last 2 can be confirmed as penned by her word for word.