Fool's Paradise-V818

by Dale Walker

Book Overview

In this account of travel in one of the remotest corners of northern Saudi Arabia the author attempts to explain some of the complexities of the country which the Romans named "Arabia Felix" - "happy... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394758188
• ISBN13: 9780394758183
• Release Date: April 1988
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

"It is amazing what the truth will do for one...

Suddenly, what seemed a secretive, even a sinister, alien civilization became comprehensible and human." (p 174) What a wonderful maxim Mr. Walker used, which aptly describes his entire book. As the only other reviewer, "Freston," of this gem of a book said: Most of the books about Saudi Arabia are either about how the Kingdom supports terror, about the coming revolution, about the oil wealth, etc."... in other words, so many books that theorize, and depict the "other" in negative terms, often by individuals who have never been to the Kingdom. Much that is written is also shear fantasy, masquerading as insight. But this book has the authentic ring from one who places his own culture's faults on an equal footing with those of others. There is a tongue-in-cheek quest that ties together Mr. Walker's tale, his journey across the Kingdom from West to East in the early `80's: a search for the custom of Arabia which predates Islam, from what is considered the Jahaliya, "the time of darkness," when a widow was given to a male guest for three nights. Was there still a place so remote, so high and wild in the Asir, where this might still be possible? In this pursuit, as the guest of one of his ESL student's, to attend his wedding, he did things that probably only 10 other Western expats had ever done - such as ride in a crowded Toyota land cruiser, with the Sudanese and Egyptians, on a long journey from Jeddah high into the Asir. With the exotic backdrop of his tour, and the cast of characters that he meets along the way, including old Saudi acquaintances, Walker makes numerous original philosophical observations on the respective cultures. He savagely and very wittedly skewers the foibles of Saudi society, which certainly would ban the book for sale in the Kingdom. But his strength is that he invariably compares their faults with the West's own, and sums up his agnostic position: "Don't get me wrong. I do not consider Islam any more a threat to mankind than Christianity or Judaism; in my view, no religion has the edge, in either absurdity or potential for mischief, over any other." (p 190) Another comparison is the relative merits of "repression," as espoused by Freud, and the sickness it brings on in society: "In Arabia the Repressed an unbalanced person is a sight so rare as to be shocking, whereas in permissive New York you are afraid to meet the eyes of half the people on the street for fear of encountering unrepressed madness." ( p 196) In drawing his honest portrait, he aptly indicates the central reason why much of the West has a negative image of the country: "... just as it takes no Goebbels to appreciate the value of a propaganda so effective the before I ever laid eyes on an Arab, I despised them. It helps, when you take someone's land, to picture the owner as undeserving of it anyway." (p 135) (the American Indian would fully appreciate this sentiment) As a weakness, I think of the authors of yore who visited Arabia, Walker plac

matchless

Bleedin' shame nobody has bothered to review this book (as of my writing); it's one of the best books about Saudi Arabia (and Bedouin culture) I've ever read, though it is light reading. Vintage marketed this book (now out of print, it seems) as "international travel," which seems to me a pretty dubious classification when you read what I say below, although since the guy spends most of his time wandering around a foreign country I guess I understand their reasons. But it's really a kooky adventure story . . . The plot is as follows: Walker (an on-again, off-again ESL teacher in Saudi Arabia during the boom years of the 70s and 80s), has heard many times from his students about the custom of "sexual hospitality" as practiced in some regions of Saudi Arabia, such as in the Asir (just north of Yemen). The idea of such a custom is that travelers (even "kuffar," non-believers) who are visiting into certain villages are put up in a house for three days and nights, no questions asked. Perks supposedly include bed, breakfast, and THE SERVICES OF A FEMALE. Anthropologists (and many Arabists) swear the custom was not a myth -- up until about the 1960s, when television helped to unify the country's mores, bringing them more in line with those of Riyadh. Naturally such a free-love custom is directly contrary to Wahhabi Islam, of course. Anyhow, Walker, the narrator, has been hearing about this custom for years. His students from the Asir (privately) swear to him it's not a myth, and students from other areas of the Kingdom angrily deny that such a custom ever (or could currently) exist. Well, on his last tour in KSA, Walker resolves to make an odyssey from Jedda down to the Asir, ostensibly to visit a former student but really to see if he can work himself into a situation where he is a recipient of this fabled "sexual hospitality." In other words, he spends the book basically trying to get a free ride on a Saudi chick. Well, I won't tell you how it ends, but that plot line is what Walker uses to hang his observations about the Kingdom, about Arabs, Muslims, Saudis, and the rapid modernization of their world -- and what it is like for a Westerner to live and travel there. Most of the books about Saudi Arabia are either about how the Kingdom supports terror, about the coming revolution, about the oil wealth, etc. Not this one. It's witty, amusing, and incredibly well-written. What Walker was doing spending his time as an ESL teacher is beyond me. It's neither overly-sympathetic to the Saudis, nor uselessly over-critical. In fine, a balanced, insightful, and deftly-written book.