Syria

01/09/2011

Why I Want to Go to Syria

... Just back from Syria, where we went with our old travelling companions . . . .  We took wing to Damascus, a vast oriental slum, really, but marvelous all the same, with the biggest and most beautiful mosque I've ever seen.  One simply sat at the foot of tremendous pillars, at the heart of hushed acres of carpet, and mooned two hours blissfully away.  Then across the desert to Palmyra, a warren of souks with scores of giant waterwheels turned by the green Euphrates.  Then to the tangled lanes and caravanserais, sunsets in the desert . . . .

Yes.  Huge crusader castles, Krak des Chevaliers, tremendous Greco-Roman theatres (Bosra), the fortress of Jevel Druse.  Xan and I went to the Hammam in Aleppo, a great domed building put up in 1200 AD by Nur-ed-Din el Shāhed al Mansūr, Saladin's brother.  We were pounded to a pulp in the steam by brawny Moslems, then wrapped in towels and gold hemmed robes, set on divans with cardamon coffee and hookahs, where we reclined, listening to the muezzins wailing next door, and then sallied out into the gloaming, the cleanest men East of the Suez and North of Hejaz, and the Bedouins of the souks followed our fragrant and disembodied progress with black and blazing eyes.

—Patrick Leigh Fermor, in In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor.

—David

 

Posted at 07:49 PM in Books, Pleasure, Syria, Travel | | Comments (0)

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Books David Finished in 2025

  • Dao, Bei: Sidetracks
    Tiananmen, exile, a stroke, returning after fifteen years to language, to poetry: All of it is chronicled in Bei Dao's first long poem, Sidetracks. History is here, and also the people and places that Bei Dao encountered as, in exile, he travelled the poetry circuit. He writes: "I am you a stranger on the sidetracks / waiting for the season to harvest blades of light / sending letters though tomorrow has no address."
  • Gifford, Barry: Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels
    These are the titles of the seven novels in the Sailor & Lula series: Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula; Perdita Durango; Sailor's Holiday; Sultans of Africa; Consuelo's Kiss; Bad Day for the Leopard Man; The Imagination of the Heart. They should give one a sense of the scope of Barry Gifford's imagination, an imagination that has given us, in these seven novels (some of which should probably be called novellas), an American epic featuring a couple who retain a purity even as they navigate a world that is "wild at heart." Gifford's great gift is for dialogue, and his characters employ a Southern demotic that may or may not be authentic but is always delightful. Gifford is prolific. He deserves more attention.
  • Stephenson, Neal: Polostan:Volume One of Bomb Light
    My favorite of the prolific Neal Stephenson's work is The Baroque Cycle (a trilogy when I read it though apparently it's now offered as eight separate novels). Thus, I'm happy that with Polostan he is embarking on a new historical trilogy, and doubly delighted because the first volume is excellent. It follows a girl named Dawn (among other monikers) in America and the USSR in (so far) the 1930s. There are many physicists in the novel, and that, coupled with the trilogy's title, suggests that the atomic bomb will be a significant part of the story. As always with a Stephenson novel, there is lots of information, and the many learned aside that Stephenson works in are always interesting. They never descend to the level of plonkish as-you-know-Bob interjections. I look forward to the subsequent volumes.
  • Hogg, Thomas: Confessions of a Jusified Sinner
    With a nod to Bret Easton Ellis's notorious novel, one might call this one "Scottish Psycho." Published in 1835, and set in the early 1700s, it is, in part, a critique of the harsh Scottish Calvinism which had it that a tiny percentage of humanity were "elect," chosen by God to be saved, while the rest were irrevocably damned, regardless of how blameless, or even saintly, they might be in their lives. Good works, that is, counted for nothing. Thomas Hogg takes this to its logical extreme, showing us a self-righteous young Scotsman who, under the tutelage of an even more strictly Calvinist guide—spoiler alert: it becomes clear that this guide is Satan himself—comes to believe that the murder of those he sees as less righteous than himself is not only justified, but laudable. As a member of the elect, he is certain that he is not subject to man's law, and that he cannot violate God's law. The novel is split into two parts: one is an account by an editor of the events described in the memoir the self-righteous Scot composes, and the other is the memoir itself. As the two versions don't entirely jibe, we come to suspect delusion and insanity on the part of the murderer. We see that, whether by the devil who becomes his spiritual teacher, or by the God he believes he is serving, he is led, after taking the lives of others, to take his own life. The two parts together provide a rollicking good read encompassing madness, horror, and yes, humor. The prose in which it is written is always exciting, though I have to confess, the parts written in some version of Scottish dialect were difficult. This is the best novel I've read this year, but it's still early days.
  • Aiken, Joan: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
    I don't usually read children's books. They're fine, of course, for their intended audience, but as their intended audience is children, and I'm not one, they're usually not for me. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, however, is, by all accounts, a children's book, and I enjoyed it immensely. Apparently, Joan Aiken wrote it as a kind of parody of a Victorian gothic, but parody or not, it succeeds in most of the ways Victorian novels and gothic novels succeed. It's hard to imagine any child in our time being able to get through more than a page without having to ask mom or dad or Google what a word means. Current thinking seems to be that children and adults should not read, and could not possibly enjoy, anything that challenges them, but I think adventurous youngsters—and oldsters—will enjoy this.
  • Cherryh, C.J.: Explorer
    The first sections of this novel were all conversation. I enjoyed that, and respected the author for taking this chance while writing science fiction, a genre one expects to be less talky. She doesn't stick with the all-talk format, though. There's lots of action in the back half of the novel, and Cherryh does that as well as she does conversation. The focus remains on intercultural communication: communication between humans who live on a planet populated by a non-human species, humans who live on a ship, that non-human species, and now, in Explorer, another non-human species. A potential crisis with that species is averted—these novels are as much about diplomacy as anything else—and I'm sure we will hear more from them in the many remaining novels in the series, a series I will certainly continue.
  • Connelly, Michael: Echo Park
    I should have added this three or four books ago, but I forgot. This seems to me one of the best of the series so far. It's amazing that, with such an extended series, Connelly manages to keep it fresh.
  • Forster, E.M.: The Longest Journey
    Forster's second novel is a bildungsroman, the story of Rickie Elliot from his time at Cambridge to his death while still a young man. As seems to often be the case with Forster, he mixes this story with ideas—indeed, the novel has been criticized for being too unrelentingly intellectual. I enjoyed it enough that I regret that I have yet to unearth any more Forster in my boxes. I'd like to read Maurice, the novel in which he deals with explicitly homosexual themes. Because it did deal with such themes he stipulated that it not be published until his death.
  • Forster, E.M.: Where Angels Fear to Tread
    E.M. Forster's first novel is remarkably assured. There is an elegance to his prose, even in this early work, that is addictive. Equally impressive is how he is able to spin on a dime from comedy-of-manners to tragedy. Some of the stereotypes that surface in this account of Brits and their encounter with Italy—"Latin man," "Northern woman,"—seem a bit tired, but what Forster has to say about culture clashes remains perceptive.
  • Forster, E.M.: Howards End
    This is a lovely mixture, part novel of manners and part novel of ideas.The prose is a delight: "Over all the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of 'now.'" I hope I can find more Forster in the boxes of books I've sent home.

Books Julian Read Recently

  • Samantha Harvey: Orbital
    This entirely original sliver of a novel describes (an earth) day in the life of astronauts aboard an international space station, with gorgeous, evocative descriptions and startling perspectives on life, humanity, the universe and everything. A thrilling and extraordinary ride! (*****)
  • Julian Barnes: The Sense of an Ending
    An Englishman remembers his life while probing the nature of memory. The final mystery is involving, and the solution is astonishing enough to almost compel rereading the whole book. I’m not sure if the whole adds up to more or less than the sum of its parts, but it’s definitely impressive. (I first read this in 2012, forgot it entirely [not inappropriate given that memory is the book's theme], and according to my earlier notes, I liked it better this time around.) (***)
  • Rachel Kushner: Creation Lake
    Rambling, opaque ideas about the origins of humankind swamp a thriller about radicals vs. big business in impoverished rural France. On the plus side, the venal narrator is compelling, the short sections are highly readable, and there’s a great climax. (**)
  • Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha
    A radiant account of a life searching for and finally finding mental peace. (***)
  • C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
    It’s bracing and helpful to read this account of the excruciating pain of the loss of a dearly loved one. However, it is mostly an attempt to find a place in the author’s Christian beliefs (a wise God; some sort of afterlife; a purpose to life, etc.) for the tragedy, and to revise and clarify those beliefs in the face of it. The brutal honesty and logic brought to bear on this task makes clear that, whatever benefits religion might have, it sure can add an awkward and sad complexity to life… and death. (***)
  • Elizabeth Strout: Tell Me Everything
    Elizabeth Strout again brings together the (mostly small town American) characters from her previous novels, but you don’t need to have read those to appreciate this. Here, post pandemic, Olive, Lucy, Bob and all are involved in a murder mystery, a bereavement, and a love story, but the everyday is every bit as absorbing. Strout’s world encompasses life, death, and what lies between: in a word humanity. (****)
  • Alice McDermott: Someone
    The daughter of a New York working-class family, growing up mid-century, recounts her life in shards of recollection. Razor-sharp observation and disarming honesty make this a pleasure. (****)
  • The Best of Saki: (selected by Tom Sharpe)
    What fun these very short stories are! The humor is pointed up by the gloriously overblown names of the protagonists in these miniature gems of character and situation in which (as Tom Sharpe, editor of the edition I read, puts it) “ingenious mischief… triumphs over pomposity.” The fun is in the twists: you never quite know how a story is going to get to its inevitably satisfying conclusion. And if it sometimes reflects the prejudices of its time (early 1900s), it’s an added pleasure to realize the (albeit still limited) social progress we’ve made since then, and to hope that our current fiction will feel as likewise antiquated in its prejudices and mores to future generations. (Thank you fellow Blockhead David for the recommendation.) (****)
  • Haruki Murakami: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
    Reading this, I learned that some people who run, cycle or swim competitively have elations, satisfactions and frustrations at the cost of excruciating pain in the striving to beat themselves and others. I enjoy cycling enough to average 600 benign kilometers a month, but the training for marathons and triathlons that Murakami describes is another world, alien and too often horrific: leg cramps, inability to walk, lingering depressions…. Ouch, no thanks! How different we exercise-seeking humans can be from one another! (**)
  • Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis
    This powerfully illustrated graphic novel set in 1980s Iran is an account of growing up in a war-torn country, and, as a girl, under religious fundamentalism. And then, in a long coda, trying to navigate life in Europe as a young woman. The whole is devastating and moving. At the same time, it’s a truism that honesty unlocks hilarity, and there is rich humor to be found here in some of the darkest places. (***)

Films Julian Watched Recently

  • All Of Us Strangers
    In a new tower block with just two inhabitants so far, an isolated man looks back on his life and, through strange encounters, faces past traumas of family and growing up gay. Dreamlike, atmospheric, mesmerizing, bracing, it’s a gorgeous meditation on the redemptive power of love. A triumph of filmmaking and performances. (DVD) (*****)
  • The Zone of Interest
    The Holocaust from the oblique angle of its perpetrators who live bourgeois lives filled with all-too-familiar human concerns… over the wall from unspeakable horror. A movie grave, meticulous, reverent and highly original, the implication is, I think, how will future generations look at what we are doing, and not doing, in face of current horrors. What appalling realities am I ignoring over my wall? (DVD) (****)
  • La Chimera
    In an impoverished part of contemporary Italy, Etruscan tomb robbers search for artifacts to sell… or treasure. Sometimes odd but with few surprises, I was so uninvolved that I felt I lost two hours of my life. (DVD) (zero stars)
  • Justine Triet (director): Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
    Family friction, a mysterious death, a courtroom drama. These well-worn ingredients are presented with both assurance and breathtaking freshness. The result is cinema at its purest and most exciting. (*****)
  • The Great Escaper
    An aged veteran makes his way to a WWII remembrance ceremony in France, while his wife relives her own traumatic wartime on the home front. This modest film -- acted with commitment -- builds toward the suggestion that war is a tragic waste. Humanitarian propaganda of the best sort. Tissues mandatory. (Theater) (***)

Things NC Consumed Recently

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
    More than forty years on since my last reading, this classic novel is remarkable not so much for its romantic longings as for its emphasis on American violence, its depiction of a country in which California hardly matters and its meeting of the Mid West and East Coast. Plus its succinct nine chapters, its elegant prose and its almost noirish tone: Tom breaking Myrtle's nose would seem to foreshadow Lee Marvin throwing hot coffee in Gloria Grahame's face in The Big Heat - and the use of flashbacks helps too. I'd like to thank the publicity for the recent film version and my current cold for sending me back to the novel (and my young self).
  • Isabelle Eberhardt
    In 1904, Isabelle Eberhardt drowned in the desert, leaving behind, among other things, various writings in French (a novel, travel notes, a journal, short stories), Islam, Lake Geneva, a husband, debauchery in kif, sex and alcohol, and a small collection of male clothing, which she wore habitually, along with her man's name. The lazy say she was an early hippie, because of her nomadic, hedonistic life, and being the first one to die at 27. Lindqvist has her in a line from Villon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Celine and Genet. Her story can only get stranger and more fascinating. "In The Shadow of Islam", "The Passionate Nomad", "The Oblivion Seekers" and Annette Kobak's biography are one way in. You'll find there an apt fatal romanticism for vast desert spaces and a depiction of Islam to ponder. Among other things.
  • Listen to Britain - Humphrey Jennings
    Terence Davies is surely right to say Listen to Britain is in part an attempt to define the nation on the eve of its being invaded. But that invasion never came. A little prematurely, Humphrey Jennings's film records what left later, with something messier, less defined usurping through the back door. Terence Davies is surely right to say Listen to Britain is one of the greatest things these islands have produced.
  • Patience (After Sebald)
    Grant Gee's documentary uses a palette of pale black and white, maps and talking heads to comment on W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, an account of his walk through Suffolk. Unlike the book, where a variety of genres (and photographs) coheres to make a recognisable whole, the film suffers slightly from a lack of direction. It is too specific to serve as an introduction and lacks an overriding arc that might describe a thesis. However, with its archival footage, interviews with the author and shots of the route taken, it is essential viewing for those already in thrall to all things Sebaldian - even if the ending, alas, veers close to Conan Doyle and fairies-in-the-garden territory.

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