Arabia: Through the Looking Glass

By Jonathan Raban

Intrigued by the Arabs, dressed in floor-length robes and yashmaks, who began holidaying in London after the 1970s oil boom, Raban wanted to discover the reality of their home lives and world view. His quest took him through Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan.

What he discovered was a far cry from the camel, tent and sand-dune archetypes of early European explorers. Oil wealth had seeped into almost every corner, and Bedouin encampments had been replaced by cosmopolitan boomtowns, camels by Range Rovers. The sons of Bedouin nomads were now studying medicine in Europe and engineering in New York. Yet in this fast-moving world, old certainties remained.

Raban’s gift for friendship gives us a series of affectionate individual encounters which collectively create a true and invaluable picture of Arabian society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eland Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781780601496

Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban was the author of over a dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, including Passage to Juneau, Bad Land, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Coasting, Old Glory, Arabia, Soft City, Waxwings and Surveillance. Over the span of six decades, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, and the Governor’s Award of the State of Washington. His work appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Harpers, The New York Review of Books, Outside, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, The London Review of Books, and other magazines. In 1990 Raban, a British citizen, moved from London to Seattle, where he lived with his daughter until his death in 2023.

Reviews for Arabia

[herschelian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was written in the late 1970s, and so the picture of Arabia it paints is very different from the Arab world of today, however it still a very enjoyable read, and does give quite a lot of background on this part of the world, and shows the start of the rapid changes there.

[pdcread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After the oil boom of the 1970's Arabs lefts the security of their homelands and started to become more visible in the Western capitals. Seeing them around London made Raban think it would be good to travel to their home countries and see what life was like there. It was a journey that would take him from Bahrain to Qatar, Yemen to Jordon and finally to Egypt and he wanted to go there before the vast wealth from oil changed these places irreparably. He was a little late as wealth had flowed into the communities over there, sons had headed to Europe and America to learn medicine and engineering, The temperamental Range Rover had replaced the grumpy camel and the tents that had been the homes for the Bedouin for hundreds of years were stopping being used as they moved into homemade from brick and mortar.

However, the old way of life is still there if you want to go and look for it. Raban is gregarious nature means that he easily forges friendships with the people that he meets as he travels through each of the countries. Mixing with the expat community who are trying to recreate a little bit of England over there he finds interesting, but what he is there for is to walk the streets, absorbing the smells of the souks,  chew the qat sip strong coffee with men and get lost in the maze of street away from the tourist area. He speaks to fishermen on quaysides that have been almost untouched by the economic change, apart from making fish traps from wire and changing the sails on their dhows to engines. Walking through the night he hears the call of the muezzins before the first rays of dawn erupt across the sky.

This is the first Raban book that I have read, it won't be the last either as I have been kindly sent a small pile from Eland of their republications and have bought a couple of others. He reminds me of Patrick Leigh Fermor in some ways with the way that he can engage with people from all walks of life from diplomats to the man squatting in the market with a few things to sell.  His prose is very eloquent, making it a readable travel book, but most importantly he is prepared to ask searching questions of those that he interacts with to get a better insight to the places he visits. Thoroughly enjoyable and looking forward to his next, Old Glory.