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. ( )

A wonderful snapshot of non-Saudi Arabia at the beginning of its explosive growth. Written in the late 70's and published in 1980, it gives an English writer's point of view of the several countries he visited, and contrasts them with the Arab experience in London at the time. Each country had one chapter, and I learned a lot about them through the author's eyes. ( )

Med utgangspunkt i den arabiske "invasjonen" av London på slutten av 70-tallet, en invasjon som sammenfaller med oljeboomen disse landene opplever på denne tiden, bestemmer Jonathan Raban seg for å reise til et knippe arabiske land for å skaffe seg et annerledes bilde av disse menneskene enn det fordomsfulle inntrykket han får ved å se de flytte inn i britiske forsteder og kjøpesentre. I løpet av noen få måneder besøker han Qatar, Bahrain, Emiratene, Jemen, Egypt og Jordan, og bildet som tegnes er samtidig overraskende og helt som ventet. Drømmer man om arabiske sandørkenere, får man i stedet moderne byer i spenningen mellom det gamle og det nye, og forventer man en eksotisk annerledeshet, får man bekreftet det bildet som etterhvert har tegnet seg av Arabia de 30 årene siden boken ble skrevet. Det slår meg at det Dubai Raban besøker er det samme Dubai jeg ferierte i ved årtusenskiftet. Og spenningene du møter på Tahir-plassen i 1978 er de samme spenningene som foranledinger 25. januarrevolusjonen i Egypt. Alt er altså ved det gamle.
Hadde jeg ikke lest mange reiseskildringer fra før, hadde jeg blitt overveldet av denne boken. Nå er jeg så velbelest innen denne sjangeren at det skal mye til å overraske meg og gi meg eksistensielle leseropplevelser. Spesilet når så mye av boken finner sted i bilder, på hoteller og i cocktail-selskaper. Men interessant er den, og tretti år etter at den ble utgitt er den betimelig lesing for de som ønsker å få et enkelt med interessant innblikk i det Arabia vi fremdeles behanlder som et mytisk sted. ( )

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. ( )