Book review: Travels in Arabia Deserta

Back of the Stacks: Travels in Arabia Deserta (selected passages) Charles M. Doughty (Dover Publications, 2003; 320 pages; $17.95 US)

Doughty’s imposing 1,400-page tome is one of those strange books many people hail as a masterpiece but which few of those people have read. Famous among scholars of Arab history and culture, it’s been described more often as “an achievement” than a gripping read. But thanks to this well-chosen selection from Dover, the casual reader can now enjoy some of the author’s best passages without being bogged down by rambling Victorian-age digressions.

Charles Doughty travelled the Arabian Peninsula in the 1870s, when Wahabi fanaticism was at its height. Other explorers had made similar journeys before him, but usually in disguise. Doughty travelled openly as a Christian and an Englishman, among ragged Bedouin tribesmen and sometimes devious Arabian townsmen, through desolate wasteland where his life was worth less than the coins in his pocket. He was repeatedly robbed, sometimes beaten, and often taken advantage of, but he also found kindness, honesty and companionship on his journey. Once you get past the old-fashioned style of his prose, the story of his famine-level existence and his endurance of climactic and cultural extremes make for a gripping read indeed.

Doughty’s remarkable first-hand observations of Arab life and culture provide modern readers with a window into our now vanished past, as well as a glimpse of what it was like to travel before there were hostels, tour packages, or the Lonely Planet. Travels in Arabia Deserta can be a challenging read, but the insights you’ll come away with are worth the effort.

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