Samarkand - Amin Malouf

 A novel built around an imagined life of Omar Khayyam.  

This is the second time I have read this novel, and I found it much less compelling than the first time I read it.  No doubt, partly because of a waning of my interest in the history of Iran and Central Asia, and also the understanding that very few, if any, traces of this world remain.

Basically, though, it is the style of the novel that I can't relate to.  It seems very much a 19th century novel  The style is somewhat formal, the vocabulary a bit recherche.  The characters are also somewhat exaggerated caricatures of types:  the mysterious persian princess, the american man of reason, the conniving eastern potentate, the clear-eyed bon vivant, etc.  The emotional tone of the characters is also to monochromatic and high - love, regret, righteous indignation, all with capital letters.  In sum, it reads too much like a 19th century moral tale.  Also, like a 19th century romantic tale with love pursued and lost, with nostalgic regret.  

Unfortunate, because what Malouf is trying to do is important.  Through his novels, he is trying to portray a Middle East and Islamic world that the West is ignorant of.  He wants to show that there is more to the Middle East than religious fundamentalism, ignorant sectarianism and self-righteous moralizing.  As he shows, there has always been a conflict between narrow-minded religious dogmatism and more enlightened, reasoned, humanistic visions, but the currently dominant fundamentalism was not always the most powerful view.  

Celestial Bodies - Jokha Alharthi

This is a rare novel, a novel by a writer from Oman, and a woman writer at that.  It recounts the life of several interconnected families in the latter half of the 20th C in a small village.  There are a number of social observations which are interesting to see:
- the power and importance of the father in a family, even as the sons themselves age and become fathers
- insight into the woman's universe, so separate from that of the men - this takes up a lot of the book
- the institution of slavery and its persistent ramifications after it is finally banned
- the beginnings of rebellion as young people leave despite family disapproval to work in bigger cities or even other countries
- various attitudes towards love and marriage, some highly pragmatic, some impossibly idealized and dreamy

The book is narrated in short bits and passages as the author passes from one character to another and one social position to another.  It works because it is broken up, though I found the end a bit too choppy.

The Uses and Abuses of History - Margaret MacMillan

  In spite of the title, a fairly light read looking at the way history is used by politicians and radicals to further their ends.  She outlines some interesting historical myths used in recent history to justify some horrendous actions - Serbia, post-Vichy France - as well as instances where governments have refused to listen to historical experts with specialized knowledge of countries - U.S. policy in the Middle East, especially Iraq. 
  She also discusses the issues around current governments acknowledging responsibility and apologizing for actions done in the past in different times with different values.  There are two sides to this coin.
   Worth a read, but if you are a thinking consumer of the news and history, not much new here.

A Mind at Peace - Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

   Not an easy read - at times slow, at times too didactic,  at times at bit scattered - but never-the-less a very interesting book for many reasons.   Mostly due to Tanpınar's position as one of the first writers of the new Turkish Republic, and his position as a writer who crosses over between the old Ottoman (and Anatolian) culture and Western culture.
   (Aside from all of this, the book is a wonderful portrait of Istanbul in its last days as an Imperial, sophisticated city with a culture and life all its own.  A time when the Boğaz villages were true villages and people spoke of going into the city as a real trip.  Both a visual portrait of how that city was, and also a social portrait of a certain lifestyle.)

  From a stylistic perspective, the book shifts through several different ones.  At times it read like Aldous Huxley's novels of ideas (Huxley is actually referenced in the novel), at times like a long interior monologue of impressions and sensations, at the end even like a kind of Magic Realism with a long scene where the main character, Mümtaz,  interacts with his recently dead acquaintance.  I wonder if this comes with the the rush to confront and absorb the West at the time of the collapse of Ottoman culture with its ties to the traditions of the East - almost a rabid desire to know and absorb this new Other.
   Also, a social drama built around a love story, where you see the confrontation of old and new values imposed on the lovers by the various people in their social circle.  A subtle confrontation, however, which does not divide along the lines of youth and age - witness Nuran's uncle, Tevfik, who is wholly supportive of their relationship.  In fact, most of the objections come from their younger circle of friends.
   Ihsan, Mümtaz's uncle, is the source of much of the novel of ideas passages, where Tanpınar, overtly explores the many social issues and shifts that must take place, or are in fact taking place, in order to build a new society with a new unifying vision or mythology.   Interesting, as these shifts also form a major part of the plot line itself.
   Another side of the book explores the feelings of nostalgia for a lost culture, with its lost heroes and figures of cultural importance.   Also, for the very culture itself, especially Ottoman classical music, which plays an important part throughout the book.  Many classical pieces and makams are referenced, from within a perspective of the subtle culture around these pieces and makams - it is possible to find some of the references on Youtube and Turkish music sites (Neyzen).

   At one point Tanpınar points out the very "hüzün" condition of his generation and social class - they live within a culture whose supporting structure and political context has disappeared.  They are essentially an orphaned culture, destined to disappear - as it largely has, except for the rather broad brush stroke version that remains, having lost much of its subtleties.   In this, Tanpınar stands before his time in that, with the global expansion of Western culture, corporatism and Western consumerism, most of us now live in an orphaned or dying culture, or wholly within the post-national consumerist universe (not counting the cartoon versions of national culture so popular now with right wing nationalist political movements).

References:

Song in Mahur - Refik Talat Alpman?

Makams - key modes/moods in Ottoman music - Ferahfeza, Acemaşıran, Beyatı, Sultaniyegah, Nühüft, Mahur

Tab'i Mustafa Efendi - composer (nothin on Youtube - check Neyzen for his hicaz saz semaisi

Ismail Dede Efendi - composer

The Islamic Enlightenment - Christopher de Bellaigue

An interesting look at modernizers and enlightenment figures in Muslim societies from the 1800's on.  He first looks at early figures country by country, and then in the 20th c., switches to a broader perspective as figures and movements become international in influence.  As you read about these figures, you get a sense of how the religious conservatives have fought this movement for the past two centuries.  You also get a sense of how the West's duplicity, naked pursuit of self-interest, and blatant hypocrisy in the region has played into the hands of the conservative religious leaders, discrediting ideas and movements that have any association with the West and the Enlightenment tradition.
A bit too much detail at times, but it is easy to skim over some sections.

The Ways of Strangers - Graeme Wood

This book is purportedly a look into the kind of people that support and sign up for ISIS.  In fact, it ends up being a bunch of interviews with armchair jihadis who sit at home in the West and write rabid material for ISIS websites.  Each one has a valid (?) excuse for why they can't actually go and join the jihad in Syria...   Intellectual wankers who run no risk of getting their hands dirty.  The proposed topic would have been much more interesting...

Exit West - Mohsin Hamid

Hamid is a brilliant writer and profound thinker.  The book is littered with exquisite short, quotable passages.

Loosely based on the current Syrian refugee crisis, he examines the issues around this from many perspectives - who leaves, who goes, the chaos of where they come from, how life in a state of social siege reduces itself and becomes narrower, the different reactions to the need to integrate into your new society.  How some people move forward to greater liberty, how some move back into a more blinkered state, tied to values of their old world even more tightly than when they lived there.

He has a beautiful image of emigration as locating secret doors and passing through them to a new life.  

Mohsin chronicles a lot of this through a delicately outlined love story - and eventual separation -  between the two main characters, Nadia and Saeed.  

Worth a reread, just to catch and note all the quotable passages.

Mermaids and Ikons - Gwendolyn MacEwen

A short poetic memory of her time in Greece.  She evokes some nice images and some playful ideas.  You can here the 60s speaking in their search to break out of Anglo constraints.  You can also hear the long gone Greek coffee shops with music on the old Danforth Avenue in Toronto.  A forgotten world.

My European Family: the first 54,000 years - Karin Bojs

Set as a personal genealogy explored through a DNA history of Europe from the Neolithic period.  (The personal setting doesn't sit so well with the scientific basis, in my mind anyway.  Would have been better as a straight out popular science book.)
Brings up a number of interesting points about European history and also about archaeology as a discipline.
First, DNA evidence seems to indicate that farming was carried into the whole of Europe by immigrants from modern day Syria and Turkey ie.  the place where farming seems to have originated.  Early farmers have radically different DNA from the local hunters and gatherers in the period where farming first moved into areas in Europe.  Later, the groups seem to have mixed as the hunters moved into the farming communities.

Many people carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, so Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people mated in some way.  The fact that so many carry a small part of this DNA would indicate that the early mixed individuals had a better survival rate than those without the Neanderthal DNA.  Perhaps some adaptation to cold climates, as the Neanderthals had been living in this kind of environment for millennia.

Every living human being's mitochondrial DNA comes from a single female way back in history! Apparently, at some point we almost died out as a species?

There were several waves of immigration into Europe from Africa, but only two waves seemed to have been able to survive in the long run, the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon.

Europe's population was formed by essentially three waves of immigration - two from Africa, and a last one from Central Asia during the Iron Age.

DNA analysis has upset a lot of theories about social development and migration that have been developed over the years.  Many older archaeologists couldn't accept the validity of DNA-based information as it blew their pet theories and their careers out of the water.  So much for disinterested science.  Some also seem to have objected to the DNA-based conclusions on essentially racist grounds. (There is no such thing as 'disinterested' thinking....)

Worth reading for the nice summary of current DNA research in archaeology.

Ten Myths about Israel - Ilan Pappé

Another brilliant book by this critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.

The book is divided into three sections:  myths about the past and the genesis of the state; myths about current situations and myths about the two state solution.

In the first section, there are some rather shocking bits of information that I was unaware of:
- Zionism began essentially as a European Christian powers projects and initially received little support from Jewish leaders - it was seen as a back door colonialist policy for dealing with the Middle East (which it in fact is)
- in the 30s, the Zionists tried to form an alliance with the Nazis to help them fight the British in the Mandate territories!

In the second section, he clearly outlines how and why the Israeli state is a colonial power and essentially a project of ethnic cleansing, by looking at patterns of land confiscation, abrogation of basic rights, persistent harassment and use of military and extrajudicial punishments.

In the section on Gaza, he also outlines his reasons for seeing the Israeli actions as a form of genocide, based mostly on the number of deaths and the overwhelmingly civilian nature of those deaths.

Throughout the book, Pappé also underlines how elimination of the Palestinian population has always been the goal, and how Israeli governments have never entered into peace negotiations in good faith.

A well-written book - direct and to the point.

1177 B.C. - The Year Civilization Collapsed - Eric H. Cline

An interesting overview of the late Bronze age and the mysterious collapse of most of the powerful Bronze Age civilizations/states over a relatively short period of time - Cyprus, Minoans, Mycenae, Hittites, Mitanni.  Egypt struggled, but managed to hang on.   This book is essentially an overview of what is known about the last stages and final collapse of each of these civilizations.  At the time, they created a tightly woven set of interdependent centres, trading food and other essentials (especially tin and other metals used for the creation of weapons) as well as luxury goods for the elites.   They all used some form of writing for record-keeping, for letters and other communication both for government and for business - in fact, Akkadian was the Latin or English of the day.Within a hundred year period though, all of them collapsed, followed by a 300 to 400 year period of reorganization and renewal or establishment of new centres and cultures.

Cline also provides an overview of the various causes that have been considered by various academics.  His conclusion is that the collapse was caused by the interaction of several factors over time.  Earthquakes - the whole area was shaken by numerous earthquakes over a period of several decades, and "earthquake storm", which destroyed several key cities.  Climate change - around 1177 B.C. the whole Mediterranean basin seems to have entered a drier period, which would have lowered ground water and affected agriculture.  Internal revolts - in some places, the elites and power centres within cities seem to have been destroyed.  This may have been related to famine and economic hardship.  Economic disruption - as these centres had developed a highly interdependent economic trade system, disruptions in one part could have serious economic effects on other centres, especially the centres that relied largely on trade for their economy - leading to rebellions also.  Warfare - there is some sign of invasion and destruction of some major centres by marauding bands, perhaps pushed to migrate by drought or economic failure.  These sites are usually not resettled after the destruction.

After this period of collapse, writing systems seem to have fallen out of use, states became much smaller, and economic activity more local and more limited.  As the author points out, this is a pattern that repeats itself in history in every part of the world where large empires come and go.  Interesting to think of ourselves in this cycle...

The Art of the Qu'ran - Massumeh Farhad

A catalogue of an exhibition from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts.
A large, high-quality catalogue with large reproductions and closeups of details.  Many stunning illuminations.  Some of the illuminations look like carpets on the page with the words in the centre surrounded by several layers of decorative borders.  Also, a catalogue of the many styles and beauty of the written word in arabic script.  Fabulous book.

The Carpet and the Connoisseur - Saint Louis Museum

A fabulous collection of carpets, some over 400 years old.  Excellent colour reproductions with closeups of details and information on origin, etc. for each carpet.

Midnight at the Pera Palace - Charles King

Subtitled "The Birth of Modern Istanbul"

Clever use of the Pera Palace as a focus to look at the emergence of modern Turkey and explore some of the rich 20th c history of Istanbul.
He looks at the Young Turk and Ataturk periods as well as the occupation at the end of WW I.  There is also quite a bit about the post-Revolution Russian community and what became of it.  There is a whole chapter on Trotsky's time on Büyükada.  You also get a glimpse of the intrigues during WW 2 when Turkey was neutral and every side had spies and agents operating in the city.  There is a chapter on the discoveries that led to the Haghia Sophia becoming a museum.  There are also several chapters on the role that Istanbul played as a transit point for Jews escaping Europe en route to Palestine during the later half of WW II.

One thing I found interesting is some of the detail on how Ataturk and the Republic used taxation and government seizure to push Jews and other ethnic groups out of their businesses (and by extension out of the city) and then sold their property and goods to the up-and-coming Turkish middle-class/party hacks.  In one instance a war tax of 150 to 200% of total value was placed on Jewish, Greek and Armenian businesses.  So after the Young Turks were chases from power, ethnic cleansing continued, just in a neater, tidier form...

Iran in World History - Richard Foltz

A well-written overview of the basic events and movements in the history of Iran.  Just enough detail.  Excellent for general interest.  From 3500 BC to the present.
It also provides some insight into the long-lasting underlying forces in Iranian politics and history - the rise of clerical power, the link between the landowner class and the clerical establishment, and their resistance to political and social change.

There is also an interesting mention of Mithraism and its influence on Jews living within the Sassanian empire leading to some central concepts in the emergence of Christianity.


To find:

Hushang Golshiri - modern novelist

Silk Roads: A New History of the World - Peter Frankopan

An excellent new look at the history of Central Asia and the Silk Road.  Frankopan begins the book with a brief chronological overview and then moves on to look at the movement of goods and ideas from the Far East to Europe from several points of view - luxury goods exchange, idea exchange, culture exchange, religion exchange, slave exchange, disease and plague exchange.  He also pursues the topic beyond the traditional overland route and includes the move to trade by long distance European sailing ships in the concept of Silk Road.  He pursues it into the modern age, looking at the Suez Canal and the eventual Suez Canal crisis as part of the history of the Silk Road.  The book continues right up to contemporary times where Central Asia is undergoing a little recognized renaissance as a trading centre due to its rich natural resources - overlooked perhaps because the benefits largely seem to accrue to the top social echelons, which is actually the traditional wealth distribution structure in Central Asia way back to early Silk Road times.

He also notes patterns in this trade route through the ages - the importance of slave trading as a generator of wealth and capital at the beginning of each group's period of dominance - arabs, Vikings, Europeans.  The tendency of wealth to accrue at the top of society.

Worth rereading.

The Sirens of Baghdad - Yasmina Khadra

A novel set in Iraq.  The story of a young man from an isolated village in Iraq.  It traces the effects of the American invasion and occupation on his village, his family and his own life - the loss, the brutality, the humiliation, the cultural conflicts.  Basically a story of the logic of radicalization of a young man at the hands of the West.  Interesting to get a different perspective on this whole debacle.

Disordered World - Amin Maalouf

Subtitled "Setting a New Course for the Twenty-first Century"

An interesting analysis of the current Middle East and where we find ourselves in general today. Maalouf has the advantage of having witnessed first hand the breakdown of social order and the slip into chaos in Lebanon.
He looks at how the West has misused its strength and created political and social disasters in countries in the Middle East, and indirectly helped create Islamic fundamentalism.  He has a long chapter on how political leaders everywhere have lost any sense of legitimacy in the eyes of their people by being tied to narrow special interests of all stripes.  He also talks about how a post-ideological world has fractured into a tribal world based on ethnicity, religion, skin colour, wealth.

He finishes the book with some chapters on how to rebuild, on how to reestablish a solidarity that can transcend cultures, ethnicities and religion.  Very idealistic.  Based on values of culture (I am reminded here of the effect on culture and its values of the cataclysm of WW I).
It is a nice vision, but I am more inclined to agree with Zizek's idea that change to the system will only come after collapse into chaos, probably provoked by environmental crises.

I find his non-fiction style a bit heavy and pedantic, but the ideas are interesting.

Worth rereading.

Madness in the Family - William Saroyan

Bit of a forgotten writer.
Some amusing short stories about life and the Armenian community in Fresno in the early and mid-20th c.
His stories seem very light, and not typical of the more angst ridden work of the 20th century, but he actually addresses some deep, almost mystical issues in some of them.  There is almost a sense of Sufi wisdom, or traditional wisdom and social insight of traditional middle-eastern societies.
The influence of his Armenian-ness, his cultural background is what makes him interesting in this book.

Try a couple more.

1177 The Year Civilization Collapsed - Eric H. Cline

An attempt to get to the bottom of what happened in the early 12th c BC, which saw the collapse of every current major civilization in the eastern Mediterranean.  Cline begins with a thorough overview of the world of the late Bronze Age.  It is a fascinating picture, with every civilization built around a ruling political/religious elite that governed from a central palace temple complex.  Most of these political religious elites also ran the economy, both internally and external trade.   At least at the elite level, this was a very international, interconnected period, with lots of movement of both luxury goods and goods essential to the elites - such things as tin for weapon making, gold, as well as emergency food supplies to hand out to the populace in years of failed crops.  I picture the sailors of these ships from Crete, from Egypt, from Ugarit, from Greece sitting down for a few drinks in bars in the  big port towns of the time - that would have been really travelling!

Turns out the Sea People are a difficult group to pin down.  Their presence outside of the documented attacks on Egypt and probably Ugarit, is pretty difficult to determine.  Much of the destructions blamed on them seems to have been the result of earthquakes and local rebellions rather than warfare. It seems this area may have collapsed due to a series of natural disasters - earthquakes, prolonged droughts, climate shift - coupled with some external raiding, some migration pressures (perhaps caused by the natural disasters), some political upheaval, and a breakdown of a complex system of economic exchange.  The large political units  have evolved a complex system of interdependence and when that began to fray, it dragged most of the involved players down.  It may have been that the elites lost the wealth needed to maintain their position and either buy or enforce compliance from their subjects.

Like with the fall of the Roman Empire, the area seems to have slipped into a "Dark Age" - smaller, more local political units, loss of culture, building techniques and established art styles (and writing in the case of Mycenean Greece), falling off of trade and long-distance exchange, idealization of the preceding Golden Age.

It is so long ago, it may never be possible to determine the exact causes and sequence of events at that time.