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Cargando... Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea (1991)por Eric Hansen
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.  Periodista | Oct 6, 2022 |    ) invisiblecityzen | Mar 13, 2022 | ) invisiblecityzen | Mar 13, 2022 | ShanaPat | Aug 24, 2017 | ) DramMan | Jun 3, 2014 |
 I love travel narratives, and since this is a recommendation for holiday reading, I’d like to call attention to one of my favorite Middle East travel narratives: Eric Hansen’s Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea. Yemen is frequently in the news, and the news from there never seems to be good. Yet as visitors to Yemen (including myself) have discovered, there is much that is friendly and attractive about this country that is little known not only to Westerners, but also to other Arabs. In this book, Hansen conveys a strong sense of the country’s rugged beauty and individualism. Though many outside Yemen fear the rise of radical Islam there, Hansen’s descriptions of two widespread Yemeni customs—chewing qat (a mildly narcotic leaf) and carrying arms—suggest that this is not a country that Al Qaeda or other puritanical Islamist movements will find easy to dominate. Hansen, though, also discusses Yemen’s many problems—which have largely grown worse since his book was published. More than anything else, Motoring with Mohammed provides a clear, understandable introduction to a country whose politics so often appear to be neither clear nor understandable. Pertenece a las series editorialesListas de sobresalientes
In 1978 Eric Hansen found himself shipwrecked on a desert island in the Red Sea. When goat smugglers offered him safe passage to Yemen, he buried seven years' worth of travel journals deep in the sand and took his place alongside the animals on a leaky boat bound for a country that he'd never planned to visit. As he tells of the turbulent seas that stranded him on the island and of his efforts to retrieve his buried journals when he returned to Yemen ten years later, Hansen enthralls us with a portrait -- uncannily sympathetic and wildly offbeat -- of this forgotten corner of the Middle East. With a host of extraordinary characters from his guide, Mohammed, ever on the lookout for one more sheep to squeeze into the back seat of his car, to madcap expatriates and Eritrean gun runners- and with landscapes that include cities of dreamlike architectural splendor, endless sand dunes, and terrifying mountain passes, Hansen reveals the indelible allure of a land steeped in custom, conflicts old and new, and uncommon beauty. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)915.33204History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in Asia Arabian Peninsula YemenClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (3.82)
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5
Most of Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea takes place a decade later when Hansen returns with the hope of recovering his notebooks. His plans to revisit the island are thwarted, however, by bureaucracy, military security zones, and rumors of the presence of Yasser Arafat. Fortunately, Hansen rapidly loses his sense of mission as he falls into the rhythms of the Yemeni male lifestyle. This demands spending a large part of each day chewing the hallucinogenic leaf qat.
Hansen wanders in a medieval landscape where tribesmen proffer spontaneous poems, but also tend to resolve minor disputes with the aid of AK-47s and a few hostages. Over several months, he meets missionaries, refugees and Western Arabists while happening upon ceremonies marking life and death. Here at last is a Muslim country where tradition is synonymous with generosity and tolerance, even of Jews and Nazaranis.
For one episode alone, this book will be cherished by anyone who—suffering from the temporary insanity induced by a civil war or a stolen passport—has ever sought the counsel of a U.S. diplomatic mission. With characteristic restraint, Hansen recalls: “I was given the impression that several dozen American citizens were shipwrecked each week in Yemen and the overworked staff was just going to have to draw the line somewhere. We were not offered as much as a glass of water, and assistance was limited to showing us the door and pointing vaguely in the direction of the only international-class hotel.” Ω
{ I hope I don’t give the impression that one has to go all the way to Yemen to experience Muslim hospitality. I meant that it doesn’t turn up often in travelogues of Muslim lands.} (