Jordan Book

My birthday present from my wife. It's a huge tome & really nice, so I hate to schlep it about in my lunch box. I'm going to alternate reading it at home with the audio edition. It's 30 hours, free from Librivox & of varied quality. It's nice to back this up with real book & even an ebook available from Archive.org here.

It's a really long book & often dwells on trivia. Much of it is interesting; attitudes, customs, & everyday life from this area in 1851. This is before the Suez Canal was dug, but there is mention of it & a bit about the arguments for & against. Burton is not shy about mentioning where the British Empire is wrong. His trials to get a visa as a native were quite frustrating.

In chapter 6, "The Mosque", he starts getting too detailed for me. His observations on the architecture were interesting, but he goes into the education & studies of the religion & language derivation far too much for me. I'm not knocking him for it. By some accounts, he spoke 29 languages & he's passing as a native in order to get into Mecca, a city closed to outsiders. He has to know all this & he's right to share it. It's just TMI for me, so I'm skimming some.

He has an uncanny knack for understatement. ... mounted on wretched donkeys with pack-saddles, ignorant of stirrups, and without tails, whilst we ourselves suffered generally from boils, which, as usual upon a journey, make their appearance in localities the most inconvenient. If you've ever suffered a "rising in a tender spot" & yet been forced to ride, you'll get this. If not, look up the perineum issues bicyclists have today & then imagine these issues with the poor hygiene & lack of germ theory.

Burton seems a lot better than most of his time & station. He's certainly not politically correct by the standards of his own age or ours, but some reviews of this book ding him for his prejudices. IMO, he's earned his right to them. He's well educated by his curiosity & has gained his knowledge through first hand experience & that does lead to general observations of various peoples. He is quick to point out exceptions & where he was wrong.

One of the overriding themes seems to be just how useless the men are that he's hanging around with. They don't do much save for smoke, drink coffee, & talk. They spend far too much time on trivial, worthless religious stuff, too. It's really ridiculous how their whole society revolves around a fantasy.

It's LONG. I increasingly skimmed & skipped after the first third or so. Too much repetitive detail.