At times when life outside of books becomes too overwhelming, I turn to pages that do not demand so much from me. Such books that are not lacking in depth are few.
For reading to be easy and yet remain in the company of a narrator who can tell good stories about people and places that interest me, I go back to Amin Maalouf.
His non-fiction are eye-openers, and his historical fiction fills history’s gaps with thrill and amusement. Among my favorite Lebanese writers, he is the only one who does not throw my brain and emotions into the fray and cradles it instead in snug storytelling while filling it with information.
Origins is not merely a family chronicle but a highly engaging memoir that reads like a novel. It is essential reading for those who wish to look into Levantine life and history more intimately, and learn life lessons from them regardless of nationality.
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, published in 1984, questioned and redrafted the prevalent narrative of who the world thought of as barbarians. The reader is made mindful that at the time of the Crusades, the Arab world, from Spain to Iraq, was the intellectual and material repository of the planet’s most advanced civilization, and it was only posterior to the Crusades that the trajectory of intellectual advancement and world history would shift to the West. More valuable is the epilogue where we are made to understand the repercussions and a seeming collective trauma nearly a thousand years later.
Samarkand is an entertaining read for any Persophile like myself. It is almost impossible to tell a story of Omar Khayyam without involving his contemporaries: Hassan-i Sabbah, founder of the Order of Assassins, and Nizam Al-Mulk, Persian history’s most famous vizier — the very first victim of the Assassins. Their destinies and of Persia’s are so entwined that it would also be impossible to discuss Persian history without touching on this legendary trio. Maalouf takes these characters and animates history with his seamless blending of fact and imagination.
The Rock of Tanios and Leo the African takes the reader on a journey through the vicissitudes of fate and empires.
I have just fingered the pages of Balthasar’s Odyssey and I cannot wait to see where it takes me!
On War
— Barely a hundred years ago, Lebanese Christians readily proclaimed themselves Syrian, Syrians looked to Mecca for a king, Jews in the Holy Land called themselves Palestinian… none of the present-day Middle Eastern states existed, and even the term “Middle East” hadn’t been invented. The commonly used term was “Asian Turkey.” Since then, scores of people have died for allegedly eternal homelands, and many more will die tomorrow.
— War is aggression and pillage; it is destruction and carnage. But it is a crime for which we forgive kings, whereas we make children pay for it.
On Origins
— …there is no need for us to know about our origins. Nor is there any need for our grand children to know anything about our lives. We each live through the years assigned to us and then go to our eternal sleep in the grave. Why bother to think about those who came before us, for they mean nothing to us? Why bother to think about those who will come after us, for we shall mean nothing to them?
But if everything is destined to sink into oblivion, why do we build anything, and why did our ancestors build anything? Why do we write anything, and why did they write anything? Why even bother to plant trees or have children? Why do we bother to fight for a cause, or speak of progress, change, humanity, and the future? By living exclusively for the present, we let ourselves be hemmed in by an ocean of death. Conversely, by reviving the past, we enlarge our living space.
The Book-Butterfly 