Amazon.com
At the age of 5, Malika Oufkir, eldest daughter of General Oufkir, was adopted by King Muhammad V of Morocco and sent to live in the palace as part of the royal court. There she led a life of unimaginable privilege and luxury alongside the king's own daughter. King Hassan II ascended the throne following Muhammad V's death, and in 1972 General Oufkir was found guilty of treason after staging a coup against the new regime, and was summarily executed. Immediately afterward, Malika, her mother, and her five siblings were arrested and imprisoned, despite having no prior knowledge of the coup attempt.
They were first held in an abandoned fort, where they ate moderately well and were allowed to keep some of their fine clothing and books. Conditions steadily deteriorated, and the family was eventually transferred to a remote desert prison, where they suffered a decade of solitary confinement, torture, starvation, and the complete absence of sunlight. Oufkir's horrifying descriptions of the conditions are mesmerizing, particularly when contrasted with her earlier life in the royal court, and many graphic images will long haunt readers. Finally, teetering on the edge of madness and aware that they had been left to die, Oufkir and her siblings managed to tunnel out using their bare hands and teaspoons, only to be caught days later. Her account of their final flight to freedom makes for breathtaking reading. Stolen Lives is a remarkable book of unfathomable deprivation and the power of the human will to survive.
Book Description
A gripping memoir that reads like a political thriller--the story of Malika Oufkir's turbulent and remarkable life. Born in 1953, Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of Morocco's closest aide. Adopted by the king at the age of five, Malika spent most of her childhood and adolescence in the seclusion of the court harem, one of the most eligible heiresses in the kingdom, surrounded by luxury and extraordinary privilege.
Then, on August 16, 1972, her father was arrested and executed after an attempt to assassinate the king. Malika, her five younger brothers and sisters. and her mother were immediately imprisoned in a desert penal colony. After fifteen years, the last ten of which they spent locked up in solitary cells, the Oufkir children managed to dig a tunnel with their bare hands and make an audacious escape. Recaptured after five days, Malika was finally able to leave Morocco and begin a new life in exile in 1996.
A heartrending account in the face of extreme deprivation and the courage with which one family faced its fate, Stolen Lives is an unforgettable story of one woman's journey to freedom.
Customer Reviews:
Incredible Story - Deserved Better Editor.......2007-09-10
I am very disappointed in some of the reviews that I have read about this book; thank goodness they are the minority. Yes, I agree that it was poorly edited, and the story that was being relayed really could have been told better. It disturbs me that some of the reviewers almost appeared to attack the author. This lady is not an author/writer; she's no Stephen King or Dan Brown. Those authors have the advantage of fiction on their respective sides. Malika Oufkir had no such advantage. She is a survivor who had to actually live the hell that she describes in her book.
Imagine being a political prisoner - your only crime being that you were related to someone who either did something terrible against the country or "allegedly" did so - you are living in conditions of squalor. Your captors want you to die, but don't want to necessarily pull the trigger. You are starved, not allowed outside, not allowed to see or feel the sun, and deprived of the most basic information such as the date and time. You watch your sister pick the rat droppings from pieces of stale bread before "happily" consuming it. You watch your three-year old brother's life as a political prisoner. That's what you lived for most of two decades. Finally, years after being released, you get the courage to tell your story so that the world has a chance to know what you have been through, and that political imprisonment is not the cake walk or country club behind bars that it has been touted through the years. For months, you fight through the tears and the recollections of the circumstances and events that above all, you mostly want to forget. Then, proud that you were able to clear that final hurdle, you read the book reviews on Amazon only to find that one reader finds the book "difficult to believe" and even "boring." The nerve of some people to sit in their air conditioned homes with their refrigerator and freezer full, to sit at their computer with access to the world, to not be able to look past the flaws of the book to see the real story. If this was fiction, I could see the criticism, but given the storyline and the simple fact that it was fact, I simply cannot justify attacking the author about the quality of the book. Her experience has forever changed her and her reaction to life itself.
Bottom line - this was a riveting story that could have been a riveting book. I give the story itself 5+ stars. I hope Ms. Oufkir and her family are proud that they survived such an incredulous nightmare. I was left wanting more information, but I personally feel fortunate to have received what information I got; Ms. Oufkir didn't have to put her ordeal in writing. The editing gets one star. The editor and publisher failed Ms. Oufkir and should be ashamed that her story was not given the very best attention to detail. It almost seems as though the book was rushed to go to print, and Ms. Oufkir's story suffered the consequences. And that is a real travesty.
Survival Story.......2007-08-30
Because of her father's treachery in attempting to assassinate the king of Morocco, Malika, her mother, her siblings and two family friends are imprisoned in the desert. For years they live in tiny cells infested with bugs and mice who battle them for their near-starvation rations. Finally they make a desperate move to tunnel out of their prison and alert the international news media of their imprisonment, which puts sufficient pressure on the king to free them.
Malika's life wasn't always so bad, though. In fact, when she was five, the king adopted her to live in the palace as a companion to his daughter. Although she missed her family and felt trapped in her life as royalty, Malika was well fed and well brought up and had all of the luxuries life could hand out to a child. This makes her subsequent imprisonment all the more shocking, especially as it is at the hands of her adopted family.
I found this book a bit scattered. The author would state in passing something she would then address later, which gave me the feeling of a great deal of jumping around. She also tries a bit too hard to make a connection between life in the palace and life in prison, which I thought was more than a small stretch. Although the author argues that she was never really "free" to do what she wanted while living with the royals, what child ever is free to do what he or she wants? There were few incidents of her being treated cruelly while growing up, and she wanted for nothing, yet she tried to paint herself as a poor sad little child. This tended to make me feel less sorry for her, rather than more.
The part of the book dealing with the family's prison life was horrifying almost beyond belief, yet was dealt with in such a casual tone of voice that I found it hard to get as outraged and sad as I felt I should have been. Something about the tone of the book just didn't strike the right note with me.
Boring Beyond Belief.......2007-07-04
There is nothing "gripping" about this book. The beginning of the book, the tale of life with the King, is interesting. Once the family is arrested and incarcerated, it becomes boring beyond belief - and this is the part of the book that should be riveting! Instead, I found the narration totally self-centered and the "story" absolutely colorless. I quit reading about page 138 (just after the escape) because at that point I could have cared less what happened to this family. The travesty is that these events were real and I should feel outrage and compassion for this family. Instead, I'm annoyed I spent money on this horribly written/edited/translated book!
Stolen Lives.......2007-05-28
I found this story to be an inspirational account of a young girl's struggle from the palace to a jail cell. The orginial controversy of punnishing children for their father's actions developed the story into a thrilling drama. It was a compelling and gripping story, but they way it was written was a little off. Some of the sentances were difficult to read because of the way the words were written. I did not like how the writer kept jumping to the past and present to explain events. This made it confusing to determine what details were current and which already occured.
Disliked.......2007-05-18
I read the book for a book club. I was disappointed. The story was very self-centered. Also,difficult to believe, but a bit boring.
Book Description
A study of primitive people which, for beauty of...style and concept, would be hard to match." -- The New York Times Book Review
In the 1950s Elizabeth Marshall Thomas became one of the first Westerners to live with the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in Botswana and South-West Africa. Her account of these nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose way of life had remained unchanged for thousands of years, is a ground-breaking work of anthropology, remarkable not only for its scholarship but for its novelistic grasp of character. On the basis of field trips in the 1980s, Thomas has now updated her book to show what happened to the Bushmen as the tide of industrial civilization -- with its flotsam of property rights, wage labor, and alcohol -- swept over them. The result is a powerful, elegiac look at an endangered culture as well as a provocative critique of our own.
"The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own....The Harmless People is a model of exposition: the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing."
-- The Atlantic
Customer Reviews:
A firsthand, close-up view of a little-known and little-understood people.......2007-07-14
The Bushmen are well known - and intriguing - to phoneticians, because Bushman languages, along with Bushman-influenced languages such as Zulu and Xhosa, are the only ones in the world with linguistic clicks. As a teacher of phonetics, that was my own original motivation for reading this book. I also thought it would be useful background to have before visiting South Africa. Finally, I met a very friendly and kind Nama-speaking Bushman in Minnesota once, and that further piqued my curiosity about his home culture.
This book is truly a rich, firsthand resource on what traditional Bushman life was like in the 1950s. The Bushmen may be praised for their cleverness at being able to live in a land with very little visible water; but in this book you will learn that in fact many Bushmen died of thirst and hunger, not to mention disease, when times were unusually hard.
One half of the book is dedicated to each of two Bushman groups with whom the author and her family stayed for extended periods, the Gikwe, and the !Kung, of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" fame. It was fascinating to read about how they courted, married, divorced, gave birth, chose names, cared for children and the aged, went through puberty, gathered and hunted, interacted with animals, told stories, died, and dealt with the spirits of the dead. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Bushman music, e.g. singing accompanied by playing on the stringed guashi, the bow, and the te k'na (mbira/kalimba/thumb piano), and the ritual dancing that sometimes went with it. Thomas states that music is by far the strongest of the Bushman arts.
Mentions of some of the effects of intruding white people on the Bushmen's lives may give you pause. The Bushmen treated their white visitors with great openness and kindness. You can praise the generosity of the white chroniclers when they give gifts of food, clothes, and other useful items, and feel relieved when a formerly powerful hunter with a gangrenous leg is taken to be fitted with a peg prosthesis. Yet Thomas also mentions that some Bushmen had been tracked down and taken into slavery by people who had followed the tracks left by Thomas's family's vehicle on a previous visit. And other Bushmen had their guards down when whites came to kidnap them to do forced labor - the Bushmen welcomed them, expecting them to be as friendly and harmless as Thomas's clan.
Thomas goes to great pains to depict the people she observed as accurately and honestly as possible, consciously avoiding the "noble savage" trap. Bushmen shared everything - because it was expected and it would cause great jealousy, conflict and bad relations if they did not; they did not take anything they knew to belong to another; and they had a strong sense of family and cared for those unable to care for themselves. But they practiced infanticide if a baby was born while the previous one was still nursing, since there would probably not be enough milk for both to survive. They could also be vain, jealous and petty, and they could be cruel in razzing people with obvious weaknesses - like any other humans.
You will pick up new Bushman-specific vocabulary reading this book, including words like kaross (the skin wraparound which was a Bushman's usual attire), veld food, pan (a water hole), scherm, gemsbok, tsama melons, bi root, and tsi nuts.
Thomas includes two family tree diagrams at the front of the book to help the reader sort out the relationships between the characters in her accounts. I found these most helpful and referred often to them.
Beyond providing informative content, Thomas is an engaging writer. This is all the more impressive since she wrote the book in her early twenties.
Thomas's book is one of the very few sources of detailed information on the Bushmen. I read the original edition from 1959, so I haven't seen the updated parts on how the Bushmen were doing by the 1980s. Although a lot of what I've heard about Bushman societies today is rather negative and depressing, I look forward to finding out more, and hope the various Bushman groups manage somehow to preserve their remarkable languages and the best of their unique cultures and traditions.
bush people.......2007-03-01
a long slightly boring recitation of life with the bush people. there are flashes of very interesting insights about people and western civilizations impact on indigenous peoples.
Beautiful!!.......2006-03-07
I could hardly put the book down. The writings were simple and descriptive. I have always found Tribal life very interesting and of all the books I have read hearing the Author's firsthand account was amazing. Listening to the people's tales and day to day life is something I am going to miss now that I have finished the book.
A Fascinating Look at An Indigenous People.......2003-10-04
I read 'The Harmless People' for my anthropology class and I enjoyed it. I liked the writing style and the story kept me interested and learning the whole time.
Classic, well-written, and enjoyable study of the Bushmen.......2003-08-25
This is a detailed, fascinating, and even beautiful account of the author's field study of the Kung! Bushman. Along with the Australian aborigines, the Bushman of the Kalahari desert, who inhabit an arid tableland in southwest Africa, are considered one of the two most primitive cultures in existence. The Bushmen aren't native to the Kalahari but were forced there as a result of conflicts with the white man and other tribes after the 17th century. Thomas gives a detailed account of their way of life and how they are able to survive in one of the most desolate places on earth. The Bushmen are very short of stature, averaging only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, and their skin has a yellowish tinge that is different from the blacker skin of their surrounding neighbors. The Kalahari has no surface water, and the rare rainfall immediately dries up. One of the few ways they get moisture as well as food is the tsama melon, which grows underground. The tsama melons are so important that the rights to a particular locale are inherited, which is unusual among the Bushmen. To survive in this harsh environment, the Bushmen have become expert botanists and can identify over 300 different kinds of plants, and they hunt antelope with poisoned arrows. Marriage among the Bushmen can occur at a very early age, but for women it is considered inappropriate to become fully sexually active and to marry before the age of 12. After having been almost completely wiped out between the 17th and the 19th century through conflicts with other tribes and the white man, there are now about 50,000 Bushmen inhabiting the Kalahari.
Years later, when I saw the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, I recalled my first encountering the Bushmen in Thomas's wonderful little book. Several years after that, I had the opportunity to hear Jamie Uys speak, the south African director of the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and he also described what it was like to work with and live in the Kalahari with the Bushmen during the making of his movie. Both he and Thomas commented that there was something very likeable about the Kalahari Bushmen, who now live very peaceably in their little arid paradise with relatively little conflict and strife. Well, paradise isn't exactly the word for the inhospitable environment where they live, but nevertheless the Bushmen came across in both Thomas's and Uys's accounts as overall quite happy and content with their life. Ever since reading this book, I have thought it ironic to consider that the more advanced cultures in other parts of the world, including those of us in the modern western countries, who are considerably more advanced, probably live no more happy and less stressful lives than the primitive Bushmen. Of course, one must be careful about the "Noble Savage" fallacy, but in the case of the Bushmen it seems to be true. This book is an updated edition of the one I read many years ago in college. Overall a classic study that takes its place alongside other great anthropological classics of Africa like Colin Turnbull's The Forest People, about the pygmies.
Average customer rating:
- the best
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- This book is good and bad!
- Shabanu Got On My Nerves
- a lovely heroine, a lovely novel
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Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (Readers Circle)
Suzanne Fisher Staples
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Book Description
Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. The second daughter in a family with no sons, she’s been allowed freedoms forbidden to most Muslim girls. But when a tragic encounter with a wealthy and powerful landowner ruins the marriage plans of her older sister, Shabanu is called upon to sacrifice everything she’s dreamed of. Should she do what is necessary to uphold her family’s honor—or listen to the stirrings of her own heart?
Customer Reviews:
the best.......2007-03-28
A Girls Life and Future
I recommend this book to anyone who loves to read about true life. I loved
this book because I have seen the pain of being married off at the age of 13.
I recommend this book to mature readers because of the descriptive words and
sentences. Shabanu keep me reading and it was impossible to put down.
ZZZZZZ.......2007-03-23
This book stinks. It's about a 12 year old girl named Shabanu who lives in the desert of Pakistan. Her life as been perfect since she was born, taking care of the camels, climbing thorn trees, and running free in the desert. But when an evil landowner murders the person her older sister Phulan was betrothed to. Now she must sacrifice everything she's dreamed of to save her family. Sounds like a pretty okay plot, right? WRONG! This book tries to make you hate it. It's boring, depressing (her life really sucks), and repetitive. There are some really good parts, but they are just drowned out by the badness of the book. And worst of all, it just ends. The plot actually starts getting thicker, but it just stops. It's like: Shabanu did this, Shabanu did that, Shabanu did thi-The end. The moral of the story: don't read this book.
This book is good and bad!.......2007-03-04
This book really changed my life. I was assigned to read this book, and Haveli in 7th grade. Shabanu shows a strong, defiant, girl trying to grow into her womanhood. There is a lot of tragedy for her and her family in this book, and there is a lot of talk about breast size and sex in this book, so if you haven't had "the talk" yet, you probably don't want to read this. I felt that the ending was a little stupid, and it felt like the author ran out of paper or something.
All in all, this book has its good and bad moments.
Shabanu Got On My Nerves.......2007-01-07
Okay, I had to read this book for my Freshman English class, for our unit on the Middle East. I had already read the one by an Arabic author, and reading this, you could tell it was by an American. It was a total cliche: Shabanu is an oppressed girl in Pakistan. Shabanu does not like this. Shabanu complains about being oppressed. Shabanu "rebels" against oppression. Shabanu is beaten. Shabanu cries.
The end.
I've met Pakistani girls before, and they're nothing like Shabanu. They're proud to be Muslim- they are proud to follow the rules of their faith.
Shabanu, however, is not proud. She never stops whining about it.
And then the ending bothered me, too. It was just such an obvious set up for a sequel, it totally disgusted me. It wasn't even much of an ending, really. It's almost like she just chopped the chapter off short and stuck it in the next book.
a lovely heroine, a lovely novel.......2007-01-01
I first read this book as a girl in junior high. As a woman grown, and approaching motherhood, I would like my daughter to read this book when she is old enough. It is a story about a strong-willed, independent young woman who must learn to reconcile her duties with her own impulses. It is a coming of age story, but an unusual one because it is set in the wilderness of the desert plains in Pakistan. Shabanu is not meek or powerless in the iconographic way of Arab women. She is a spirited and warm young woman. But the limitations of her culture force her to grow up, and she must find the ballast within herself to maintain her sense of identity while bowing to the outside demands of her culture.
Amazon.com
The Desert Fathers is a handy introduction to the sayings and stories of the earliest contemplatives--the men and women who, in the fourth century, escaped towns and cities to seek God and wrestle with demons in the deserts of Africa and Asia Minor. Some of these stories (such as the life of St. Anthony, the first monk) read almost like sci-fi, with their exuberant miracles exploding in exotic locations. All of them help readers understand the value and danger of liberating oneself from the constrictions of society. --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
By the fourth century A.D., devout Christians--men and women alike--had begun to retreat from cities and villages to the deserts of North Africa and Asia Minor, where they sought liberation from their corrupt society and the confining shell of the social self.
The Desert Fathers is the perfect introduction to the stories and sayings of these heroic pioneers of the contemplative tradition. Selected and translated by Helen Waddell,
The Desert Fathers opens a window onto early Christianity while presenting us with touchingly human models of faith, humility, and compassion. With a new Preface by the Cistercian monk, writer, and revered teacher of contemplative prayer M. Basil Pennington, author of
O Holy Mountain and
Challenges in Prayer.
"God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land. The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home."
--Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Customer Reviews:
Basic Introduction.......2007-01-18
This book is an OK introduction, but otherwise disappointing. There are many other books out there much better. Helen Waddell did translate these writings from the Latin. The problem is that save for the first selection from St. Jerome (originally written in Latin) all of the selections are translations from the Latin but the Latin translations from which Waddell translates are translations of other authors from the original Greek.
Still, if you have not been exposed at all to the thoughts and beliefs of our early Christian monks it may be a good brief introduction. You will get a look into how these early monastic thought and lived their lives. Of course in any translation of the Desert Fathers you will find words of wisdom that you will benefit from.
BETTER TO TRY TO FIND THE EXCELLENT SERIES FROM SOLESMES.......2006-11-14
Some thirty years ago I received the Benedictine habit in the Abbey of Saint Pierre in Solesmes, France. My Prior at that time was the Reverend Father Dom Lucien Regnault. Anyone interested in the Desert Fathers would do better to go to the Solesmes homesite and search their "librarie" (bookstore) for the works of Dom Regnault which are unsurpassed for scholarship and spiritual orthodoxy. Dom Regnault's several works in this field (or, rather, desert) are beyond compare, and tragically many are now out-of-print. I cherish mine very much.
This present volume comes through the Vintage Spiritual Classics series. Catholic readers should know this as a section of Random House (who first brought us under Bennet Cerf the greatest novel of our time: Ulysses by James Joyce) and while it is a very excellent and popular printing house (along with its colophon) it is not a Catholic Press and bears no ecclesial authority. This is one reason why you find the poor to luke warm reviews presented here. This is not their field of expertise. We can come little closer than the fine work of Dom Regnault.
Of course those in the know realize the Father Basil Pennington is a well respected author and member of the heroic Trappist Monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts. His spiritual works are well known and appreciated as rich soil for meditation. I have met him personally as well, of course as I have also Dom Regnault, although not as constantly as the very humble yet magnificent and valient Dom Regnault. Yet, even so, I find Dom Regnault's works an unlimited and eternal jewel, and have often meditated them through translation into English.
Notice well that Father Pennington does the Preface alone to this book and not the heavy lifting. Also notice the cover represents a community of monks from after the 1400's (when did Trappists wear an old white habit? Or is this the Carthusians, even later? or "white" Benedictines, even? no indication given in the book aside from a general source of religious illustrations). The cover does not display the mighty anchorites out alone in the Egyptian desert who wrote these apophthegmes a thousand years earlier. Enough said. Believe me, I was mistaken when I automatically gave this five stars. Read your Regnault.
I urge you to find his out-of-print works here in the mighty amazon, or anywhere you can. It is very easy to order what is still in print from Solesmes, and they are very good about shipping and payment. They are after all Benedictines of the highest order.
Vintage Spiritual series meanwhile, is not a Catholic house and its work must be viewed as a popularization rather than a sacrament of the Living Word. The reviewer below who noted the probable age when Ms Waddell wrote this is correct. More recent work abounds. Especially, dare I say, Dom Regnault.
So-so .......2005-05-18
I agree with the review of C. Ryan: "One really needs to dig for the most compelling and enlightening material."
It's an okay read, but probably has more to offer the historian looking for tidbits of insight into the day-to-day lives of the desert fathers, than it does the spiritual seeker hoping to find a spiritual snack.
You Can Do Better.......2004-05-11
Richard Foster (author of The Spirit of Disciplines and other contemporary Christian works) recommends that for every contemporary Christian book you read it is important to read another one more than at least 400 hundred years old. One way to access such older Christian worlds is through the Vintage Spiritual Classics series that makes classical Christian works accessible to believers who often haven't read anything written prior to currently-living Evangelical writers.
This is arguably a good introduction to the thoughts and beliefs of early Christian monastics, both male and female. This is a period all Christians should study since it reflects the origins of most early Christian theology and practice derived from men and women who were sometimes just a generation or two removed from the Apostles. It helps Christians get in touch with their spiritual roots and offset some of the spiritual nonsense that occupies much of the shelf space in most Christian bookstores.
However, I found this relatively thin (221 page) book a disappointment. First, although it's a first edition for this publisher in 1998, it's actually a reproduction of work translated by a woman who died in 1965 at the age of 76, so who knows when it was actually prepared. Then, it's a translation of source documents for the stories and sayings, but they're sometimes less than easy to follow or "pithy" in this format. One really needs to dig for the most compelling and enlightening material. There are a number of more contemporary, extensive and more usefully translated books on the Desert Fathers, a number of which are listed in this book's two-page "Suggestions for Further Reading", virtually all of which post-date by 10-20 years this book itself.
I suggest consulting Orthodox Christian WEB sites and publishers for good summaries, explanations and references for the philosophy, beliefs and practices of the Desert Fathers since the Orthodox denominations are arguably the Desert Fathers' direct descendents in today's world.
Austerity of the cell.......2001-05-14
These earliest of monks take Christ's admonition "to sell everything and follow Him" to heart. With deep austerity, and prayer they follow a path utterly dedicated to a spiritual life. Despite their austerity, there are at times a surprising expressions of personality, and even community among the solitaire cells and companionship of the monks. There are stories of hermits with lions as companions, of sustainment of a few herbs or palm leaves, of them helping thieves stealing from them, or selling Gospels to help the poor. However these monks are humble in their faith, and a lesson often repeated in these stories is humility and compassion for temptations that they themselves feel. The temptations of women, and even a monks' expression of Pelagia "the harlots" beauty was surprisingly sensuous. It may seem impossible for us to be isolated like this, but we can quest for solitude as abbot Antony said "Who sits in solitude escapes from three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing"
Book Description
An account of the author’s grueling, but ultimately successful, journey in 1957, through Africa’s remote, primitive Kalahari Desert, in search of the legendary Bushmen, the hunters who pray to the great hunters in the sky.
Customer Reviews:
van der Post right on.......2007-06-27
Laurens van der Post is frequently and correctly cited for his effusive language and exaggerations, but this account of the Bushmen and their environs is fairly close to the truth and makes great reading. I ordered this copy to replace the one I lent to my professor of African Studies at the Air Force War College (which he kept). He thought it was one of the best expositions of the life and circumstances of the bushmen and based on my limited knowledge from classwork on the subject it seems to be on target.
I Loved the Book Anyway.......2007-05-25
It has been twenty years since I read this book, but it left a strong impression on me for its beautiful writing and images. In spite of what the one Amazon reviewer said, I would still recommend the book for its adventure and wonder, even if it is not an entirely true story. Just keep in mind that it might have a big dash of fiction. In a strange way, though, it makes the book even more interesting.
The one Amazon reviewer said, "Anyone who is thinking about reading this book should know that VDP was a major BS artist. Very good at it too, was a friend of royalty and also Jung. If you can find it, read J.D.F. Jones "Storyteller: The Lives of Laurens Van Der Post". To his credit, he did oppose apartheid."
Behind any book, there is often a very strange reality.
A book filled with love and dignity.......2004-10-07
An older friend of mine met Laurens Van der Post in Australia and described him as "a wonderful man." A large part of the joy of reading "Kalahari," his best-known book, comes from the experience of his transparent honesty and honest heart. His writing style is as wonderful as the man was--unpretentious, without "side," and ever positive and life-affirming. Van der Post did a fine service in revealing how trivial and unconnected our modern traits of cynicism and meaninglessness appear before the Bushmen's selfless creed. This is one of the great books of pilgrimage.
Should come with warning label.......2002-01-08
Anyone who is thinking about reading this book should
know that VDP was a major BS artist. Very good at it too,
was a friend of royalty and also Jung. If you can find it,
read J.D.F. Jones "Storyteller: The Lives of Laurens Van
Der Post". VDP was constantly reinventing himself. Many
of his stories about everything from his war record to
his Bushman connections were exaggerated or just plain
invented. People loved to hear this stuff about the great
white hunter, the ancient heart of Africa, blah blah blah.
To his credit, he did oppose apartheid.
If you want an readable book on the Bushmen, try Elizabeth
Marshall Thomas' "The Harmless People". At least she actually
knew them!
BTW The film is called "The Lost World of the Kalahari",
BBC 1958. Don't know if you can get it on video. A better bet
would be "Kalahari Desert People", by John Marshall.
More About Van Der Post than the Bushmen.......2001-11-13
Laurens Van der Post is one of those writers -- at least on the evidence of this book -- for whom it is not enough simply to master his material; he also has to dominate it. His descriptions and accounts of the bush of Southern Africa are indeed compelling. Unfortunately, they are far too often buried under considerably less interesting material. I wanted to see and hear a whole lot more of the Kalahari and the Bushmen and a whole lot less of Van der Post's incessant insistence on his relation to the desert, his relation to the Bushman, his troubles with the cinematographer he hired to photograph his search. Also, this book was written in 1959, in the United States a time well before the Civil Rights movement and in Southern Africa a time of apartheid and white colonialism. Van Der Post is very much a man of his era and the book is replete with paternalism and grousings about the black porters in his expedition. Finally, his leadership is abysmal. He takes his party to a huge swamp in the Okavango where to any casual observer the elusive Bushman (Bushman, Laurens, not Waterman) would be least likely to be found. This gross miscalculation takes up well over a third of the book and must have sorely tried the patience of those in his expedition even more than it tried the patience of this reader. In fairness, for those unfamiliar with the Bushman and the Kalahari and Okavango of Southern Africa, this book does serve, despite Van der Post's flawed, and heavy-handed writing.
Product Description
National Archives War Histories is a new series of official accounts of famous campaigns and units in British military history. The histories were written by official historians who had access to all the original sources and often interviewed the leading surviving participants. This is the official account of revolutionary new warfare as practised by the famous 'irregular' units in the Desert campaign and is an authoritative official source book. This history includes stirring narratives of daring raids miles behind enemy lines. It features such famous characters as Ord Wingate, David Stirling and Lt. Col. Keyes VC, recounting the establishment and role of the forces within the 8th Army and Allied campaign. It includes photographs, maps, a list of officers serving and the awards received by members of the Long Range Desert Group. The book features the following units: The SAS Long Range Desert Group 'Layforce' Special Boat Squadron Long Range Boat Patrol Middle East Commandos Special Boat Squadron Indian Long Range Squadron Free French Commandos
Customer Reviews:
Moorehead: A Forgotten Classic.......2002-05-15
If you are interested in the War in North Africa this is the read for you. It is absorbing and well written with a flow of a correspondent who is constantly moving to different parts of the front. I love and would recommend anything by Moorehead, but this is still a special book because he lived most of it. It is not however a history of the war. There are large chunks of the war that are not written about, time frames where whole battles are not directly refered to. That is because Moorehead was not there to cover the war. That does not detract from the flavour and action of the book. Moorehead is great in, among other areas,
* his description of the British Campaign against Italy in Ethiopia
* his descrption of the early days of the war and also the Australian role in the war against Vichy France in Syria and then its role to nip a coup and Nazi support for Iraq, firmly in the bud
* his description of the ebb and flow of battle that confused both sides, but ultimately was most boldly exploited by the Germans. The swirl of dust and whole lines of transport and tanks wondering either into or out of battle can almost be tasted.
* the seldom written about race to Tunis at the end of the book, the sudden rush across Algeria and then bogged down fighting in Tunisia; tough battle that tested the Americans for the first time and one where, despite the public image, was still largely British in effort.
The book is also of note in that halfway through Moorehead leaves the front for India and covers the Scripp's mission on Indian Independence at the height of the Japanese invasion. I know of really few descriptions of the positions of all the major parties in debating future of India: Gandhi with his unrealistic notion of "sating the violence of the Japanese invader with the blood of pacifist Indians who merely submit to the bayonets;" Ali Jinnah's willingness to send millions of Muslim troops to support the British if Britain would grant defacto status of the Muslim homeland of Pakistan. Somewhere between the two was the ever boxing clever Nehru. Moorhead met all these men and interviewed them in detail.
Moorehead also relates the loss of other correspondents in the fighting. The constant weariness and grind of the campaign that had Britain in the fighting for more than 3 years is apparent and there is a heartrending description of a British Tommy experiencing too much of the constant slogging and pounding of battle and not caring, in desperation, leads a forlorn attack in what was obviously a case of suicide.
This is one of the best books on WWII and war that I have ever read... and I may have read over 1000 since my early teens.
A personal history of the desert war (emphasis on personal).......2002-03-27
Alan Moorehead was a war correspondent who covered most of the 3-year desert campaign in North Africa in World War II. Therefore, he saw the war at first hand, sometimes coming under fire himself (usually from aircraft), sometimes getting lost in the vast desert, sometimes missing key events because his reporter's intuition led him astray. Although he was not usually on the front line, he did manage to get into towns within hours of their liberation. He had interviews with the general staff of the (British and U.S.) armies and a good grasp on the overall strategic vision of the campaign, from the Allies' point of view.
The writing quality is top-notch, especially descriptions of the burnt out and fought-over towns and countryside. You get a good flavour for the conditions the troops fought in and for the bravery and resilience shown by the soldiers. There are a number of very interesting sidelights to the action, highlighting the difficulties encountered in trying to report the war.
Unfortunately, there are a number of quibbles that detract from a 5-star rating. This book is not a "definitive" history of the war - it was written too soon and from a purely Allied point of view. It is undoubtedly biased - he constantly makes excuses for the Allied generals' failings to deliver a knock-out blow to the Axis, especially blaming the long supply line from England (neglecting the fact that half of the Axis' supplies were sunk in the Mediterranean). He refuses to admit the Allied forces were consistently outgeneralled by Rommell, blaming the British training and internal organisation instead, first claiming the generals could not change it (bureaucratic inertia), then applauding Montgomery for changing it quickly. There's distracting (and long) digressions from the front, especially a trip through India and a vacation to the U.S. While the politics of Indian independence are interesting in their own right, they are complex and require an historical context so they couldn't be developed properly. Finally, there is no background material - the author assumes at least a passing knowledge of the people and politics of the day, so it might be frustrating for a beginner. The maps are generally quite good, however, so geographical mastery of the area is not necessary.
Therefore, I recommend this book as a personal snapshot of the attitudes and actions of the Allied armies in the desert campaigns of WWII. As such, it is clearly biased, but the quality of the writing and the descriptions overcomes this difficulty.
Absorbing.......2001-12-03
Moorehead's first person account of the African Desert Campaign is top-flight. He captures the moment as he experiences it. I feel I am sitting right beside him as he describes events and his reactions to them. Could this man write! I carry this book in my briefcase and whip it out whenever I have a few minutes to spare. I am always rewarded.
Mooreheads a great author.......2001-08-25
Experience the Desert War (and other related campaigns) with the immediacy and freshness of a journalist writing his dispatches from the front. No dry, revisionst tome here. This beautifully written book gives you a sense of what it was like to actually be there. A must read for anyone interested in WW-2's North Africa Campaign.
The War In the Desert.......2001-05-02
In W.W.II there were many places were battles took place. There were battles in France, POland, Russia, and Africa. This book focuses on the African part of the war. The book War In the Desert was an excellent book. It was a very in depth book on th etrials an dtribulations of the war. The pictures are very good deppicting exactly whhat went on. This book was a great help for me to understand the war in the desert better.
Average customer rating:
- The great divide
- Good beginning but goes no where
- Feel the passion, hear the experiences of the Bushman.
|
The Heart of the Hunter: Customs and Myths of the African Bushman
Laurens Van Der Post
Manufacturer: Harvest/HBJ Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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The Lost World of the Kalahari
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A Mantis Carol
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A Story Like the Wind
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A Far Off Place
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About Blady: A Pattern Out Of Time
ASIN: 0156400030 |
Book Description
The author’s passionate concern for Africa and for the human spirit is evident in this portrait of the “First People” of southern Africa, the Bushmen. Van der Post describes his desert travels, the splendid landscape and wildlife, and his encounters with the Bushman, an elusive culture. Drawings by Maurice Wilson.
Customer Reviews:
The great divide.......2004-07-16
I again with the earlier reviewer who pointed out the noticeable difference between the first part of this book and the latter; when Van der Post is recounting his experiences with the Bushmen (or San, if you prefer) and with various other folk who have come to inhabit the Kalahari the book is very interesting and informative. However, in the second half he feels the need to reinterpret the Bushmen's legends or myths through a Jungian perspective, a treatment I found neither compelling nor convincing. While the fragments of the Bushmen's tales are interesting and Van der Post's ruminations are occasionally thought provoking, I didn't particularly enjoy his technique of intercutting between a few sentences of the one and heavy doses of the other. I suppose that for the reader who cares to interpret everything by archetypes and quests it might prove intriguing, but I soon came to find it rather annoying and distracting.
Good beginning but goes no where.......2000-03-16
This is a decent book because I love anthropology, ethnobotony, and learning about the Bushman. The beginning of this book was great, the author discusses how he and his group fall upon a thirsty group of Bushman. That part is great because it describes the interactions between the author and the Bushman. One of the author's mate on the trip, Dabe, a Bushman himself, also offers amazing commentary when they run into the Bushman.
However, in the middle, who knows what is going on. And the end was so confusing, but sorta okay. Van der Post discusses Bushman creation tales which are good in themselves because most books overlook the spiritual aspect of the Bushman--but the tales need more explanation--Van der Post talks over your head and says things don't need an explanation when they really do.
I would recommend reading 'Nisa, The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman' and 'The Harmless People' which both can be purchased online here!
Feel the passion, hear the experiences of the Bushman........1999-02-06
Sir Laurens van der Post has a gift for story telling that we should all explore. The customs and myths of the Bushmen are simple, complex, spiritual, entertaining but always there is a lesson to be learned. This book will feed your mind and you will find yourself through Laurens' craft eager for more. If you have shut down your heart and your imagination, feel the beat of this book and get your pulse back.
Average customer rating:
- Enlightment
- Another wonderful book by Waris Dirie
- Desert Dawn Review
- Untouchable
- Too much content repeated from Desert Flower
|
Desert Dawn
Waris Dirie , and
Jeanne d'haem
Manufacturer: Time Warner Books UK
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Binding: Paperback
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Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey Of A Desert Nomad
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Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl
ASIN: 1860499627 |
Book Description
Fashion model, UN ambassador, and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie is a remarkable woman. Born into a family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia, she told her story in the worldwide bestseller Desert Flower: enduring female circumcision at the age of 5; running away through the desert at 12 to escape an arranged marriage; being discovered by photographer Terence Donovan as she worked as a cleaner in London; and becoming a top fashion model. Although she fled Somalia, she never forgot the country or the family that shaped her. Desert Dawn is Waris Dirie’s profoundly moving account of her return to her homeland. As an international model, Waris Dirie was the face of Revlon. In 1997, as part of its campaign to eliminate female genital mutilation, the United Nations appointed her Special Ambassador for Women’s Rights in Africa. She now lives in New York with her son.
Customer Reviews:
Enlightment.......2007-07-05
This book show me the incredible journey that Ms. Dirie went through. And no matter how she lived throughout her life she could not forget how she was raised. Great book
Another wonderful book by Waris Dirie.......2007-04-02
Waris Dirie is my favority author. I think she writes honestly about her life experiences and gives a different perspective than the average writer does. I would recommend everyone read this book.
Desert Dawn Review.......2005-08-12
This book was most useful to me by showing the life of a tribal family in Somalia from the viewpoint of someone who has experienced western life but is still sensative to the viewpoint of tribal nomadic life. It provides a really interesting insight rarely seen.
Untouchable.......2004-06-15
Once started to read I just couldn't stop. Just so amazing how Waris was caught between her home in somalia and New York. I support her courage
Too much content repeated from Desert Flower.......2004-05-09
Desert Flower was a fantastic book giving insight into a culture that blindly follows old fashioned and cruel rituals. Desert Dawn however repeats most of Desert Flower and just gives a bit of additional information about the further life of Waris. Sadly enough Waris has not learned much from her own mutilation, which she documents in circumcising her own son. Waris seems to forget that women play an important role in culture and rituals through upbringing and education of their own children. Circumcision and mutilation is not in nature's nor in any god's plan, otherwise they would have taken care about it.
Book Description
Marvelously entertaining and frequently harrowing, Glory in a Camel's Eye recounts the American travel writer Jeffrey Tayler's dangerous three-month journey across the Moroccan Sahara in the company of Arab nomads. Glory in a Camel's Eye gives us an intimate, often surprising portrait of Saharan Africa: the cultural conflicts between native Berbers and Arabs, the clashes between devout desert-dwelling nomads and their city-dwelling counterparts. Fluent in Arabic, Tayler assembles an image of modern life very much at odds with our Western assumptions. He observes and reports "with eloquence and an eye for the improbable" (Outside).
Customer Reviews:
great!.......2006-05-11
tayler is a keen observer of humankind, erudite, articulate, fair-minded. i stumbled on this book and now look forward to reading everything he's written.
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