The Battle for Home by Marwa al-Sabouni

A very interesting book about the civil war in Syria, and an inspiring example of vision and determination in the face of great adversity.  

The author contends that the old architecture of the country once contributed to the unity of the nation, and that colonial and modern architecture sowed the seeds of the recent conflict.  

According to al-Sabouni, the old Syrian urban centres, such as Damascus, Aleppo and Homs - Homs being her home town - had grown organically, with various ethnic and religious groups living together as a single, integrated community.  Colonial and modern town planning, combined with industrialisation and urbanisation, tended to surround the old city centres with suburbs segregated on religious and ethnic lines.  This segregation first led to conflict, then to war.

Throughout the book, al-Sabouni interweaves her philosophical views on the role architecture plays in creating and sustaining community and culture with her analysis of how the war came about.  She also recounts the consequences the war has had on the population: civilian deaths, sectarian violence, the diaspora of refugees and the reduced circumstances of those who chose (or had no choice but) to stay in Syria.

The author's style is of the first order.  The narrative is lyrical, logical and crisp.  The reader is left in no doubt that there is a fine and decent mind at work.  Al-Sabouni has a vision for her ravaged country, and an optimism that a new architecture, incorporating the inclusiveness of the old, can not only rebuild her country's cities but its community as well.

Highly recommended.

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer

Heinrich Harrer was a remarkable man.  At the age of 36, he was part of the first expedition to successfully climb the north face of the Eiger, an adventure he recounted in his book The White Spider.  

The following year, 1939, he joined Peter Aufschnaiter, another Austrian mountaineer, in an expedition to what is now northern Pakistan.  Here, they were apprehended by the British authorities, and when war was declared between Britain and Germany, they became prisoners of war.  They were interred in several POW camps until they finally ended up in Dehradun, near the foothills of the Himalayas. In 1944, after several attempted escapes, Harrer and Aufschnaiter finally succeeded in crossing the frontier into Tibet, where they sought political asylum, and here they stayed until the Chinese invasion in 1950.

The first half of Seven Years in Tibet recounts the details of the escape attempts and the journey from Dehradun to the Tibetan capital Lhasa.  This part of the story is one of high adventure and derring-do.  The duo and their companions showed incredible ingenuity, skill and pragmatism both in the devising and execution of their escapes and in their journey on foot through the Tibetan Himalayas.  On their way to Lhasa, they encounter by turns much hospitality and hostility, including some close brushes with death. 

The second half of the book deals with Harrer and Aufschnaiter's years in Lhasa as guests of the 14th Dalai Lama and his administration.  This part of the tale is of a more sedate nature.  It mainly provides an ethnographic account of life in the Tibetan capital in the latter half of the 1940s, and recounts how the two Europeans were called on to undertake public engineering works.  With the Chinese invasion of Tibet, Harrer and Aufschaiter made their way into Nepal, to be followed shortly by the teenaged Dalai Lama as he began his long exile.  Harrer notes the invasion spelled the end of feudalism and the beginning of industrialisation in Tibet.

Seven Years in Tibet is well-written.  Throughout his compelling adventure narrative and his insightful account of a now-vanished way of life, Harrer never loses sight of the humanity of the Tibetans he encountered, and the warmth and affection he felt for the people is present on every page.

Harrer died in 2006, aged 93, having spent the intervening decades undertaking further adventures and bringing the plight of the Tibetan people to the attention of the world.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities is a thoroughly enjoyable story, with enough action and colour to keep the modern reader entertained.  Highly recommended for those who don't mind stepping outside their own contemporary culture from time to time for some good old-fashioned story-telling.

This novel was first published in 1859 and is set in the years leading up to and immediately following the French Revolution in 1789.  

It tells the tale of Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who has renounced his patrimony, and his look-alike Sydney Carton, an Englishman who has dissipated his money and talents on alcohol.  Their stories are bound up with those of Dr Manette and his daughter Lucie. The action switches back and forth between a staid and conservative London and a Paris caught up in revolutionary turmoil.

The novel is a brief one by Dickens' standards.  Even so, Dickens is able to tell a tangled tale of intrigue, deceit, loyalty and redemption against a well-drawn historical backdrop. The action rarely flags, and new developments come thick and fast.

Also unlike many of Dickens' stories, most of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities have an interesting psychological depth to them, rather than being stock characters.  Assisting the main actors are Mr Jarvis Lorry, who hides his compassionate nature behind the thin veneer of a dispassionate businessman; the tough and gruff Jerry Cruncher who is an errand runner by day and a resurrection man by night; Monsieur and Madame DeFarge who run an underground revolutionary movement from their Paris tavern; and then there is the poor peasant Gaspard, who suffers a grievous outrage at the hands of the French aristocracy.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities.  I read the Penguin Classics eBook version, which contains a very informative introductory essay by Richard Maxwell.

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

I abandoned this book about 25 years ago.  I just couldn't take Sir Walter Scott's prolix writing style, not the way I was then - too much time, not enough patience.  Nowadays, I find I have plenty of patience but not enough time.

Recently, a wise voice from my past reminded me that there was more to Scott than wordiness.  His novel were popular in the past, my friend said, because they contained entertaining and thrilling stories, and if you take the time, they will work their magic.

So I tried Ivanhoe again.  It's a long book, but this time I was ready.  I had to get some way into it, get accustomed to the author's style and pace, get immersed in the action before I found I was hooked.  I actually began to look forward to my daily fix of Ivanhoe.  I'm so glad that my friend encouraged me to practice patience and persistence.

Ivanhoe is set in England during the reign of Richard the Lionheart.  Five generations after the Norman invasion of Saxon England, Scott asks us to believe that there is still a fierce resentment on the part of the Saxon nobility towards the Norman conquerors (who are now technically Plantagenets). Wilfred of Ivanhoe loves the beautiful Rowena, the daughter of the best-placed Saxon claimant to the throne.  On returning from crusading in the Holy Land, Ivanhoe is seriously injured and is placed in the care of the beautiful Rebecca, a healer.  Lots of stuff happens involving Richard, Robin Hood, and a bunch of bigoted Knights.  There's peril galore!

A good deal of the story revolves around Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York.  Both Rebecca and her father are of the Jewish faith, and they are threatened by an almost ubiquitous anti-semitism.  It is odd that a book named after a Christian knight should be so centred around two Jewish people.  It may have something to do with the burgeoning movements to grant full civil rights to Jews and Catholics in Britain at the time Scott was writing it.

Actually, there are quite a few odd things about Ivanhoe, but I won't spoil the fun for anyone who wants to read it.  I enjoyed it very much.  I am glad my old friend encouraged me to persevere.  I encourage you to persevere too.  Yes, you!

Ivanhoe was first published in 1820.  I read an ebook version of it. Review.

A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts

The 18th century is my favourite century. It features Captain Cook and his voyages of discoveries, the founding of European Australia, the French Revolution, Voltaire and his smirk, and the comedy commandos Boswell and Johnson. It was also a long century: beginning in 1688 with the Glorious Revolution and ending in 1815 with the demise of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Having said that, Jason Robert's book A Sense of the World takes place mainly in the 19th century, but it ought to have been an 18th century tale. It is Faction par excellence - a true story told with the marriage of the best parts of factual history and the best parts of narrative fiction.

Here is the tale of James Holman (1786-1857) who was once the most renowned traveller of his age but is now virtually unknown. Holman became crippled with rheumatism through his service in the cold fogs of the North Atlantic for the British Royal Navy, and he was suddenly struck blind by a mysterious ailment. All this by the tender age of twenty six.

In order to survive in a world where welfare was almost unknown, Holman suborned his natural adventurous spirit and accepted a stipend as a quasi-religious hermit. Yet he sought a cure for his afflictions. In doing so, Holman hit upon the radical notion that good food - especially lots of fresh fruit and vegetables - combined with generous amounts of physical exercise produces an acute sense of well-being.

Having discovered an new sense of health, Holman gave up his stipend and embarked upon three great journeys on foot that saw him, a blind man, scaling Vesuvius during an eruption, travelling the frozen wastes of Eastern Siberia (where he was arrested by the Russian secret police) and embarking on a circumnavigation of the globe that brought him to Hobart in Tasmania (amongst other places), where he became the toast of the town. Simply put, Holman wanted to be the first person to walk around the world.

Jason Roberts tells James Holman's incredible story with a deft economy of words. The picture is painted in precise but sufficient brushstrokes to produce a narrative that compels the reader to turn the page - and the next, and the next. Roberts gives us detail and pace - a rare combination of literary commodities - while 'illuminating' the world of the blind for us.

I thoroughly recommend this book, if for no other reason than to say: find out how and why a blind man in the 19th century attempted to walk around the world.