In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler’s Tale
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- ISBN13: 9780679727835
- Condition: New
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Product Description
As he searches for information about the life of an Indian slave in twelfth-century Egypt, the leader, a Hindu, comes face to face with the Muslim world and culture of modern Egypt, in a narrative that juxtaposes very ancient history and modern travelogue.
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appealing insight into several cultures — Egyptian, Judaic and Indian. a well written book, the leader gets inside his characters heads. I took it with me when I visited Egypt in October 2001.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
I’m a history nut — a couple of months on India then a few on China…then on to Russia, etc. I’m nearly permanently reading a history book. I had this book in my wish list when my brother bought it for my birthday. A perfect waste of his money and my time. Pedantic drivel of an leader who deems himself reflective and his thoughts vital…and who must like the sound of his own voice…going on and on… I, sorry to say, suffer from the concept that once a book is ongoing it must be finished. So, 3/4 through the painstakingly forced read and still not a glimpse of the “Indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had traveled to the Middle East.” So I don’t even know if he ever does make an appearance…and certainly don’t care.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I establish this book extremely dry and slow moving. All the additional reviews focus on the master-slave relationship. I kept waiting for this part of the plot to get moving, and it was 200 pages before it even happened. “The Hungry Tide” is a far better work by this leader.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I had read this book few years ago , but recently I had a conversation with a freind about it. I just thought I want to have a copy and read it again.
A book that I will recomend .
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The indian leader came upon ancient manuscripts to traces of a juwish-arabian merchant of the 12nd century. He travelled into the Egypt of our days, takes residence in a tiny Arabian village, dives into the life of the locals and seeks fort he tie to the arabian middle ages with its lively cultural and economic relations.
Here the leader tries to bring to a relationship the arabian-muslim and indian-hindu cultures, or rather make visible what was once related. A rare and weird undertaking!
It is also laudable when somebody like Gosh plies such a thing with such a fervour nearly sacrificially. But for the leader, himself a Hindu, it is only conclusive, after he had set this goal under the knowledge of the ancient manuscripts to explore the life tale of the late merchant who swang between the worlds like the leader himself.
The reader follows, hears a lot about the life style and life philosophy of the Egyptian Fellas. The leader disposes of sufficient humour to set skilfully counterpoints to the at that time fertile interactions of the cultures, because the Fellas regard the Indian culture as backward. But their opinion show their own backwardness. The leader can even renounce to take a position himself. So arresting is the credo of the muslims a testimony of their ignorance and backwardness.
Well done depiction of Egyptian village life! And even believable! But the uneducated of additional cultural circles do not show more interests or understanding for the others. For this intra-cultural clash, as well sympathy-courtship for humanity in the social intercourse, the leader pays a high expense. I doubt that so many people are interested to hear what a certain Jewish merchant in the 12th century in Mangalore, South India had to do and if his mistress did well.
The subtitle “A journey into the past of the Orient” is right, but awakens expectations that are not satisfied. The courtesy-book-recensions of certain magazines and news-papers are mere exaggeration. Widely the book is simply dull and this I say as somebody who has travelled a lot in the Orient and India.
An example is when he clarifies the custom of burial. The Fellas question him why the Indians burn theirs. He answers, he does not know, it is just the custom and it was already the custom before he was born. He had nothing to do with it!
Predictable Gosh! He does not take a position when it comes to ideology. Only once he is drawn out when India is called backward. No, India is superior to Egypt, has more bombs etc.
The thought for this book was excellent, the execution seems to be mostly not inspired. The book has to be for ingrained Orient-fans, – perhaps. At least the leader seems to have researched very painstakingly. That deserves acknowledgement, but this is what a reader who does not want to read a novel expects.
Well done is the passage about the possession of the Malabar coast by the Europeans. The Indians only had the choice between resistance and submission, cooperation was not offered to them.
Incapable to compete in trade with only commercial means, the Europeans attempted to bring it under control with aggressions. They unleashed violence in dimensions unknown to the coast. Nothing much has changed one thinks rather regularly when reading the book.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5