Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook268 pages5 hours
A Reed Shaken by the Wind: Travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
The Marsh Arabs were one of the most isolated communities in the world. Few outsiders, let alone Europeans, had been permitted to travel through their homeland, a mass of tiny islands lost in a wilderness of reeds and swamps in southern Iraq. One of the few trusted outsiders was the legendary explorer Wilfred Thesiger, who was Gavin Maxwell’s guide to the intricate landscape, tribal customs and distinctive architecture of the Marsh Arabs. Thesiger’s skill with a medicine chest and rifle assured them a welcome in every hamlet, and Maxwell’s sharp observation, honed as a naturalist and writer, has left an invaluable record of a unique community and a now-vanished way of life.
Unavailable
Read more from Gavin Maxwell
Ring of Bright Water: A Trilogy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarpoon at a Venture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Reed Shaken by the Wind: Travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to A Reed Shaken by the Wind
Related ebooks
The Crossing Place: A Journey among the Armenians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Land of the Tian Shan Mountains Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sinai Bedouin: a photographic journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Travel to Oman Where a Mars Is on Earth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5First Russia, Then Tibet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWheels Within Wheels: The Making of a Traveller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What I Remember, What I Know: The Life of a High Arctic Exile Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule in Unknown Peru Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCousin Phillis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sultan in Oman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Africa Memoir: 50 Years, 54 Countries, One American Life (Algeria - Liberia) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Edge of Extinction: Travels with Enduring People in Vanishing Lands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jerusalem without God: Portrait of a Cruel City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Road to Oxiana: New Edition Linked and Annotaded Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTibetan Foothold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Canoe In The Mist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1883-1888: A Diplomat In Siam, Japan, Britain and Elsewhere Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTravels into Bokhara: A Voyage up the Indus to Lahore and a Journey to Cabool, Tartary & Persia' Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Hitch-Biker's Guide Through Africa: Cairo to Cape Town on a Folding Bike Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEothen: Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Richard M. Eaton's India in the Persianate Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTangier: From the Romans to the Rolling Stones Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gardens of Mars: Madagascar, an Island Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Desert and the Sown: Travels in Palestine and Syria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Middle East Travel For You
Insight Guides Egypt (Travel Guide eBook) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLonely Planet Turkey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet Istanbul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel Bible Tour, A Historic Geographic Bible Study Journal of Israel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Insight Guides Pocket Israel (Travel Guide eBook) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jewish Deli: Nosh, Shmooz & Enjoy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInsight Guides Explore Jerusalem & Tel Aviv (Travel Guide eBook) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMediterranean By Cruise Ship - 6th edition: The Complete Guide to Mediterranean Cruising Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Holy Land for Christian Travelers: An Illustrated Guide to Israel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTraveling Israel -The Essential Guide to Planning your Trip to Israel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConversational Arabic Quick and Easy: Palestinian Dialect Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lonely Planet Pocket Istanbul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrommer's Israel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fodor's Essential Turkey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Trip of One's Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why Traveling Solo Could Change Your Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Saffron Tales: Recipes from the Persian Kitchen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn: A Hitchhiker's Adventures in the New Iran Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel Eats Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Conversational Arabic Quick and Easy: Lebanese Dialect Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict: What the Headlines Haven't Told You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Sea and the Jordan River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFarsi (Persian) for Beginners: Learning Conversational Farsi (Downloadable Audio Included) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Traveling Israel: Tel Aviv Jaffa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollins Arabic Phrasebook and Dictionary Gem Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Reed Shaken by the Wind
Rating: 3.566666773333333 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
15 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The author is an amateur anthropologist-writer, and this book is an auto- biographical travelogue among of a little-known people--the Marsh Arabs inhabiting the lower reaches of the Tigris in southern Iraq. Matchless descriptions of nature--watches as bred and dead insect wings float by for hours in "a monstrous profligacy of nature", identifies the eagle-owl, new species of otter. He clearly falls in a kind of love with a fresh-water otter. It happens to the best of us.Reads like a dream, and since the culture he documented is now extinct, this book is a treasure and a kind of mausoleum. Equally moving, Maxwell gives proof to the often-observed general homosexuality of these "Islamic" Arabs. Some women dress as men, and even do so as a "stage in advance of normal womanhood". [207] The local sheikh, among others, was effeminate and sought young boys. [206]"It is true that the marshmen, in common with many other Arab peoples, are not very selective in their direction of sexual outlet; all is, so to speak, grist to their mill, and the long years that many a youth of the poorer people may have to wait before he has acquired the brideprice of three buffaloes, coupled with the tremendous taboos attached to intercourse with a girl of the village, make casual homosexuality general." [205]
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gavin Maxwell's 'Ring of Bright Water' has been on my bookshelf since 1968, but I've never opened it - out of the mistaken belief that it was some mawkishly sentimental story about otters. Well it may yet prove to be, but after reading this account of his travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq (and having previously read his 'Lords of the Atlas') I am persuaded that Maxwell is a hugely talented writer. And I finally understand his affection for otters, although how it arose in the waters of the Tigris/Euphrates was a complete surprise to me. Velvetink's review gives as good an account of the situation of the Marsh Arabs in as few a words as you'll find anywhere so I won't add to that. Suffice to add that Maxwell's descriptions of place and people are superb, he has that ability to make the sights and sounds (and discomforts) of travel immediately accessible to the reader, and all tied together with a reflective narrative that manages to find the happy balance between self-obsessed and opaque. His descriptions of wildlife and nature are sublime, being both beautifully economical and descriptive at the same time.Highly recommended as a travel book, but even more so for anyone interested in Maxwell and the history of his otter affection, or for those that would like a look at a very different Iraq. And for anyone who is interested in Wilfred Thesiger whose expedition this actually was, with Maxwell as the rather naive passenger along for the ride.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5'A maze of crooked alleys in a jungle of trumpeting wind-tormented reed stumps and withered sedge', March 5, 2015This review is from: A Reed Shaken by the Wind: Travels Among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq (Paperback)The first work I have read by Gavin Maxwell, whom I always equated with Scotland and otters; in this account of his time spent with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq (1956), he tells of his first encounters with the animal, in the reedy waterways by the Tigris - and of his discovery of an otter species which was named after him.But the main part of this work is of the place and the people, as he accompanies experienced adventurer, Wilfred Thesiger, in a reed canoe. staying in the reed homes of local sheikhs, he describes the villages, where each house is 'a tiny island of its own...we could see through their slit doors to firelit interiors where buffaloes shared their warmth with the human family. Not galleons perhaps, but Noah's Arks.'We read of the huge bird life, the turtles, fish ...and huge numbers of wild pigs, the hunting of which occupies the locals - not for food, but to keep down the numbers of a fierce creature. And of local life - dances, disease, generosity and dishonesty...Quite poetic at times, Maxwell describes a world which was to practically disappear under Saddam's rule, with the construction of canals - but is now being restored by ecologists.