Travel to Africa

The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca

Format: Paperback
Author: Tahir Shah
ReleaseDate: 26 December, 2006
Publisher: Bantam
Rating:

One of the best travel books I've read
But this was one!

Having recently traveled to Cairo, Egypt I enjoyed the similarities between the cultures. I'm a travel writing junkie and it's not often that I come across a book of travel writing that I cannot put down. Shah's writing vividely describes life in Casablanca in the Caliph's house. His adventures, and his patience, are endless!

I have two very small complaints- why doesn't he talk more about his wife and her day-to-day activities in Casablanca? I found myself wondering what SHE was thinking while Shah's adventures were going on.

And, what was in the secret room?

I would highly recommend this book. Am looking forward to searching out Shah's other books (some are out of print). Enjoy his writing and style. Excellent, excellent book!.

Under the Moroccan Sun
Those three books are masterpieces of the genre, and his latest escapade in Morocco carries many of the same qualities, but is a notch less enjoyable. Shah is a master of the insightful, funny, exotic travelogue, and I've greatly enjoyed his adventures in India ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice"), Peru ("Trail of Feathers" aka "House of the Tiger King"), and Ethiopia ("In Search of King Solomon's Mines").

Others have characterized this book as a Moroccan version of "A Year in Provence" or "Under the Tuscan Sun", which is a rather apt comparison. Shah spent childhood vacations in Morocco visiting his Afghan grandfather, and years later, as an adult Londoner, found himself craving a different life. Thus, he embarked on the scheme recounted here -- to purchase an old villa in Casablanca and restore it to its glory. Naturally, this proves vastly more difficult than it initially appears, and Shah details each step in gloriously hilarious detail. Along with the house renovation, there is a subplot involving Shah's attempt to track down where his grandfather lived out his last days. This, along with the friendship he develops with an elderly local stamp collector adds an element of poignancy to what might otherwise be a one-note comic romp.

Much of the humor comes from the cross-cultural miscommunication between the rational Shah and the various Moroccans he encounters. High on the list of confounding people are the three caretakers who've lived on the property since time immemorial and are worried by Shah's sudden appearance. Their insistence that the house is plagued by an angry genie is a running thread which culminates in a kooky exorcism. Other obstreperous people include a local mobster type, who apparently has had his eye on the villa and is working behind the scenes to deny Shah's legal ownership, various bureaucrats who may be in his pocket or may be just naturally unhelpful (no doubt a legacy of the French tenure), and a slick but evasive architect. And naturally, there are the various bumbling contractors who operate on their own schedule, one apparently measured in years rather than weeks or months. Then there are some scary Wahabi Gulf Arabs who lurk in slums that surround the villa. As the difficulties mount, Shah realizes the necessity of a "fixer" to help him navigate his new environment -- such as getting his furniture and books through customs and locating building materials on the black market -- but finding one that's trustworthy turns out to be yet another labor of Hercules.

Although I did enjoy this book and would certainly recommend it, it suffers in two respects. One is the framework: a wealthy Westerner moves to a foreign place to live and restore a property to its former glory. While there's obviously an element of privilege in his ability to travel to distant lands, it's rather more pronounced here and to a certain extent it's hard to sympathize with such an endeavor. Secondly, his other books have all been adventures of his own creation in which he is the naive outsider who may or may not emerge unscathed. Here, he drags his wife and baby along for the ride, and it becomes hard to ignore the stench of self-centeredness that wafts from his family living in extreme discomfort for an extended time, if not outright danger (although the rats running around the property made me cringe for the baby). Next time, I hope he leaves the wife and kid at home instead of dragging him into his madcap schemes.

A crash course in Moroccan living
This book is no exception. Tahir is a good writer; I have read him once before (Sorcerer's Apprentice), and found his writing style to be irreverently tounge-in-cheek. Here, he details his travails as he moves his young family to Morocco from England. And these are no small travails, to be sure. They include being near a bomb blast while negotiating the purchase of his house (talk about an omen), unruly housekeepers who insist on the presence of djinns (evil spirits) that requre sacrifices of barn animals, shady aide-de-camps, and Morocco's underworld dons living in close proximity. But despite all these, he preserveres. If there is a shortcoming of the book, it is that many loose ends were left untied. For instance, why did his first ADC jettison him in such an ungrateful manner? what was the skinny on Kamal, his new ADC? what was in the room which Tahir was not allowed access to? was his house really haunted? But assuming that you can live with unanswered questions -- or even if you cannot -- this book is certainly worth a read. (September 2006).

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