The Hall of a Thousand Columns
The much awaited second installment of Tim Mackintosh-Smith's wonderful series following in the footnotes (and literal footsteps) of Ibn Batuttah the great medieval Tangerine traveler is reviewed in The Guardian.
posted by Leo_Africanus @ 7:16 pm
3 Comments:
Just visited the site to post this, but you got there first! My copy of this turned up in the post the other day, and as a result am struggling to keep my attention fixed on The Small World, by Edward P. Jones, which I am currently reading!
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Tim-Mackintosh Smith is an excellent and v. informed writer (read especially his first book, on Yemen). I find The Hall of A Thousand Columns different fr. his other books, perhaps it's because here he is more sure of himself as a weiter, with some good and some bad results. His knowledge of Arabic, Arabs and Ibn Batuttah is encyclopaedic, but his 'self-confidence' has made him more self-indulgent, giving us some good puns and jokes, and some very bad and unnecessary ones. This one's a curate's egg, good in many parts. But still worth a read.
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