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Lädt ... The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca (Original 2006; 2006. Auflage)von Tahir Shah (Autor)
Werk-InformationenThe Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca von Tahir Shah (2006)
  
Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch.   ) WellReadSoutherner | Apr 6, 2022 |  ) revatait | Feb 21, 2021 | It's basically the story of a big home remodel, so there is not a lot of substance. There is some humor, and a light impression of Moroccan culture, but not enough of either. Unfortunately, there aren't good portraits of any of the other characters, neither in Shah's family nor the Moroccans. Peter Hessler could have done more with this material. It ends with the exorcism of the house's djinns, on the one-year anniversary of Shah's stay in Morocco. While this might be a natural ending spot, I wanted more closure. What happens to Kamal, to the wannabe American terrorist, or the neighborhood gangster? At least tell us more about the house. Perhaps I have to read the sequel. > One week I asked if he believed in Jinns. "Of course I do," he said without a thought. "They are all around us. Their world shapes our own." > Fortunately, his weakened condition made it easy to take control. Unlike him, and everyone else, I was eating three meals a day and sleeping seven hours a night. By the final days of Ramadan, I felt like king of the world. > As word of the banquet spread, more and more homeless souls arrived to eat. … The architect's face became so ferociously red that I feared he might keel over. I asked for my money. He fired off a salvo of excuses. "Our friends want to touch the paintings," Kamal said. The architect glanced at the beggars' oily fingers, the mess on the floor, and clapped his hands to his cheeks. He strode over to his desk and wrote me out a check. > as Kamal explained, marriage to a Moroccan woman would set me on a fast track through the ocean of bureaucracy. > As I toured the great buildings of Morocco, I found myself perplexed that they had ever been completed at all. Whenever I ran through the house ranting, the master craftsmen would grin broadly and exclaim that only Allah was complete. > "They have asked you to have all the books translated into Arabic by an official translator." "But there are more than ten thousand books," I said. "Each one's more than two hundred pages." I did a calculation. "That's at least two million pages." "An official translator charges ten dollars a page," said Kamal. > Two days before Eid, the poor creatures became invaluable sales tools. Buy a new washing machine and you got a ram thrown in for free; buy a used car and you got half a dozen of them. One electronics store on Boulevard Zerktouni raffled an entire flock the night before Eid, causing absolute hysteria. (  ) breic | Sep 8, 2020 |  ) pennykaplan | Jan 3, 2020 | )1  rlsova | Oct 29, 2019 |
 Although this fun book claimed to be a real account of Shah's adventure in Casablanca with a fixer upper, it soon becomes clear that he took significant journalistic license to weave a memorable story. The Moroccan preoccupation with djinns (genies) was the central character of this melodrama and through Shah's eyes, we get a comical glimpse of life in modern Morocco. I read this book with great anticipation and once I came to terms with the literary devices he used to create a fictional narrative, I enjoyed the book immensely. This is a marvelous introduction to the mosaic that makes up Maroc or Maghreb, as the locals call their wonderful country. The gist of the story is a jaded Scottish-Afghan Londoner of Persian stock married to an Indian wife with 2 young kids making a go at migrating to the former French Morocco. He purchased a dilapidated Dar (courtyard house) and spent an entire year coaxing the colorful local craftmen to redeem its former glory with varying levels of success. The last few pages was splendidly crafted to move the reader to the brink of tears as he revealed the kindness of the locals behind the adamant traditions that bind them. This telling of a personal story is reminiscent of the ancient story tellers of Israel whose accounts informed the writers of the Old Testament, where historical events were weaved into memorable vignettes and embellished to emphasize theological claims. Tahir Shah is a master story teller and I look forward to his other offerings. That a writer can bring a smile of inner joy to readers he will never meet signals the high art of the craft we call writing. Long may we treasure this most human of capabilities - the make sense of the world and transmit it through geography and history. Auszeichnungen
In the tradition of A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, acclaimed English travel writer Tahir Shah shares a highly entertaining account of making an exotic dream come true. By turns hilarious and harrowing, here is the story of his family's move from the gray skies of London to the sun-drenched city of Casablanca, where Islamic tradition and African folklore converge-and nothing is as easy as it seems.... Inspired by the Moroccan vacations of his childhood, Tahir Shah dreamed of making a home in that astonishing country. At age thirty-six he got his chance. Investing what money he and his wife, Rachana, had, Tahir packed up his growing family and bought Dar Khalifa, a crumbling ruin of a mansion by the sea in Casablanca that once belonged to the city's caliph, or spiritual leader. With its lush grounds, cool, secluded courtyards, and relaxed pace, life at Dar Khalifa seems sure to fulfill Tahir's fantasy-until he discovers that in many ways he is farther from home than he imagined. For in Morocco an empty house is thought to attract jinns, invisible spirits unique to the Islamic world. The ardent belief in their presence greatly hampers sleep and renovation plans, but that is just the beginning. From elaborate exorcism rituals involving sacrificial goats to dealing with gangster neighbors intent on stealing their property, the Shahs must cope with a new culture and all that comes with it. Endlessly enthralling, The Caliph's House charts a year in the life of one family who takes a tremendous gamble. As we follow Tahir on his travels throughout the kingdom, from Tangier to Marrakech to the Sahara, we discover a world of fierce contrasts that any true adventurer would be thrilled to call home. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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 Google Books — Lädt ...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)916History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in AfricaKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt: (3.88)
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