Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Chris Patten / Paul Bowles

To understand the Islamic "Other"...




This is how it all begun, during the ritual reading of "Weekend FT" ... A scholar protests, attacking a point made previously by Chris Patten, also in the Financial Times, after a visit to Fez, that reading Paul Bowles is relevant for understanding contemporary terrorism..

The "Orientalist"-like exotic otherness of the souk in Fez..

That took me to re-reading Bowles's "The Spider's House"...

... and from there to re-visit Edward Said's texts on Orientalism and on the evident flaw of speaking about "West" and "Islam" as almost absolute categories.

Ludwig Deutsch's masterpiece of Orientalist painting...

... and I went back to Said's critics too and to some historical background research on the Independence struggle days against French colonial rule, in Algeria and Morocco ..


French Army against FNLA in the peculiar esthetics of comics books...

... besides, I wanted also to confirm from where Bowles was getting his insights for the Arab character in his novel (and that took me again to the Tangier chronicles).

Literary Renegades? They're mainstream now...

I took some notes and I got some photos about the books I handled during this particular quest. Everything is now ready for a blogtext. But the more I think about it, what each one of us has to say about "Islam" and the "West" is perhaps the most crucial statement of principles one is asked to do in this day and age. I lived near two active "fronts" of the confrontation, the Russian /Chechen and the Israel/Palestine ones. After what I witnessed, what I discussed and what I read, I do have a point of view. But a near-frivolous blogtext won't do. More time is needed. I suspect this post will remain a work in progress..

Will the Fez boy of Bowles's novel become a terrorist?


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