Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767, by Thorkild Hansen

97816381370729
NYRB Classics, 2017
originally published as Det Lykkelige Arabien,  1964
translated by James McFarlane and Kathleen McFarlane
381 pp

paperback

NYRB Classics has delivered what I think is one of its best offerings yet with this book, which, in a word, is outstanding. It is also one of the best books I've read so far this year, and I put it down only when necessary, each time grudgingly so.

On January 12, 1761, the front page of the Copenhagen Post relayed  the news that the King of Denmark, who "strives indefatigably for the furtherance of knowledge and of science and for the greater glory of his people,"  had "dispatched a group of scholars" on a rather extraordinary  mission. They were to

"travel by by way of the Mediterranean to Constantinople, and thence through Egypt to Arabia Felix, and subsequently return by way of Syria to Europe; they will on all occasions seek to make new discoveries and observations for the benefit of scholarship, and will also collect and dispatch hither valuable Oriental manuscripts, together with other specimens and rarities of the East."

This undertaking was the first of its kind for the Kingdom of Denmark; it was also of great interest to Europe as a whole since this was to be a journey into Arabia Felix, or what is now known as Yemen, which at the time was "a corner of the world unknown to Europeans."  As Colin Dwyer notes in his review at NPR, this expedition was "King Frederick V's chance to make his own splash in the era of the Enlightenment," drawing on not only this period's focus on science, but also on "the enthusiasm for foreign and particularly Oriental lands."

What the press didn't know was that this small group had already been "riven by bitter dissension" even as they had been rowed out of Copenhagen a week earlier; later on, this discord among these people would come to a head when they realized that one of their number had purchased arsenic, adding fear and distrust to the already volatile mix.  That story alone makes for compelling reading, but there's so much more to keep readers turning pages.    Arabia Felix follows this remarkable expedition from its origins through its end in 1767, with the return to Denmark of only one survivor who, as the back-cover blurb notes, found himself "forgotten and all the specimens that had been sent back ruined by neglect."

While I won't go into any detail here, Arabia Felix turned out to be a gripping read, full of adventure, tragedy, a number of nail-biting moments, and even humor.    The author also reveals how many of the discoveries made on this expedition would come to have great significance for scholars in several fields to this day -- as just one example,  the inscriptions painstakingly copied by Carsten Niebuhr at Persepolis were so well done that later scholars built from them, eventually solving the "mystery of the cuneiform script."  Speaking of Niebuhr, his amazing story alone is well worth the price of this book, not to mention his often-comical adventures with his trusty astrolabe.

I can't begin to express how much I loved this book.  I bought it looking forward to the story of the expedition, but I was not expecting what I found here.   Arabia Felix is a very human story in which Hansen gives the men their due, bringing each of these people vividly alive both individually and collectively in terms of the group's dynamic.  But it's not just that.  Working with a variety of sources, the author  manages to bring everything to life -- the successes, failures, miscommunications, misunderstandings, mistakes, and ultimately, what these people sacrificed in the long run to complete their given mission. The tragedy of their stories having been long forgotten is beyond rectified here, and delightedly so.

Kudos to NYRB for publishing this book.

...and speaking of lost cities: whoa.

- Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan Vols. I & II by John Lloyd Stephens
             9781605204468, Cosimo Classics, 2008
             originally published 1841

 -Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vols. I and II, by John Lloyd Stephens
               9781605203799, Cosimo Classics, 2008
               originally published 1843

- Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and The Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya, by William Carlsen
                 9780062407405, William Morrow, 2016

I don't know if anyone else does this, but when I read nonfiction, I go through the listed sources like a fine-toothed comb to find more about what I'm reading.  While I had some issues with the book,  one very nice thing to come out of my reading of Preston's Lost City of the Monkey God was the reference to this book, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Vols. I & II -- so voilá, within a few days it was in my mailbox.  I had thought to only read the sections about the Yucatan since I was just there a few weeks ago, but I started from the beginning and got totally caught up in Stephens' book.  What may seem dull to quite a lot of people kept me flipping pages.  Stephens' account of his travels with partner Frederick Catherwood reads like an old-fashioned adventure story combined with history and the thrill of discovery as Stephens and Catherwood only make their way through Central America during a time of major political upheaval, battling dense jungles, illness, and even sharks while in a leaky boat.   Its true importance though, as Carlsen so aptly describes in his own book, is that these two people "altered the world's understanding of human history." More on that later.

After finishing that book and still hungry for more, I picked up Carlsen's Jungle of Stone, made it about halfway through, and then realized that Stephens had published yet another travel account, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, also in two volumes.  Like any good nerd would do, I put the Carlsen book on hold  until I could read the second Stephens book, then picked it up again where I left off.

This book was less of an adventure story (although it did have its moments) than an account documenting the often-harrowing travels of Stephens and Catherwood through the Yucatan, where they made a circuit of several ruins from Copán to Tulum, as Carlsen calls it,  "their last great ghost city."

Fascinating stuff, made all the more interesting since, as I said, I was just there, which was the reason behind why I wanted to read these books.  Last year we were there as well and visited Coba, which is only briefly mentioned in Stephens' account, and made it up an eight-story pyramid,

my photo

while this year we did Tulum:

my photo

It's one thing to visit these places after they've been excavated, gone over, studied and written about, but imagine what it must have been like for these two men in the 1840s, coming across these places and having to hack out enough jungle just to get close enough to examine them. Their wonder at these discoveries is well documented in this book, along with Stephens' theories about the people who built these once-flourishing cities.  Their travels took them not only to these still-unexplored ruins, but also underground at times, for example at Bolonchen, as captured by Catherwood's excellent illustrations (pp 97, 99, and 101 respectively)

the cave opening at Bolonchen

making their way down through the opening into the cave on a ladder that kept falling apart

and

exploring the passages leading from the main chamber.

Both books are very much worth looking into for anyone who has an interest in Central American history, the history of the Mayan civilization, and archaeology; it's also great for armchair travelers.  But the most important thing about both of these books is explained very nicely in William Carlsen's book, Jungle of Stone.  

This book not only gives a great summary of both of Stephens' accounts, but also examines the lives of both Stephens and Catherwood. While Stephens was very well known, Catherwood's life  has been an enigma, and Carlsen gives as much insight into this man as is probably possible, since very little is known about him.  He  also examines the archaeology, the history and the studies that have been done since Stephens and Catherwood first made their way to the area to find this "hidden jungle of stones" that would "begin the process of unraveling the Maya's amazing, improbable history."   But there's much more here -- for example, the current view before their trek of discovery was that

 "the Americas had always been a land occupied by primitive, inferior people," 

but that notion would be radically altered after Stephens published his books.  As Carlsen notes,

"After the publication of their books, the mysterious stone ruins in Central America, the vast, sophisticated road network of the Inca in South America, and the monuments and temples of the Aztecs could no longer be viewed as the Lost Tribes of Israel, the ancient seafaring Phoenicians, or the survivors of lost Atlantis. They were understood to be solely indigenous in origin, the products of the imagination, intelligence and creativity of Native Americans."

In short, Stephens and Catherwood not only paved the way for future exploration, but their discoveries and their keen awareness of the significance of what they'd found actually turned our own prevailing assumption about the development of civilization on its ear. And seriously, all you have to do is to visit a place like Chichen Itza or Tulum to discover the truth of what Carlsen (and earlier, Stephens) is saying.

I can very highly recommend all three books here -- reading the first one was often like being in the middle of an adventure, and there were times when I wondered how this guy managed to stay alive.   The second book was just sheer pleasure to read, and I'm already thinking that next year we'll go to Mérida as a home base for exploring more ruins.  Carlsen's book is absolutely perfect for readers who may be interested but don't want to spend the time reading Stephens' accounts, since he gives the highlights of both but adds in so much more.

I can't begin to say how much I enjoyed these books.

*The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, From Key West to the Arctic Ocean, by Philip Caputo

9780805094466
Henry Holt, 2013
320 pp

arc via LibraryThing early reviewers and Henry Holt
(but I bought one, too!)



"Hope...Isn't that what it's always been?"

My many thanks to LT's early reviewer program and to Henry Holt for my review copy.

When I started reading this book, I was explaining to my erstwhile spouse that it was a book about a guy and his wife who took to the open road with an Airstream in tow to go from the southernmost point to the northernmost in the US.  I told him that it sounded like a really cool trip, and that I was a little jealous that people can just pick up and go where they want to when they want to.  His response was something along the lines of "well, after we retire..." and then I heard the words "a year" and "RV" and that was as far as I let that conversation go.  A) it's forever until retirement,  B) I couldn't be uprooted that long away from home, and  C) my daughter gave me two conditions for disowning me as a mother: starting to wear  Christmas snowman sweaters and hopping in a motor home to tour the country when I get old.  Still, reading about someone else's adventures on a very long journey is always interesting, especially when it's tied up neatly in such a tale as this one.  The Longest Road is not just another travelogue; it's an exploration of America's backroads and more to the point, its people.   Aside from only a few minor issues I'll get to shortly, it's a very good read.

The author's father once said that there was nothing like being "in a car with everything you need, nothing more, and an open road in front of you." Jack Kerouac wrote "Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is so ever on the road." When Caputo's father, who loved being on the road himself, died, the author realized at age 69 that a lot of his own life was behind him, and he pondered about life ahead. He came up with this crazy idea to go from the southernmost point in the United States (Key West) to the country's northernmost point in Alaska, not "purely for the adventure" but rather to discover what people across this country think holds us (as a nation) together in a time when we are so torn apart on several issues. His intention is not to "take the pulse of the nation," an impossible task, but to ask his question to the people he meets along the way. His vehicle of choice for the journey is a leased, classic Airstream trailer, "wanderlust made visible and tangible." With his wife and two dogs in tow, he made his long journey, choosing to mainly follow America's backroads and highways, following the journey made by Lewis and Clark as much as possible to the west coast. Along the way he meets a wide variety of people, visits places and does things he's never before experienced.

As someone who also loves to travel America's backroads and smaller highways, camp, stop in at mom-and-pop eateries and start conversations with perfect strangers I meet, this book definitely appealed to me. I would love to retrace Mr. Caputo's footsteps/tire tracks someday, but since that's probably not ever going to happen, reading about his journey is almost as good. His descriptions of places I've been are right on the money, but it's the people he meets that keep things really interesting. "Listening" to them and hearing what they have to say about America, their communities and themselves is an eye opener. There are funny parts to this book and some where you just want to cry. I'd love to hear this as an audio book with the author doing the reading.

Just a few minor niggles: a) while I happen to share many of the author's points of view, I can see how his political musing might be a turnoff for some people who don't -- I felt the emphasis should have been more on what other Americans thought, considering the premise of his adventure; and b) a map would have been extremely helpful -- I had my Ipad on my lap looking at each highway, each road, each town, etc.where a map could have provided a one-stop visual representation of the trip.

All in all, The Longest Road is an enjoyable read, and I've selected this book for one of my book group's choices for the fall. Definitely recommended; try not to let the politics get in the way of the rest of the journey.