Into the Forest discussion

This thread is for The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah!
We don't usually set up spoiler threads for buddy reads, but if anyone thinks we really need one, just let me.

Started this yesterday. Enjoying it so far though I find the author's perspective...curious. His wife is just 3 weeks past giving birth as they find themselves taking up residence in their new home, the eponymously named, Caliph's House. It's old and very run-down with no electricity, running water etc.

Shah's descriptions of the surroundings, the atmosphere and various misadventures are compelling but curiously absent is much mention of his wife and children. I can't help but wonder how it must have felt for his wife, with a three-week old, her own body still vulnerable and recovering from the birth experience, with no family or friends nearby and sanitation mod cons sub par. Perhaps this is intentional, or perhaps it's natural given that his experience couldn't possibly take in hers. But whatever his reasons I find myself sympathizing with the 'ghost wife' and wondering what her feelings are, how her experience compares with his.

I'm only about 15% in but I do like the writing and the subject material is holding my interest.

wild~rose wrote: "I can't help but wonder how it must have felt for his wife, with a three-week old, her own body still vulnerable and recovering from the birth experience, with no family or friends nearby and sanitation mod cons sub par..."

I agree with you completely. I, too, was initially bothered by the disregard for his wife’s condition and the relocation of his family to a barely habitable home in a foreign land. But as I got further into the book, I realized Shah’s focus was to describe his impressions of Morocco, its people, its craftsmen, its sounds and smells, and the orthodox and unorthodox avenues he had to pursue as he navigated his way through the labyrinth that is the bureaucracy of Morocco.
I am not defending his decision to marginalize his wife. But I am suggesting if you accept the premise that his focus was describe his immersion in and growing love of the country, you might find yourself enjoying the book more.
I read it a while back and posted my review on goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Tamara wrote:I am not defending his decision to marginalize his wife. But I am suggesting if you accept the premise that his focus was describe his immersion in and growing love of the country, you might find yourself enjoying the book more.

Yes, I realized that this is how I'll have to approach it. And as he writes in such an engaging way I imagine I'll enjoy the book. I guess as a mom myself I couldn't help but project how I felt three weeks after giving birth and being kind of appalled at what she was being asked to rise to. Off to read your review.

As per Leah's request here are my thoughts from the 'what are you reading thread' as I've gotten further along in The Caliph's House...

Half-way through this book and not loving it. The writing feels disjointed and the author a little self-absorbed. I keep feeling like I'm missing something, that I'm not getting a handle on the kind of perspective he's offering the reader. It reads like a series of misadventures and perhaps that's the point though I've read other such books, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle come to mind, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I keep waiting for...something, I'm not sure what, to come together. Onwards though and I'll see it through to the end.

My biggest question, how present are the jinns referenced in the book description? If you can answer without being too spoilery :)

Leah wrote: "My biggest question, how present are the jinns referenced in the book description? If you can answer without being too spoilery :)"

Yes, I am curious about that too!

Leah wrote: "My biggest question, how present are the jinns referenced in the book description? If you can answer without being too spoilery :)"

One main jinn who gets blamed for various mishaps and bizarre happenings at various stages in the book.

Lila wrote: "Leah wrote: "My biggest question, how present are the jinns referenced in the book description? If you can answer without being too spoilery :)"

Yes, I am curious about that too!"

As Tamara wrote there is one main Jinn and her presence is seamlessly woven into the storyline such that while she's deemed responsible for the various...adventures...that occur she doesn't necessarily take center stage. The book is really about the author and his interface with Moroccan culture.

Finished this last week. Underwhelmed. The writing continued in its disjointed manner. I continued to feel I was missing some integral piece. I suppose what also bothered me was something that really had nothing to do with the book and more to do with my own feelings about the division of labor within a relationship.

The author's vision took him all over the place both geographically and emotionally. There was recurring mention of the chaos and craziness at the house becoming too much for him and his need to escape for several hours to go and drink coffee in a cafe or visit with an aquaintance, take a ride along the seafront or else stay in bed. All I could think was how his wife would be left having to cope with all the mundane details that a visionary leaves out but that are vital to its fruition. Dealing with squabbles among the workers, the dirt, the mess, the children and so forth. Perhaps I'm being rather too hard on the author. I do recognize that it was his story, his Morocco, his year.

And what I've come away with from this is the sense that when we read a book, we're never just reading a book nor even that particular book. We're also reading the trajectory of our own inner narrative in the silences, the space between lines, the pauses between chapters, the hush at the end that settles over the last word.

Since I have not started the book yet, so can't comment. I did have the thought that perhaps the author's wife did not want to be mentioned in this book. Recently I was reading about a completely different author Anaïs Nin( because I've been wanting to re-read her ) and her husband at the time insisted that he be left out of her diaries. At the time I read them many years ago I'd always wondered about that!
Just a thought!

wild~rose wrote: "Finished this last week. Underwhelmed. The writing continued in its disjointed manner. I continued to feel I was missing some integral piece. I suppose what also bothered me was something that real..."

Oh and another thought regarding the wife, unless the author specified it, what makes you think moving to Morocco was such a hardship? I am not defending the author, (in fact maybe when I finally read the book I'll find him a jerk too), I'm just asking because around the time my son was born my husband had a job in Yemen. I actually liked living there with a baby for many reasons, it was not expensive to have hired help, the people were friendly and culture was very family orientated. Moving back to Canada was actually quite an adjustment for us!

Lila wrote: "Since I have not started the book yet, so can't comment. I did have the thought that perhaps the author's wife did not want to be mentioned in this book. Recently I was reading about a completely d..."

Yes, that occurred to me, also. But factoring that in I still couldn't get past the fact that she seemed to be attending to all the nitty gritty earth plane details while he went off on his various adventures. Still, she may have wanted it that way, too. I feel I'm reacting to and critiquing the meta novel, the ghost novel, the unspoken novel rather than the actual one lol.

wild~rose wrote: "And what I've come away with from this is the sense that when we read a book, we're never just reading a book nor even that particular book. We're also reading the trajectory of our own inner narrative in the silences, the space between lines, the pauses between chapters, the hush at the end that settles over the last word..."

I agree with you completely. And I would add that the same passage can impact one reader and not another.

I'm in another reading group on Goodreads where we read the classics. We recently read a collection of short stories by Chekhov. I was constantly struck by how differently we interpreted the same short story. Certain lines would jump out at me--usually lines related to a female character's treatment, the words spoken about her, and/or spoken by her--all of which impacted my interpretation. Those same lines would be frequently overlooked by other readers who would then come up with an entirely different interpretation.

I enjoyed The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca as I said in my review. But I also understand why you would be bothered by how his wife was left to clean up the mess. I guess if it were a work of fiction, I would be up in arms about the treatment of his wife and share your concerns. But since this isn't fiction, and since this is about his year in Morocco, I wasn't expecting it to do something other than what he set out to do. I was prepared to overlook his self-absorption by immersing myself in the life and smells and colors of Morocco.

Your sensitive reading of the book has made me realize that my approach to fiction is far more gendered and places higher expectations of fairness and equity on the author than a work of non-fiction of this nature. Something I didn't know about myself before and something I will be attuned to in the future.

Thank you for that.

Lila wrote:Oh and another thought regarding the wife, unless the author specified it, what makes you think moving to Morocco was such a hardship? I am not defending the author, (in fact maybe when I finally read the book I'll find him a jerk too), I'm just asking because around the time my son was born my husband had a job in Yemen. I actually liked living there with a baby for many reasons, it was not expensive to have hired help, the people were friendly and culture was very family orientated. Moving back to Canada was actually quite an adjustment for us!

Yes, raising children in places where the culture is very family-oriented makes all the difference. My SIL is married to a man whose culture is family-oriented and it's one of the things she def enjoys when they visit there. But the author and his family arrived in Morocco not having any family save one very distant cousin. He goes into great detail about the physical hardships they encountered during their time in Morocco. In fact that makes up a large part of the book. But in the end it seemed that the warmth and spirit of the people they interfaced with, the beautiful Moroccan architecture, its landscape and rhythms all countered these hardships enough for them to deem the experience wonderful.

wild~rose wrote: ".And what I've come away with from this is the sense that when we read a book, we're never just reading a book nor even that particular book. We're also reading the trajectory of our own inner narrative in the silences, the space between lines, the pauses between chapters, the hush at the end that settles over the last word. ."


I agree with that too!

Tamara wrote: I'm in another reading group on Goodreads where we read the classics. We recently read a collection of short stories by Chekhov. I was constantly struck by how differently we interpreted the same short story. Certain lines would jump out at me--usually lines related to a female character's treatment, the words spoken about her, and/or spoken by her--all of which impacted my interpretation. Those same lines would be frequently overlooked by other readers who would then come up with an entirely different interpretation.

I enjoyed The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca as I said in my review. But I also understand why you would be bothered by how his wife was left to clean up the mess. I guess if it were a work of fiction, I would be up in arms about the treatment of his wife and share your concerns. But since this isn't fiction, and since this is about his year in Morocco, I wasn't expecting it to do something other than what he set out to do and was prepared to overlook his self-absorption by immersing myself in the life and smells and colors of Morocco.

Your sensitive reading of the book has made me realize that my approach to fiction is far more gendered and places higher expectations of fairness and equity on the author than a work of non-fiction of this nature. Something I didn't know about myself before and something I will be attuned to in the future.

Thank you for that.

I, too, find myself reacting where others don't. And of course the inverse is true, others reacting where I don't. Like you, my meta lens centers around the role and treatment of the various female characters. In another group I'm part of, made up mostly of women, the discussion turned to the ratio of female to male authors the members read. I was surprised by how many of the women read so few female authors. My tally for the year was something like 90% female. It inspired some interesting dialogue. I imagine the wife's writing of her year in The Caliph's House would be vastly different and it's unlikely the same issues would come up for me around the role her husband played in her narrative.

wild~rose wrote: "Tamara wrote: I'm in another reading group on Goodreads where we read the classics. We recently read a collection of short stories by Chekhov. I was constantly struck by how differently we interpre..."

I've become much more conscious of the percentage of woman authors I read as a result of joining the group Read Women. I thought that the majority of the books that I read are by women with a ratio of 60/40. It turns out that this year it's been more like 50/50.

Lila wrote: "Since I have not started the book yet, so can't comment. I did have the thought that perhaps the author's wife did not want to be mentioned in this book. Recently I was reading about a completely d..."

It's possible the author was protecting the privacy of his wife and family, or, as was mentioned, perhaps the wife didn't want to be included in his reporting.

I've just received this book and am looking forward to reading it, especially with a group. I love the idea of djinn interwoven through a non-fiction exploration of Morrocco - I have always believed that when myth and legend and folktales are an ever-present part of a culture, the people are more closely in touch with meaning in their lives (as opposed to cultures where myth & folk stories have been forgotten or abandoned in the rush to progress and technology).

I just finished this book, and I really did enjoy it. It turned out to be all about the djinns, and life and culture in Morocco because of the djinns... and how this belief in djinns can penetrate even the worst skeptic. This was all conveyed through the medium of the renovation of this incredible house by the craftsmen and artisans and handymen of Morocco, and through the eyes of the author, who had to learn to live like a Moroccan before he and his family could ever peacefully settle into this amazing home. But oh! how I wished we had not been limited to a very few pen and ink drawings and were able to see photos of this incredible Caliph's House.

Janice(JG) wrote: "But oh! how I wished we had not been limited to a very few pen and ink drawings and were able to see photos of this incredible Caliph's House ..."
Hi Janice,
Actually, you can see a lot of photos of his house. If you google images, you can see tons of photos. I've added the link for you. It's an amazing house, especially the library.
Enjoy.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&a...

Tamara wrote: "Janice(JG) wrote: "But oh! how I wished we had not been limited to a very few pen and ink drawings and were able to see photos of this incredible Caliph's House ..."
Hi Janice,
Actually, you can se..."

Oh thank you! I was most curious about that fountain, and there's a photo of it on that search page. Beautiful!

So I read this over the last few days. Here's my review. All in all, I appreciated the exposure to and immersion in Moroccan life, culture, foods, traditions, folklore.

But I couldn't help but feel most sympathetic toward his wife, Rachana. Especially when he described finding her, head down on the table, exhausted and unable to deal with it all. Or when she came to him in tears because of all the various things coming to head. She even calls him out on being able to leave and get away from it all while she's left there on her own to deal with the guardians, the maid, the cook, the gardener, the destruction (not construction at that point), the workmen, the rats, the cockroaches, etc. My heart really went out to her. And his response was to "distract her" (his words) and hire Rachana her own assistant, someone who would manage all those things on her behalf, but that new assistant soon leaves along with the maid. So she's back to square one but he doesn't address that again. A testament to their marriage, though, that everyone survived and, according to him, they close out this book's part of their story in laughter.

I'll probably still check out In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams, but hopefully I won't be distracted by what all his wife's doing while he's off on his adventures.