Thousands of English and American travelers have written about their experiences in the Arab World. Quite a few are worth reading, but the majority deserve obscurity. In a recent book sale at my university library, a pitiful travel account of the roaring 20s was remaindered. It bodes well for my institution that it was never checked out, although I wonder how it entered the stacks in the first place. The book in question is By the Waters of Carthage, by Norma Octavia Lorimer, following on her By the Rivers of Sicily and By the Rivers of Egypt. Why she never set sail down the Tigris by the reggae-beloved rivers of Babylon is anyone’s guess. This baneful little volume about a fickle English lady set loose in Tunis represents just about everything wrong with Orientalist inferiorizing of cultures in the Middle East. The only redeeming features are the colorful frontispiece (shown above) and black-and-white photographs of life in Tunisia around 1920.

Sometimes it is useful to read bad text in order to appreciate good travel writing all the more. There is probably no bias that does not surface in Lorimer’s diary-prone prose, all the more chauvanized by her style of filling her chapters with letters to her dear husband. Consider the following tidbits… Continue reading Norma’s Take on Carthage →