Banned in Saudia Arabia, this is a blistering look at Arab and American hypocrisy following the discovery of oil in a poor oasis community.
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Aug 31, 2011
Catherine
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A long fictional look at Saudi Arabia's development as an oil country and the toll paid by those whose lives were disrupted, never to be the same, in this first volume of the Cities of Salt Trilogy, which left me feeling sad. I read this because it was chosen by the Middle East North African Lit Group as a novel by a Saudi Arabian author.
I enjoyed reading about the effect of the Americans first arriving and the terrible smell they leave behind them. How ironic! Of course Americans a More...
I enjoyed reading about the effect of the Americans first arriving and the terrible smell they leave behind them. How ironic! Of course Americans a More...
Apr 20, 2010
Naeem
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This book will try your patience. Munif leaves us no detailed unreported, no character unmotivated, no movement un-pulled. If you can't hang with him, you lose. You lose the transformation of a culture basing its life around an oasis, to one catacombed by the oil industry.
The book is so masterful, so compelling in its sureness of pace, so confident in its psychology, political economy, and cultural encounter, that it could come only after a lifetime of lesser efforts to channel More...
The book is so masterful, so compelling in its sureness of pace, so confident in its psychology, political economy, and cultural encounter, that it could come only after a lifetime of lesser efforts to channel More...
Aug 25, 2010
Vicki
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Cities of Salt is one of my favorite books. I started reading this book around the time that the book about Osama Bin Laden and his family was coming out.
Cities of Salt helped me understand much better the culture of the Bin Laden family, not in a day to day how-they-live kind of way. I understood though where their family fit in the culture of the Middle East after the arrival of Western superpowers disrupted the whole way of life.
Cities of Salt takes place in a country much like S More...
Cities of Salt helped me understand much better the culture of the Bin Laden family, not in a day to day how-they-live kind of way. I understood though where their family fit in the culture of the Middle East after the arrival of Western superpowers disrupted the whole way of life.
Cities of Salt takes place in a country much like S More...
Aug 21, 2010
Harry
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Cities of Salt is a novel about an unnamed Middle-Eastern country where desert tribesmen have their lives disrupted by the arrival of the oil industry. Think Saudi Arabia.
It’s 600 pages long and it’s only the first book in a quintet, so this is storytelling on a grand scale; I have to say I’m seriously impressed by it, and considering buying the next one.
There are two things which I think are particularly clever about the way it’s written. The first is that it has a large More...
It’s 600 pages long and it’s only the first book in a quintet, so this is storytelling on a grand scale; I have to say I’m seriously impressed by it, and considering buying the next one.
There are two things which I think are particularly clever about the way it’s written. The first is that it has a large More...
Oct 25, 2010
Neil
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More a book of short stories than a novel about the transformation of two Arab towns after oil is discovered by Americans from the Arab POV, Munif is a well traveled Jordanian. But truth is better than fiction, no reason to read this book when the story is playing out in news about Equatorial Guinea and their dictator … I mean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. This guy was orchestrating bank employees to pick up brief cases that contained 60 lbs of $100 bills (>$3M) of cash to deposi
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Jul 30, 2010
Khalid
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It begins with the pious, poor inhabitants of an oasis in the desert whose peace and social harmony are disrupted by the discovery of oil by American researchers who've been invited into the country. Six hundred pages later, it ends following a mass strike over injustice in the coastal city that's grown up around the pipeline to the interior. In between, it shows the impact of modernization brought about by the development of oil, from the locals' point of view. And the resentment caused by the
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Oct 30, 2010
Anwar
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This Novel one of the best arabian novels which try to give a panoramic picture of the arabian community before and after the oil and how they reacted, acted and surprised with all dramatic and fast changing happening around them, and how it was too much to be consumed for some of them. It is a mixture of stories of people, land, animal and wether and how this unknown part of world changed in short time to be the center of attraction. The author of this novel had difficult times while he was wr
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Oct 26, 2010
Chris
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This is the Lorax spread over 600 pages and it doesn't rhyme. I really wasn't crazy about this book. Very repetetive. Alot of complaining but very little action...I guess like real life. The book was big on Karma. Showed how the bedoin moved from being in small communities where everything stayed the same to adapting to a world where new influences were constantly being introduced and the stress that globalization causes these communities.
This book takes so long to get...I can't rememb More...
This book takes so long to get...I can't rememb More...
Jul 30, 2010
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1248467.html[return][return]A rather tough read about the arrival of the American oil companies in an unnamed Arab statelet, and the social disruption that this inflicts on the population.[return][return]I like the way in which the "Americans" are shown as alien beings, as the Other in a hitherto stable and settled society; I think that being shown oneself (and for these purposes I am certainly an "American") as others see one is always a good th
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Mar 25, 2010
Chris
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Sort of the Grapes of Wrath of the Arabian Peninsula. Munif's descriptions of the socio-economic changes brought by an American oil company on the Arab Bedouin communities are superb. Excellent translation. Brings the history of oil politics and the effects of early oil exploration in the Persian gulf alive. It's refreshing to read an Arab perspective. If you are interested in reading some Arab fiction this is highly recommended.
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Jan 14, 2009
Tyler
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read this book. i compare it somewhat to an arabian things fall apart (the oasis and seaside communities face drastic upheaval with the arrival of the western oilmen) but then also to an arabian faulkner-ite yoknapatawpha county - really the whole fictional country is the county - filled with a multitude of great characters with a story that meanders through the destruction of an oasis community to the gulf coast and the development of port city that rapidly grows sucking in money and workers an
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Jan 31, 2011
Anne
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I benefited from this book's perspectives on many themes of Arab culture. It takes a village perspective on the terrible cost of the oil industry on the lives of the people who lived in the region. Some of the passages went on a bit, but it was well worth while overall, with moments of true poetry.
Oct 12, 2010
Kathleen
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interesting reading as it is about an country that changes when oil is discovered; characters have a totally non-American/European outlook on life as they view changes to their culture and country. Book is Points up very wide divide from traditional Arab viewpoint to modern-world view
Apr 19, 2011
Jean
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This was a hard book for me to read. It seemed terribly foreign, but all along, I could tell I was reading a masterwork. Still, I didn't too much care for it although I'm genuinely interested in reading about Saudi Arabia, Aramco, etc.
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Dec 12, 2007
This story describes the early years of American oil extraction from the point of view of the natives in the fictional Middle East country disrupted by the upheaval.
I'm still slogging through this one. It's billed as an Arab novel. If this is a solid example, the term is as oxymoronic as "British Cuisine." I'm not tickled with the way characters are introduced. First they appear as a new name. You're scratching your head. Is this someone who's already been mentioned? A More...
I'm still slogging through this one. It's billed as an Arab novel. If this is a solid example, the term is as oxymoronic as "British Cuisine." I'm not tickled with the way characters are introduced. First they appear as a new name. You're scratching your head. Is this someone who's already been mentioned? A More...
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Oct 20, 2011
Eric
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An interesting novelization of the changes that took place in the Arabian Peninsula as the post-war oil boom displaced the local culture, written from the Arab perspective.
Oct 10, 2011
Phil
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Stunning novel about the corrupting effect of money on the Arab Peninsula. Brilliant.
Aug 04, 2011
Rick
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A beautifully written, subtle novel on the heartbreak of how treasured ways of life can be quietly, inexorably stolen away. In this case, a desert people slowly lose all things valuable to them by a lack of understanding, by bribes and cajoling, by threats of force. At the end, they wonder what has happened, with only the bitter taste of sand in their mouths.
It's a slow read, and seemingly endless, but if you are looking for an insight into the clash of culture told from the losing end More...
It's a slow read, and seemingly endless, but if you are looking for an insight into the clash of culture told from the losing end More...
Feb 20, 2008
matt
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Two very literate and worldly Arab-American friends of mine told me that this is the quintessential novel for (something like) the Arabic experience. Each of them knew the view from the other side, and there was certain consensus that this was indeed the book to read.
It's a panoramic tale of one unnamed Arab country being invaded by anonymous Westerners who have found oil. The social roles break down in a variety of powerful, dramatic, and incisive ways.
Took me aw More...
Oct 16, 2010
Asher
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Cities of Salt is an incredible novel, unlike anything I have ever read. I could not imagine it as possible for this book to not enchant any and every reader.
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Jan 25, 2011
Victoria
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Read this book and then look at Dubai. I dare you.
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Aug 04, 2011
Lauren
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finished Cities of Salt last night. What a rewarding read. The subject is the coming of the oil industry to Saudi Arabia and the complete destruction of Bedouin culture - not unlike Achebe's Things Fall Apart. There is something elegiac about this novel - it almost feels geologic - I don't know how else to express it - the sense of something shifting slowly and irrevocably. Fantastic book.
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Aug 19, 2007
Lesa
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Anyone who wonders why so many people from Syria to Ras-al-Khaima hate Americans should read this book. About a village on the Arabian Gulf. They live simply and in tune with their land. Then one day their sheik sells them out to these big, sweaty, pink guys who arrive with kooky machines. Cultural mayhem ensues. Displacement, bewilderment, traditions and families torn asunder.
Jul 25, 2011
Oss
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Very gradual advance in the storyline but incredibly detailed in its description of setting, feelings, atmosphere etc. It's also very accurate in terms of cultural reference.
Apr 29, 2010
Lauren
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It took a while to get through this lengthy novel but well worth it. It's an arab's story about the arab experience of colonization/globalization of the oil fields of the Middle East the and disruption it causes the cultre and people.
May 18, 2007
Jill
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Unidentified middle eastern country, nomadic, raw, bleach-white American army comes in hunting for oil. It was beautiful and strange to read -- compelling with the "banned in Saudi Arabia" stamp of approval, and timely.
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