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Thesiger’s book is about a time, right after many people thought most of the great adventures had already been had and right before the frontiers of the desert sands were truly closed off. The book was one man’s love affair with the hardship of desert sand and the people who had called it their home -- the Bedu.

I came to this book at a strange time. At a time when one journey was ending and another beginning. Strangely, I didn’t know what to make of the journey that had just ended. I doubted sincerely that it had made me a better person. Thesiger’s book made me rethink that. It made me see parts of Arabia as he saw them in the past, the way the Bedu’s lifestyle came out of the spirit of the desert. So many of my own thoughts found expression in Thesiger’s words. So many of the sentences and paragraphs rang true.

”I wanted colour and savagery, hardship and adventure�� (p. 32) he writes. Perhaps, I could only have these things mediated through Thesiger’s book. I understand these aspirations a little. As I watched the movie “Into the Wild��, I understood the impulse, even though I also knew it could end in tragedy. How many times did Thesiger’s tale almost end in tragedy, but didn’t?

A week after reading this book, I still remember the great pleasure it gave me whenever I sat down to eat or drink something. There are long passages in the book when the author and his compatriots are starving in the desert. As Thesiger writes, ”we seldom spoke of sex, for starving men dream of food, not women, and our bodies were generally too tired to lust.�� (p. 113). After reading twenty or thirty pages, I would sit down to a simple meal and delight in it in ways I wouldn’t have expected.

There are also gems in the book that are as relevant today as they were so many years ago. Thesiger also has the advantage of being able to write bluntly and without reservation in tones and turns of phrases that modern authors might hesitate to use.

On Arab governance, Thesiger writes:

“Arabs rule but do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with the individual men. Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success or failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judge by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by loss of individual freedom.�� (p. 46).

There is a great deal of sympathy in this passage -- and it is the blunt truth as Thesiger knows it, but I hadn’t read anything like it until I read Arabian Sands.

There are three are several other passages I wish to share with you. Passages that I think will make you want to read this book.

”it seemed that the evil that comes with sudden change would far outweigh the good�� (p. 77)

”But I knew that for me the hardest test would be to live with them in harmony and not to let my impatience master me; neither to withdraw into myself, nor to become critical of standards and ways of life different from my own.�� (p. 126)

“It is characteristic of Bedu to do things by extremes, to be either wildly generous or unbelievably mean, very patient or almost hysterically excitable, to be incredibly brave or to panic for no apparent reason�� (p. 150).

”I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control....They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.�� (p. 200).

I read this book on a beach somewhere far away from the deserts of Arabia. In the warm embrace of a beach I once called home, with mojitos aplenty, and the company of others, I regretted little, thought warm thoughts of friends and colleagues past, and looked forward to future adventures. I put this book down and moved on eagerly to another.