A Barren Legacy? the Arabian Desert As Trope in English Travel Writing, Post-Thesiger
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A Barren Legacy? The Arabian Desert as Trope in English Travel Writing, Post-Thesiger Jenny Owen A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2020 Note on Copyright This work is the intellectual property of the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed to the owner of the Intellectual Property Rights. Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 4 Introduction: Arabia, the Land of Legend ................................................................ 5 Locating Arabia ................................................................................................... 11 Studying Arabia as a country of the mind ............................................................. 18 The Lawrence and Thesiger legacy ...................................................................... 22 Mapping the thesis: an outline of the chapters ...................................................... 27 1. In Literary Footsteps: The Prevalence of ‘Second Journeys’ ............................. 36 A tradition of intertextuality ................................................................................. 42 Learning from the past – Blackmore in the footsteps of Lawrence........................ 47 Writing about the present – Kirkby and Hayes in the footsteps of Thesiger .......... 56 Opportunities for the future – Evans in the footsteps of Thomas........................... 65 2. Desert and Sown: The Narration of Progress and Modernity ............................ 75 Desert but not deserted – the modern Bedu .......................................................... 77 The desert mechanised – car travels in today’s Arabia.......................................... 85 The desert urbanised – city life in desert texts ...................................................... 96 3: Gendering the Desert: Women and Desert Narratives ..................................... 114 Where are the women? Western women’s travels in Arabia ............................... 117 ‘Pay, pack and follow’ – the female voice in desert literature ............................. 123 The siren trope ................................................................................................... 130 The ‘veiled best-seller’ ...................................................................................... 133 Desert as an inconstant space ............................................................................. 143 4. Wonderment and Wilderness: Desert Science Writing ..................................... 150 Emergence of science writing from travelogues ................................................. 153 Uwe George and the neo-sublime ...................................................................... 161 Donald Walker’s amateur pursuits ..................................................................... 167 Nigel Winser and a desert needing solution ........................................................ 171 Staging the desert for Western audiences ........................................................... 178 Conclusion: Desert as Shared Space ...................................................................... 184 Narratives of distinction ..................................................................................... 186 Post-tourism and the accelerated sublime ........................................................... 189 The modern secular pilgrimage .......................................................................... 194 Democratisation of the desert experience ........................................................... 199 Barren legacy? ................................................................................................... 203 1 Appendices .............................................................................................................. 208 Appendix A: Author’s Interview with Jamie Bowden, 18 March 2014 ................... 209 Appendix B: Author’s Interview with Mark Evans, 19 March 2016 ....................... 213 Appendix C: Author’s Interview with Nigel Winser, 2 June 2016 .......................... 219 Appendix D: Author’s Interview with Levison Wood, 15 October 2017 ................ 225 Appendix E: Author’s Interview with Mohamed Al-Zadjali, 26 April 2016 ........... 228 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 235 Primary Sources .................................................................................................... 235 Secondary Sources ................................................................................................ 238 2 Abstract This thesis examines the anglophone literature of the recent expeditioners, scientists and travellers who have been inspired to write about their experience of the Arabian desert in the period since 1950. Many of these texts respond to the writing of earlier generations of travellers to the region, and especially to the key desert narratives of T.E. Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger. All the modern texts under scrutiny participate in a rich intertextuality that contributes to an imaginative landscape that exceeds the sum of its geographical parts. This in turn offers an opportunity, exploited in this study, to examine how modern travellers have been able to redefine the wilderness encounter in light of wider discourses concerning postcolonialism, globalisation and ecocriticism, or whether they continue to project primarily Western preoccupations onto the supposed terra nullius of ‘Arabia’. Texts contributing to the desert literature genre are identified and analysed through this study, including work by so-called ‘footstep travellers’ Charles Blackmore and Mark Evans; those drawn to the urban experience within the desert context, including James (now Jan) Morris and Tim Mackintosh-Smith; women desert travellers, such as Adrienne Brady and Marguerite van Geldermalsen, and a number of writers whose travels have taken place since 2010 and whose work helps to throw light on emerging theories such as the ‘accelerated sublime’ – a concept defined by sociologists Claudia Bell and John Lyall and adapted to literary criticism by Graham Huggan. Many of the texts are little-studied combinations of travel and memoir that have hitherto attracted little or no scholarly attention; by bringing them together with more prominent modern desert texts, this thesis aims to establish the existence of a subgenre of Arabian desert literature that both engages with the celebrated canon of literature connected with the region while providing new ways of reflecting on Arab modernity. This thesis contributes new scholarship, therefore, to the study of anglophone travel literature, as reflective of broader cultural discourses, and demonstrates the potential of that literature to contest divisive stereotypes of the Arabian ‘other’. 3 Acknowledgements Director of Studies Professor Tim Youngs, Nottingham Trent University Co-Supervisors Dr. Anna Ball and Dr. Jenni Ramone, Nottingham Trent University There are many people I take pleasure in thanking in the development of this thesis. First and foremost, I am very grateful to Professor Tim Youngs whose generous guidance, depth of knowledge and critical insights have helped bring this work to fruition. I am also indebted to Dr. Anna Ball and Dr. Jenni Ramone who have gently and patiently helped me broaden my scholarly horizons. Working under the guidance of this inspiring supervisory team has been a special privilege. Writing this thesis has been rather like crossing a desert – an adventure in which I have had to confront apparently barren ground but in which seams of productive thought have bloomed unexpectedly in the wilderness. Provoking those thoughts have been the many friends, colleagues (especially Dr. Ahmed Al-Bulushi and Dr. Salim Radhawi) and fellow travellers I have met during two decades of living in Oman and who have generously allowed me to interview them in the context of my professional work in higher education and as a guidebook writer. Specifically, I would like to thank His Excellency Jamie Bowden, Sir Simon Bryant, Mark Evans, Anthony Ham, General Rupert Smith, General Charles Fattorini, Levison Wood, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Tony Wheeler, Nigel Winser and Mohamed Al-Zadjali. The oral and written accounts of these distinguished Arabian desert travellers not only formed the primary inspiration in my wanting to consider the desert trope in modern travel literature but have also demonstrated that the genre is reinvigorated in each new generation. I love the desert and I owe my deep respect of this provoking landscape to my father, the late D. H. Walker, who took my beloved mother and me, nets waving in the wind, across the interior of Saudi Arabia in the hunt for bugs. He went on to write a book on insects, illustrated by one of my three brothers, Allan Walker (a cherished mentor), and the memory of those field trips made an impression