Heavily religious but nonetheless enthralling travel book (From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium - William Dalrymple)

Member Name: bertles86

Product:	From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium - William Dalrymple
Date:	09/08/09 (9 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Travel writing, historical aspect

Disadvantages: Religousness of Dalrymple

From the Holy Mountain is the third outing of William Dalrymple's writing career, and a highly successful one.

It is very apparent right from the outset that Dalrymple himself is very pious and there a clear religious intonations to his writing style. This, for me, was a new and unexpected genre of reading - religious travel writing. I'm far from religious myself, but I could appreciate Dalrymple's accuracy and descriptiveness of the places, cultures and people he met which were remarkably far ranging from the off.

From the holy mountain itself, is almost a mission as you will note once you finish the book. Dalrymple is in search of the ever diminishing Eastern Orthodox (amongst other denominations) Christian communities in the Middle East which have seen ever increasing amounts of discrimination and outright persecution from other religious groups in the region including the Jews, Muslims and others.

Some of his most moving pieces in the whole book are when he is visiting Lebanon which is still rebuilding itself (both mentally and literally) after the confusing and brutal civil war that gripped the country not so long ago. Discovering that one particular sect of Christians persecuted others just as brutally as any persecution doled out to them clearly shocks the author.

The outcome is a book which will move you whether you are religious or not, I personally read it for the travel aspect and my interest in the region, but the unexpected joy was Dalrymple's historical knowledge being passed onto the reader, not only did I enjoy his travelling stories, I learned things I never knew about the Middle East!

Summary: Overall solid travel writing, just blinkered in some aspects, naive almost.