18 July 2007

BEIRUT: Benjamin Orbach is an American writer who is fascinated with the Arab world. This, in and of itself, isn't especially remarkable. Innumerable Western scribes jumped to denote themselves authorities on Arab affairs the moment news reports confirmed that Arab men had piloted the planes the rammed into the World Trade Center in New York. Orbach's interest in the Middle East, however, apparently predates September 11, 2001. And rather than follow events from afar or fashion himself as an armchair expert, he actually traveled to the region, learned the language and shouldered the burden of educating himself beyond what could be gleaned from university courses or Western mass media outlets.

Orbach chronicles his experiences in "Live from Jordan: Letters Home from My Journey Through the Middle East," splicing letters home to his family and friends into a narrative composed of commentaries extracted from his graduate thesis and articles written for American newspapers such as the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. The book, published in April by AMACOM, a division of the American Management Association, is a muddle of personal correspondence and studious analysis, intimate observation and occasional grandstanding.

"Live from Jordan" joins a glut of contemporary travelogues about the Middle East and Islam that have been published in the past few years, from Jason Burke's "On the Road to Kandahar: Travels through Conflict in the Islamic World" to Allegra Stratton's "Muhajababes: Meet the Middle East's Next Generation." In terms of publishing trends, they are positioned several ways at once. They occupy the margins of a robust publishing niche spawned by the US's so-called global "war on terror," which is currently concentrating on the war in Iraq. They are the sister trend to the now-popular book of return, in which first, second and third generation immigrants from the Arab world and Iran return home and record the tug-of-war between cultures. And they may constitute a subset in what Iranian author and academic Fatemeh Keshavarz termed the "New Orientalism" in a recent essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Whatever the case, these travelogues are produced primarily for Western consumption, which puts an interesting spin on their reception in the lands about which they write.

If one reads Orbach's account as a dairy of travels to an unfamiliar (but topical) land, then "Live from Jordan" is a charming depiction of third-world living, of one man's attempt to go beyond stereotypes and get to the heart of a region that Westerners are often reluctant to see much less understand.

However, if the subject is far from unfamiliar, then one will probably find it difficult to dig into Orbach's collection without snickering at the writer's naivete. "Live from Jordan" is teeming with the type of insights that merit praise in the same way counting to 10 merits a toddler a pat on the head from a socialite mom.

The book begins in July 2002, before the Iraq war and after the start the second intifada. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Orbach travels to Jordan for a year-long fellowship. He is 27 at the time, newly graduated from a master's program at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

In Amman, he finds a cheap apartment with a young man named Fadi, a Palestinian without Jordanian citizenship who hates US and Israeli policies but loves Mariah Carey, and who hopes to marry a "Palestinian-American princess" so he can move abroad and live comfortably in the diaspora.

Orbach also befriends Kholood, a female teacher who tutors him in Arabic with her uncle keeping watch. For safety reasons, Kholood warns Orbach not to tell anyone he's Jewish. He meets a Palestinian cab driver who is an ardent REM fan. He meets young men desperate to convert him to Islam. He meets wealthy Jordanians who don the finest fashions and spend their Thursday nights partying at an exclusive club. He undertakes long political discussions in Arabic with everyone from his Arabic teachers to the father of a Palestinian friend over Friday lunch.

Then Orbach continues his journey. He feels at ease in relatively permissive Istanbul. He witnesses an anti-American protest in Aleppo, then enters the city's citadel to watch a crappy American cover band perform inside. He walks arm-in-arm with a female Moroccan college student through the streets of Casablanca. He gets a feel (but not the whole feel) for the difficulties and double-standards that Palestinians face as they cross into the West Bank from Jordan.

Adhering to a US State Department warning of possible danger as a result of the imminent Iraqi invasion, he leaves Amman for Cairo. There, he continues to study Arabic, witnesses a demonstration in Tahrir Square encircled by jumpy Egyptian soldiers, and visits the Birash camel market.

He returns to Amman after the fall of Baghdad, goes back to Egypt, then to Tel Aviv, then to Oman, then back to Egypt. He returns to the US 13 months after his trip began.

Orbach intersperses his account of the places he sees and the people he meets with his analysis of the situation in the Arab world. For this, he resorts to facile, humdrum memes. The non-wealthy in Jordan are "bus riders" (because they can't afford other modes of transport), while the wealthy are "ketchup eaters" (who can afford to buy imported condiments). Terrorists are "America haters" as opposed to mere "policy critics." And he doesn't let up with his groundbreaking observation that Arabs often express admiration for American culture while simultaneously lambasting American foreign policy.

There is copious evidence of Orbach's greenness throughout "Live from Jordan." Do readers know, for example, that not all Arab countries are cultural monoliths? Or that Palestine, despite the fact it's not officially a state, actually exists?

On top of this, Orbach frequently compounds naivety with overwrought attempts at literary profundity and a presumptuous perception of his life-choices. He writes in the introduction that "... it was inside the mosque, beyond the lavishly carpeted floors and ornate handwork, that my emotions were touched." Two pages later, he writes: "[My mission] would be my own personal contribution to the goal of reaching a mutual understanding between my country and the part of the world whose mention elicited anger, fear, and confusion among most Americans I knew."

And yet, despite the triviality, Orbach's ruminations do provide a functional blueprint for how everyday observations crescendo into epiphanies. Orbarch writes a spot-on depiction of beginning Ramadan excited for the festivities but rapidly becoming disillusioned by the holiday's restrictions. A similar process occurs when, through personal observation, he realizes the confining social parameters of traditional Arab society - especially for women. Well-established perceptions such as the fact that Palestinians and Jordanians don't really get along also become less inane and more universal after learning how he came to that conclusion - through long and sometimes arduous conversations.

Orbach does muster up a few legitimately thought-provoking nuggets, as when he points out that Amman residents seem to possess no compunction with littering in public places and uses this to extrapolate that Jordanians - as a result of years of undemocratic governance - don't feel an ownership over their public sphere.

Ultimately, though, appreciation for Orbach's work hinges on reader expectation. If you want to see how the West digests the Arab world post-9/11, you've found your book. If you want nuanced political and social insight, you're better off turning elsewhere. It would be wise to decide before you read "Live from Jordan" whether you prefer the destination - or the journey.

Benjamin Orbach's "Live from Jordan: Letters Home from My Journey Through the Middle East" is out now from AMACOM