About book Travels With A Tangerine: A Journey In The Footnotes Of Ibn Battutah (2011)
This is going to be a really objective review.The book is about an intelligent and witty Englishman who travels through the Middle East in the footsteps of a great Islamic travel writer.Alright, so I lied. I would have given five stars without reading a single page. But I did read it, and I discovered some other reasons for doing so :).Tim Mackintosh-Smith starts out from Ibn Battutah's underwhelming tomb in Tangiers, Morocco, and journeys through Egypt, Syria, Oman, Turkey and the Crimea. Ibn Battutah himself had travelled further than that, even reaching China, but these places offer more than enough material for one book.The author recounts Ibn Battutah's writings, meets people who can tell him more, and then compares what he has heard to his own experiences. This leads to an interesting portrait. You see how difficult it is to travel those routes today, but that it was way more difficult in the 14th century. The perception of travellers, of the importance of culture and religion has changed as well, and it is fascinating to see this documented.Mackintosh-Smith brings his own sense of humour, which is something I always love in a travel writer. He's not offensive, but he is very cheeky at times. In all his observations you can feel his love for the subject, and it is always an enjoyable read for me when I can see that the author enjoyed it.Every now and then, his explanations are accompanied by illustrations, done by Martin Yeoman. They feel like the sort of unfinished sketches you would do if you saw something on a journey and that makes them feel authentic. (I also like it because I can then imagine what the finished painting - or place - might look like and as a result I spend more time with those than with finished paintings.)Mackintosh-Smith has also presented a travel documentary for the BBC that follows this book. After reading this I really want to see it.When Tim Mackintosh-Smith reaches the end of his journey in Istanbul, there isn't a lot of reflection. (There isn't in the rest of the book either. This isn't about finding yourself, it is about tje joy of experiencing foreign places.)Indeed, there isn't even a real goodbye. Mackintosh-Smith seems to think that he will be back in Ibn Battutah's footsteps before long. I would gladly join him. And I can do so, Hall of a Thousand Columns and Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah are out already.
Travels with a Tangerine, Tim Mackintosh-Smith's account of retracing Ibn Battutah's 14th century pilgrimage to Mecca, is a book that falls into the category of topics I love (travel/history writing, modern day recreations of famous voyages) but executions I dislike. I found Mackintosh-Smith's writing overly pedantic and dense. I don't know much about 14th century Arabic history and spent much of the book wishing that Mackintosh-Smith had provided more of a historical overview. Mackintosh-Smith seemed more concerned with a long dead traveler and historical monuments than it was with the modern lands he traveled through, and Travels with a Tangerine lacked the humor that would have helped make it relatable.
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Travels with a Tangerine by Tim Macintosh-Smith is a slow read, but one that I savored. It is a travel book that describes the wonders of travel by following the footsteps of the fourteenth century pilgrim, Ibn Battutah who had “the specific sense of [the]mystical,[and]transcendental” (114). I like when an author introduces new ideas, images, places, and vocabulary in the rich context of history. The lush text reads with a sensual and conversational intimacy. Some of his expressions are new to me, just as they are when one travels. “The air from the Rosetta, or Bolbitine, branch of the Nile was fresh, but the teahouse was fuggy with gossip” (65). Fuggy, I would ask if I was there, but the dictionary is always available to the reader to help clarify-- musty and stale. Highlights: The description of Cairo in the 1300’s (83+), the vivid detail of architectural descriptions throughout, brief discussion on copromania (74), chewing tambul (betel) (234+) or qat, the description and experience of the whirling dervishes (277+). As I was reading about Smith’s experience in Crimea (401+), I coincidentally bumped into a fascinating discussion by Errol Morris on Susan Sontag’s comment about Roger Fenton’s photographs during the Crimean War (http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/... )Overall—Tim Macintosh-Smith provides a richly informative read.
—Beth
It took a while (perhaps more than 50 pages) for me to get into reading this - I put it aside several times for long periods before I was fully engaged.The book describes the author's trip that traces the travels of a 14th century Islamic traveler across North Africa and the Middle East as well as up into the former Soviet Union (Ukraine, primarily) and Turkey. I'm not entirely sure what I found so engaging about this book - I certainly didn't learn anything in a useful sense; while I was reading I felt I was getting some good historical background about this region but as usual I don't remember any of it. Probably I liked the positive way he is able to relate to this region and people in it that simply doesn't happen for me (and won't, since I don't have any of the relevant skills).
—Michael
This book has travelled with me to different countries as it took me months to finish it; I also travelled with the book’s journey following Ibn Battutah’s footsteps. It was a slow start specially the Morocco part I don’t know why it was so hard for me to relate. But when Tim started his journey through Egypt, Syria & Oman I was totally hooked. I learned a lot from this book and it inspired me to dig more into history. I loved how the author kept Ibn Battutah’s quotes at the beginning of chapters.
—Rasha Yousif
