Books: The Spiders of Allah
James Hider's atheist romp on the front lines of holy war.
It's a bloody miracle James Hider isn't dead. But then, Hider, the Middle East bureau chief for the Times of London, doesn't believe in divine intervention. Dumb luck has helped the atheist escape all manner of potentially fatal binds: cowering in a Gaza terrorist compound as Israeli warplanes buzz by, fleeing furious Iraqi mobs, and taking shrapnel with an American unit in Fallujah.
This romp through the cradle of civilization—think Hunter S. Thompson meets Christopher Hitchens—takes Hider from suicide bombers' lairs and hardcore Zionist settlements to a mosque in Mosul, where a 7-foot-tall Sufi sheikh insists the British reporter impale himself with a metal skewer. (He's kidding.)
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Indeed, Hider finds plenty of grim humor in the midst of the chaos of Iraq. Beyond the typical narrative of mayhem and missed opportunity, he writes of the magic, rice-eating stones that many Iraqis believed protected Saddam Hussein, and the spiders—an Internet rumor—that insurgents believed Allah had sent to destroy the infidel army. Not to mention Al Qaeda in Iraq's decrees that goats had to be clad in underpants and that grocers could no longer display cucumbers and tomatoes in close proximity (too suggestive).
Mixed in with such oddities is a potent point about the dark side of faith and how things can get disturbingly nihilistic at the nexus of extreme and clashing beliefs. In one scene, Hider talks cars with a Shiite death squad member who extols the virtues of a model whose trunk can fit four bodies. Though much of his reporting captures Iraq as it was before the surge or word of an American withdrawal, Spiders of Allah left me ever more skeptical that the country's sectarian rifts will mend easily. As Hider puts it, "It seems the rational world...will continue to be blindsided in a bloody fashion by the madness within us."
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Comments
Thompson is often credited
Submitted by Chris London (not verified) on Fri Nov. 13, 2009 2:46 AM PST.
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time.
The book is a first hand
Submitted by depression (not verified) on Sat Nov. 28, 2009 8:41 PM PST.
The book is a first hand account of his experiences as a journalist in the Middle East. What a great book - satiric, sad, ironic, and all too honest. I learned many things by reading this book, not only about the Middle East but about the United States as well. I recommend it highly. The US edition will be released by St. Martin’s Press on June 23
Funny - I just heard a bit of
Submitted by cod liver oil (not verified) on Mon Dec. 21, 2009 3:30 AM PST.
Funny - I just heard a bit of an interview with the author of the book and then looked it up online. I came upon the UK edition and then there was a click through to the U.S. version and the cover shown here on this website. It’s something I’ve never understood - why do different countries use different cover illustrations? Certainly good for illustrators as it means there’s that much more work available.
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