Kingdom of the Film Stars: Journey into Jordan - Softcover

Caulfield, Anne

3.35

48 ratings by Goodreads

9780864424617: Kingdom of the Film Stars: Journey into Jordan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0864424612 ISBN 13: 9780864424617

Publisher: Lonely Planet, 1997

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Kingdom of the Filmstars is a travel book and a love story. With honesty and humour, Anne Caulfield writes of travelling in Jordan and falling in love with a Bedouin. Her book offers fascinating insights into the country - from the traditional tent life of nomadic to the first woman MP's battle with fundamentalist colleagues. Kingdom of the Filmstars unpicks some of the tight-woven Western myths about the Arab world, but it is not an impersonal analysis: Anne Caulfield presents cultural and political issues within the intimate and immensely readable framework of a compelling love story.

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Review:

"The hotel I wanted had no address." Thus begins Annie Caulfield's journey through Jordan, an odyssey inspired by an intrepid female traveler from an earlier time, Gertrude Bell. But whereas Gertrude went to the desert to forget a love, Ms. Caulfield discovers one there--Rathwan, a Bedouin man with film-star looks. In her sympathetic exploration of modern Arab culture, Kingdom of the Film Stars, Annie Caulfield attempts to present a more benign image of Arab men than either the fantasy sheikh made famous by Rudolph Valentino or the callous manipulator of innocent Western women/kidnapper of children so often portrayed in modern news stories, films, and books. In this bittersweet account of her relationship with Rathwan, she largely succeeds.

Though the love affair between Caulfield and Rathwan is at the heart of Kingdom of the Film Stars, Caulfield's beautiful portrait of modern-day Jordan is what distinguishes the story, inviting readers into the mysterious, vanishing culture of the Bedouin. As she weaves her tales of Jordan's history, people, and politics, Annie Caulfield also destroys many of the West's most cherished misconceptions about the Arab world.

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