The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to figuratively pack up your tent and plop it down in a distant, exotic land, you'll find this book fascinating. Tahir Shah decided to give up his comfortable but boring life in the fog and rain of London and transplant his family to Casablanca. He buys a decaying but stately mansion in Morocco and sets about fixing it up. On the surface Morocco has many trappings of the Western world, but in fact, Shah quickly finds that virtually nothing works in Morocco the way it does in London. This charming book describes the vicissitudes and victories, both minor and major, of Shah's first year living in Morocco.When Shah arrives in Morocco, he sets about trying to return Dar Khalifa (the Caliph's house - his new home) to its former grandeur. His view initially is that while some of the customs and rules of Morocco are different, once he figures them out he'll have no problem restoring his house and settling comfortably into life in Morocco. Little does he anticipate that his success in Casablanca will ultimately require him to understand and, at some level, appreciate an entirely different world view. Things in Casablanca simply don't work like they do in London.Shah describes a wealth of differences between Moroccan culture and the Western world. Superstition and the belief in evil spirits, dealing with the police (wow!), dealing with the bureaucracy, dealing with organized crime, fanatic Islam, labor relations, buying materials (there isn't any Home Depot around!) and a host of other issues confront and confound Shah as he sets about his task. There are many problems, but along the way he makes many new (and true) friends and experience a life that is alien to London. There is also a great deal of humor and tenderness in this story. Shah's grandfather died in Morocco in the 60s and he finds some people that knew him and ultimately obtains his grandfather's diaries.The final chapter in the book is particularly poignant in which Shah summarizes some of the huge cultural differences between Morocco and the West. One of the great strengths of the West is that people by and large don't accept their lot in life. They are willing to strive to be more than they are, Shah states that the Moroccans are often content with the situation around them. On the other hand, Shah states that he is so much happier, particularly for his children, in Morocco as they are free from the Victorian guilt inflicted on them and their children by generations of tradition in England.This book in other reviews is often compared to Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. It is a much better book than the latter in part because the gulf between London and Casablanca is much bigger than New York/Nice. Shah is also a much better writer than Mayle in my view. For the dreamers who want to pull up the tent pegs and make a total change but for one reason or the other never quite got the gumption, this story is a highly readable account of someone else's journey. Highly recommended.

Until fifty or so years ago, the paradigmatic "travel" book was an account of a solo adventurer's trials and tribulations traveling to and through relatively unknown and often moderately dangerous foreign lands, surviving on a shoestring and his or her wits and character. The best of these books made for exciting reading. As the world has gradually become smaller and more westernized, travel books have gradually become tamer and less exciting, so that by now the paradigmatic "travel" book is practically domestic in nature. It recounts a stretch of time, often a year, during which the author, often with family in tow, actually takes up residence in a foreign city or region -- for example, Peter Mayle in Provence, Adam Gopnik in Paris, and innumerable Brits and Americans in Tuscany. The best of these modern travel books are pleasant and many are instructive, but (alas) they never are exciting. THE CALIPH'S HOUSE: A YEAR IN CASABLANCA is another of these contemporary "domestic" travel books, although the setting, Morocco, is more exotic than Provence, Paris, or Tuscany.In THE CALIPH'S HOUSE, Tahir Shah tells the story of moving his family (wife and two very young children) from the U.K. to Casablanca and into a dilapidated, rambling old house and compound (rumored to once have been the residence of a caliph), which he then spends a year restoring. The restoration is complicated immeasurably by what seems like the ten plagues of Egypt, including rats, mysteriously appearing slime, hordes of workmen who seem to want to move in rather than finish their work, and (worst of all) jinns. The book is driven by the recurring cultural clashes and misunderstandings between the rational and efficient Tahir Shah and the Moroccans, with their propensity to blame all mishaps and misfortune in the world on jinns, their absurdly byzantine bureaucracy, and their stubborn adherence to traditional, centuries-old ways of doing things. Rather than relying on his own wits to overcome the obstacles he encounters, Tahir Shah gets by on seemingly inexhaustible financial resources and the savvy of his street-wise Moroccan executive assistant, Kamal. Far from the heroic adventurer, Tahir comes across as a bit of a doofus. The only person of heroic or noble character that we are introduced to is Tahir's deceased grandfather, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, a Pashtun Afghan who lived his last years in Morocco after a career as a diplomat, world-traveller, and writer.Tahir Shah's writing is above average, but hardly distinguished. THE CALIPH'S HOUSE makes for a pleasant and instructive read, but nothing more. It did, however, end up coloring my view of Morocco. Before reading the book, Morocco was fairly high on my wish-list of places to go; it is now a few slots lower on the list.

A confession: I adore Morocco. It is a place of dreams, beauty and ideas that are foreign and lovely. The food is fresh and fragrant with spices. As a tourist, a people watcher and a scholar, I have studied the place. So when I picked up the Caliph's House, I expected to return to the place of my dreams and spend a week enjoying the book. Instead, I met a new and different Morocco of workers, customs and household djins never before encountered.The story line involves a Londoner of Afghan descent who moves his young family to a rundown but beautiful estate home just outside a bidonville of Casablanca intending to restore the house to its former glory. Work proceeds, or not, based on a complicated system of beliefs and customs that we learn about through a series of work stoppages, destructions and contractors. As it turns out, the house comes with three longtime resident guardians who have much advice that varies as to usefulness and self-servingness. Some of this is laugh out loud funny and some provides deep cultural insights. I knew nothing about djins before reading this book and the author knew nothing about them before writing it. Nonetheless, if you have djins in your toilets or wells, there is hell to pay.This is a beautifully written book replete with cultural context and human concerns. It evokes a powerful sense of place. It is also by turns hilarious and deeply moving. In the end, it is a delightful book that is also insightful about working class Moroccan life.