Salam Pax — blog to book
The first chapter of The Baghdad Blog by Salam Pax is now online in PDF form. The presentation is a pleasure to read. It begins with a half-dozen quotes of praise from institutions as disparate as Italy's La Stampa, nano-publishing's Nick Denton and sci-fi great William Gibson, who makes the following excellent point: "The fact that English is not his first language actually underscores his gifts of observation and expression; he'll write 'around' his own uncertainty of usage, and get it right on the button."
Then comes a fine pre-war map of Baghdad, which is invaluable for navigating one's way through the story, and this is followed by a most pertinent observation from Samuel Huntington:
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
Ian Katz, Features Editor of The Guardian, who was a major champion of Salam from the moment he discovered his blog, contributes a joyful introduction, in which he says he was immediately struck by the man's irreverence for Saddam's regime: "Whereas foreign journalists needed the Baathist equivalent of a PhD in kremlinology to parse the ritualistic declarations of fealty by ordinary Iraqis for any indication of dissent, Salam treated his rulers with (very) thinly veiled contempt." And then it's into the entries, starting with Saturday, 7 September 2002:
"I'm preparing my emergency list these days — any suggestions are welcome. At the moment I have:Candies
Alcohol (maybe red wine?)
Good books
Crunchy munchiesI think that will get me thru the bombing quite nicely."
:: salam pax 12:52 pm [+] ::
From then on, the final days of a long dictatorship are sketched by a writer who deserves every bit of the fame that is now his. Note: the PDF of the first chapter of The Baghdad Blog is 24 pages long and weighs 694KB. The promotional site is a credit to its producers, by the way.
Note: The Rainy Day team is travelling. However, Movable Type has been primed and the Rainy Day sister in Limerick is keeping the blog on the road. This combination of nepotism and world-class nano-publishing system will ensure that the site is updated regularly.
Diarist of the day: Derek Jarman, 18 September 1989"Bought Keith Vaughan's Journal and collapsed on the bed with it. Sharing his troubles made me aware how lucky I am. I wish now I had got to know him — but when you are young you do not realise your youth is an asset. I never thought I could do anything but bore him — felt tongue-tied, unsophisticated. He mentions he was coming to my exhibition, but never made it. How he would have spent a pleasant afternoon with a group of us. The last days of the journal are so bleak — the description of the wasps devouring the pears in his garden, flying like bullets; and he, barricaded inside, unable to enjoy a perfect autumn day."
