The Lives of Shadows: An Illustrated Novel by Barbara Hodgson - first published in 2004
Books set in Syria proved very hard to find and when this one arrived and I saw it had been circulated round 4 libraries but had only been issued 5 times in 6 years I wasn't very optimistic. However I was pleasantly surprised. The book has the appearance of a personal journal and that is the story really. Julian Beaufort visits Damascus in Syria while on a tour of the Middle East in 1914. He falls in love with a house called Bait Katib and the owners sell it to him. He agrees to buy it and says he is happy for them to remain living in the house. However he has to return to England to raise the funds to buy it and then the First World War breaks out and he is forced to enlist in the army. In 1917 he is badly injured and it takes him until 1925 to recover sufficiently to return to Damascus by which time the previous owner and his wife have died. He arrives during the French shelling of the city to quell a revolt by the Druze. Bait Katib survives the bombing but no one knows what has happened to Asilah, the daughter of the previous owners. However it turns out she was shot dead during the revolt and that her ghost is living in the house. Fast forward to 1945 and a distant relative of Asilah is trying to gain possession of the house. Asilah writes entries in Julian's journal to support his claim to the house. These are included in the book but they are all in Arabic! There are also lots of plans, cuttings from newspapers and photos but these are all in French or not labelled at all, so although they add to the book visually, they do not add to the story. I thought the story was as listed above until the very last page, which throws the whole story into doubt! 6/10
12th January 2011
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