An academic viewpoint of Mrs Mallowan and archeology

I've just discovered Charlotte Trumpler. She gave an excellent speech about Agatha's role in supporting Max Mallowan, including how they met. I can use some of the information. There's also a very good photograph of Agatha at the Baron Hotel, which is copyrighted to John Mallowan.

This item comes from the Assyrian International News Agency 2011 (wouldn't she love that she's still notable in Arabic circles?). Charlotte Trumpler.

I will research this further to find out about an exhibition organised by Ms Trumpler.

Futility, folly and foolishness

The depths of doubt are deep and gloomy and that is where I am residing after spending 4 weeks carrying out perfunctory research for the Project. I am going to come clean as no-one is reading this but me. I am a long-term writer-in-waiting. One of the many people out there who knows that they can write a good sentence every now and then and hopes that one day they might get at least an article published. The Project was going to be my Book. It might even be serialised on TV, although I'm neither attractive enough or sufficiently famous to be the presenter thankfully. Now I feel very foolish, because the Project, the Big Idea, the Book has already been done! Andrew Eames followed Agatha Christie's initial journey to Baghdad in 'The 8.55 to Baghdad', published in 2004. I have two weeks almost to myself as I house-sit for a friend in deepest Norfolk. My friend's partner has lent me Andrew Eames' book which I will read with gritted teeth. Not only has he written something that may make my Project redundant, but he was a well-known journalist at the time and has won a travel writing award for his endeavours. How can I compete? Should I compete? Is this all folly and foolishness? Does any of this really matter?

There is a glimmer of hope down here in the depths. His book does not cover the journey that I planned, which is from London to Chagar Bazar using the Orient Express to Istanbul, travel to Aleppo (still have to figure out how she did that) on to Beirut where I would need to find a driver to take me to Chagar Bazar. I've read somewhere that there may be another dig taking place there now. Could I get a job with them? I need some method of raising the money to do this journey and it looks extremely unlikely that any publishing or production company would be in the slightest bit interested. I still feel committed to this project. I'm very nervous about contacting her family and other people who have already written and published about Ms Christie. I would love to do the journey, but am I brave enough? It's encouraging that Mr Eames first thought of his retracing journey in the autumn of 1999, but didn't actually start until about 2002. These things take time.

They Came to Baghdad

Finished the second book on the list earlier this week. They Came to Baghdad (1951) is not a classic. It reminds me of an Enid Blyton book written for 'young gels'. It's difficult to relate to the protagonist, Victoria Jones, or Viccy as she is referred to by her pash, Edward. She's young, naughty, a bad shorthand-typist (I can relate to that), in 1930s terms, plucky and irreverent. But still of good stock since she's accepted wherever she goes in Iraq, including the British Consulate in Basrah. It's not a great read, but it is interesting from the perspective of my project. Ms Christie loved the Middle East and archeology and she must have relished writing the descriptions of Victoria's walking tour of Baghdad. It's one of the best parts of the book. After a strange kidnapping segment, our Viccy is rescued by an unlikely hero called Richard Baker. He's an archeologist and takes her to a Dig called Tell Aswad. I'm not sure if this is a real place, so will have to look it up on a map at some point. A small town called Mandali is nearby, if it isn't fiction.

Victoria finds the Dig to be a sanctuary from the undercover adventures she'd become involved with after making her way to Baghdad from London by devious means. Again, this description rings true and must reflect Ms Christie's own experiences while working with her husband, Max Mallowan. Written after WW2 and more than 10 years since she had spent those happy months in Syria and Iraq, I imagine that she would have been filled with nostalgia as she wrote those pages. Like Ms Christie, Victoria makes herself useful by developing photographs. I wonder who the book was written for, as she refers to Nazu pottery and the 'antika room'; terms which I don't know and would not expect the majority of readers to know either. Still, good fiction should educate too.

It's interesting to read the descriptions of Baghdad and Bashrah - places that were so different to the UK culture, but yet had their charms as described by Ms Christie. Now all we think about is war and violence. I would love to visit the places she refers to in the novel, but I would expect it is too dangerous just now.

Meanwhile, I've started Murder in Mesopotamia. This looks like a rich fund for my project as the story is set in an archeological dig. Hmmm.