Buckley’s ‘Florence of Arabia’ smokin’
me it was by the same author who wrote “Thank You for Not Smoking” (momentarily forgetting Buckley’s illustrious parentage). That wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for me because while, to be fair, I didn’t read the book, I found the movie particularly loathsome. Boring, boring, boring.
But one morning I found myself without a book to listen to on the way to work, so I turned to “Florence” in desperation. And — surprise! — Buckley had me within five minutes.
Who could resist a tale that’s set in the fictional Arab countries of Wasabia and Matar — pronounced “Mutter,” as we’re repeatedly reminded? A tale with plot devices that include an exploding camel, a race-car-driving royal who cheats his way into winning the annual national race, and double and triple agents who act more like the Keystone Kops? And there’s the indomitable Florence (aka “Firenze,” supposedly her birth name) Farfaletti, a state-department employee (Or maybe former state-department employee? Even she isn’t sure.) whose band of misfits includes a fellow employee of the state who learns another language whenever he gets bored and loves to recount his dreams in many of them, a renegade CIA agent whose plethora of particularly useful talents include transforming himself from a blond Alabaman into a Rastafarian, and a mysterious boss named Uncle Sam.
Florence wants to change the plight of women in the Arab world and decides encouraging them to revolt is the way to do it. To that end, Uncle Sam charges her with starting a Matari television station with the help of the wife of the emir of Matar, to broadcast confidence-building programming to the women of Matar, and Wasabia beyond.
But while the novel is laugh-out-loud funny in spots, Buckley never lets the reader forget the very serious subject of the repression of Arab women and the unspeakable punishments (the stoning and lashing vignettes are particularly poignant) to which they’re subjected whenever they dare to assert even a sliver of the independence routinely enjoyed by their sisters in the rest of the world. The novel is bookended by such episodes even within the royal families, and the book’s principal female characters cannot escape them themselves.
I “read” this book in an audio version (I routinely keep a printed book going at home and an audio book in the car), but I plan to read the print version as well. I’ve learned that the reader gains two very different experiences from listening and reading. And considering the book’s many verbal sight gags, I can’t wait to see the visual ones.
