Although Louis L'Amour's The Walking Drum is clearly meant to be an epic adventure yarn, L'Amour just as clearly has written a work meant to praise Arab culture, its dominant religion Islam, and its many contributions to the development of Western civilization. This study will examine L'Amour's novel and its descriptions of how essential Arabic culture was to scholarship and the exchange of ideas in 12th century Europe. L'Amour usually does not abstractly describe these contributions but connects them meaningfully to the education and character development of the protagonist, Mathurin Kerbouchard. The study will focus on the relationship of Arabic culture and Kerbouchard's identity and the achievement of his objectives.
Again, L'Amour is not primarily writing a study of the history of the Arabic culture and people or its contributions to Western civilization. The great bulk of the book is concerned with macho adventurism, violence, war, hand-to-hand combat, sexual romance, vengeance, heroism--all the fictional elements by which L'Amour gained fame in writing Westerns. Nevertheless, weaving in and out of Kerbouchard's adventure as he seeks his father is the author's obvious and deep appreciation for Arabic/Islamic culture.
As L'Amour writes in the notes following the novel, "Cultural diffusion" from Arabic culture during the Moorish (North African Arabs) occupation of Spain, a part of France, and Sicily, "had much to do with the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe" (465-466). This Arabic influence is brought down to earth in the protagonist's application of it to his own life and needs. He seeks not only his father, kidnapped, enslaved and perhaps already dead, but also his own education and enlightenment. It is no surprise to find the two goals intertwining throughout the book, as if the discovery of his father parallels his discovery of the riches of the Arabic culture. Modern western civilization does not view the Arabic...