Louis L'Amour's The Walking Drum

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

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ar reading also increased Kerbouchard's knowledge of and appreciation for the holy book of Islam: "At various places in the volume were quotations from the Koran, and these I memorized" (19). If there is one feature of the hero's praise for the Arabic world and its culture which is most repeated and brings out his most lavish praise it is his found in his descriptions of the magnificent cities of the Arabic world. He clearly sees these urban centers as the heart and soul of the Arabic culture. Again he compares the Arabic world with the world from where he comes and again the Arabic world shines far more brightly: . . . I was amazed. Never had I seen a city or anything more than the villages along my native coast. . . . We passed under the great gate at Malaga. . . . Above us towered the walls of houses, their high windows screened by alabaster. . . . We next passed through a bazaar. . . . Carpets from Isfahan, pearls from Basra, enameled leather from Cordoba, linens from Salamanca, silks from Granada. . . . (28). The hero is astonished at what he sees, but his companion tells him that other Arab cities--Cordoba, Baghdad, Damascus, Alexandria--are even more magnificent than Malaga. To be fair to L'Amour, he does not give us a

Category: Literature - L