Reviews

Diarios del Sáhara by Sanmao

trinitytang's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny inspiring medium-paced

4.25

as the book was originally in chinese, i must say all qualms reside with the translator rather than the author. i found myself incredibly frustrated with sanmao’s neighbors and husband, only to be told that their interactions were intended to be humorous and satirical. i do not believe the humor translates over to the english version. all the translations are very literal, which means the witty charm does not always carry over. other than that, the stories are very interesting to read. i won’t say this inspired me to travel the world, if anything i appreciate my little suburban neighborhood more now, but it does enlighten you and widen your perspective. 

allbutterbiscuit's review against another edition

adventurous funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

Someone in book club asked whether these stories had inspired us to travel more. I would say, more than inspiring me to travel, Sanmao's stories (and life) made me want to be more generous and daring, and appreciate how funny life can be even when incredibly sad things happen everyday. 

She's generous not only with her few material possessions, but with her time and her heart. I think of how open minded she must have been to travel the world alone as a Taiwanese woman in the 70s, and to settle in an environment so harsh and unfamiliar.

I also admire how quick she was to befriend every kind of person. Her relationship with her Sahrawi neighbors felt genuine. Though she was an outsider and passed judgement as one - both romanticizing and ostracizing - she chose to befriend and know her neighbors in all their complexity, and tells their stories with humanity. Sanmao's observations are candid. She writes on fraught topics without self-consciousness. Despite her outlandish antics, she doesn't strike me as someone whose interest in new people and places is performative. She calls out both the good and the bad as she sees it.

Some impressions from the book (spoilers):

• "The Marriage Chronicles": I loved how she and Jose seemed like true equals and also little kids. They get each other's humor and enjoy rather than begrudge their partner's hard head. A theme that comes up again in "Dilettante Fishermen" is their mutual love of adventure and living in the present. When he gives her a camel skull as a marriage present... I get it Sanmao.
• "Apothecary": I was surprised at the ease with which she accepted becoming the town doctor, as someone who is terrified by that kind of responsibility. But she realizes that, as married Muslim women, her neighbors can't go to see male doctors, so she decides to share her pills and even scrape together her folk medicine knowledge to try and help. Is it admirable or reckless that she uses nail polish to fix someone's cavity? Maybe a bit of both. 
• "Child Bride": I felt so bad for Gueiga. This was an eye opening, if uncomfortable, story where Sanmao observes Sahrawi traditions as an outsider. Just as she navigates her outsider gaze, I questioned my own reading of these scenes as a reader. 
• "Night in the Wasteland": There are downsides to being free spirited, like getting into a little too much trouble and facing higher odds of death by quicksand. Still I'm in awe of her using disassembled car parts and the clothes off her own back to save Jose's life. 
• "The Desert Bathing Spectacle": My mother loved Sanmao's books when she was a college student, but didn't recall all the specific stories. My father unfortunately only remembered this one. 
• "Looking for Love": Salun!!! Please.
• "Nice Neighbors": So many hilarious gems from this one. Like the kid who comes by to borrow her knife and fork every night, even after she gifts him a pair; the goats that fall through the hole in the roof and eat all of Sanmao's bonsai; Gueiga and the borrowed shoes. "I just want to look at your toothbrush. I do not want your husband" lol.  
• "Seed of Death": This story, like the two that open and close the collection - "A Knife on a Desert Night" and "Lonesome Land", read like mystic folk tales. 
• "Hearth and Home": Jose finds out that Sanmao has some backup cash from her father, and she gets really angry, thinking that he dismissed her. It feels like she's tried hard to prove (to herself) that she's made her own luck throughout her life. I also like her inner struggle with wanting furniture despite living a supposedly freewheeling life, and her determination to never move out of El Aaiun to live with the other colonists. I laughed so hard at her and Jose nearly getting caught, stealing flowers from the governor's garden at night. 
• "My Great Mother-in-Law": This was a funny one, written like a meditation on war tactics. If I had to cook for 36 in-laws upon meeting them for the first time, I would simply perish. Sanmao is a much stronger woman.
• "Sergeant Salva": The tension of coming war starts to rear its ugly head all of a sudden in this story. Sanmao meets the Sergeant with disdain, then comes to learn his backstory and feel surprised, and humbled, by his sacrifice at the end. 
• "The Mute Slave": Made me cry. One of the best stories in the book.
• "Crying Camels": Just ugly, ugly war. I expected Sanmao to be strongly supportive of the Sahrawi resistance as a Taiwanese woman. But in the context of Western Sahara, she herself was a foreigner and Spanish colonist, and furthermore, she saw the forces the Sahrawi were up against and didn't want her friends to die for what she saw as a lost cause. 

Highlighted quotes:

• "I wanted a taste of many different lives, sophisticated or simple, highbrow or low. Only then would this journey be worthwhile. (Although perhaps a life plain as porridge would never be an option for me.)"
• "I've always had a lot of energy when it comes to having fun."
• "At any rate, married life is all about eating. The rest of the time is spent making money in order to eat."
• "Back in civilisation, life was too complicated. I wouldn't have thought other people or things had anything to do with me. But in this barren land, fierce winds howling the year round, my spirit was moved by the mere sight of a blade of grass or a drop of morning dew, let alone a human being."
• "I felt that everyone waiting outside, myself included, was depraved. Strange that there are some things people won't change, with tradition as an excuse."
• "I lay about on the ground playing with the artwork of this great nameless man. Words can't express the emotions that were stirring in my heart."
• "'Dilettantes don't need to rely on selling their leisurely pursuits to make a living!'"
• "We didn't have much food ourselves, in reality. What I was able to give him was really too little."
• "She has to change boyfriends frequently, instead of changing clothes."
• "But photos are just a still frame. I didn't know how to photograph this phrase" 'The piece of meat I'm gnawing on already has saliva from three or four people or more.'"

brannonkrkhuang's review against another edition

5.0

I can’t stop reading excellent books apparently, and this one is excellent too.

ellestrike's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

bellep4's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

vesper93's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.25

fleurbleue_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

lucypipper's review against another edition

5.0

con el corazón encogío ☀️

margaret21's review against another edition

4.0

I raced through this book: a page-turning account written in 1976 by a Taiwanese/Chinese woman married to a Spaniard who realised her dream of living for a while in the Sahara Desert: which was in the 1970s still a Spanish protectorate. Sanmao is infectiously enthusiastic, curious, not to say nosy about the Sahwari people among whom she lived, and tells us much about everyday life and culture, and the reality of living in a climate which is in the course of a single day searingly hot and brain-numbingly cold. All this was interesting, but I couldn't warm to Sanmao, whom I found judgmental, even racist, and impetuous to the point of foolhardiness: whether it was opening her mouth without thinking, or driving endless miles in the - deserted - desert with no particular aim. Nevertheless, since I'm unlikely to get to the Sahara, this was an illuminating and immersive account of what life was - and I suspect still is - like there.

felitfelix's review against another edition

4.0

这是我第一次读三毛的作品，非常有意思的轶事，让我们抱着好奇的眼光去观察似乎来自另一个世界的故事——有意思！