My summer vacation always offers me the best opportunity to catch up with my back load of books which I had no time to read during the year. So, in addition to the book I was currently reading, Le Dernier Ange by Robert de Goulaine, I took with me a number of books planning to finish them before I return to America. However, while in Damascus, a visit to the annual book fair at the Assad National Library ended up with purchasing even more books than I can possibly read during two or three vacations to come. This is the syndrome of intellectual greed: deluding yourself to believe that you can really read more books than you practically can ever do. Back to my summer reading; I would say that with the one exception of Le Dernier Ange, all the other books I read were autobiographies of Arab political figures – a political vacation par excellence.
I started with the autobiography of Lutfi al-Haffar, who became the Prime Minister of Syria in 1939 for a short while, and also served as a cabinet minister holding 
various portfolios. His autobiography further illuminates a glorious phase in the history of modern Syria during the struggle to gain independence from the French mandate. However, the one great achievement by Lutfi al-Haffar that will always be remembered by Damascenes was his life-long dedication to bringing fresh potable water to his beloved city. He almost single-handedly was behind the establishment of the Ain al-Fijeh project. Today, the water of Ain al-Fijeh has become an integral symbol of Damascus, and his life story is a good example of how politicians should limit their lives and deeds to pure politics, but most importantly, should leave behind them a legacy that benefits their nation, and give pride to their descendents. By the way, Lutfi al-Haffar is the father of Salma al-Haffar al-Kuzbari, the renowned writer and literary figure whose reputation has probably exceeded that of her father despite the fact that more people drink today the water he brought than those who read the books she wrote.
Next, I read the deeply moving and equally disturbing memoirs of Juliet al-Meer Sa'adeh, also known as the First Lady-Dean (al-amina al-oula) of the Syrian National 
Social Party. It is the story of a young nurse of Arab descent from Argentina who fell under the spell of the mega-charismatic Leader (za’im) Anton Sa’adeh, became a member of his party, loved him, married him, suffered with him, and suffered for him. Her ordeal dramatically increased after he was tragically killed. The book as a whole sheds light on the personality and character of some remarkable figures in Syria’s modern history, but it is also an unintentional condemnation of the messy politics that have infected Syria in that critical juncture of her evolution as a state and nation.
The third book I read with great interest and pleasure was the autobiography of Mansur Sultan al-Atrash, the son of the legendary Druze leader Sultan Basha al-Atrash who led the Great Syrian Revolution of 1925. Mansur himself was one of the early Ba’athist leaders in Syria and served as cabinet minister and revolutionary council member 
several times. His memoirs are rich with details and anecdotes about his childhood and youth in both Jabal al-Arab and Damascus, his student years in France, his membership in the Baáth Party, his struggles against the French and then the Shishakli regime, as well as his relations with the historic founders of the Ba’ath Michele Aflaq and Salah el-Deen al-Bitar. Mansur’s daughter, Reem al-Atrash edited her father’s memoirs with care and love and presented it as an important testament to our generation.
After the excellent Attrash memoirs, I fell on a really bad book. Abdullah Hanna’s history of the beginnings of the communist party in Syria and its historic leaders had some added value from the informative perspective, but as a book, I found it to be incoherent, unorganized, and totally lacking a conceptual approach and a consistent narrative.
Finally I arrive to the captivating memoirs of Muhsen al-Aini, the former Prime Minister of Yemen, and a man of remarkable standing in the modern Arab political 
scene. Needless to say, I have a very keen interest in Yemen that borders on the infatuation, and I have read all major works written about the making of the modern republican Yemen. However, this is the best book as of yet that I have read coming from a Yemeni writer. Al-Aini’s memoirs did not only shed light on the revolutionary years of Yemen and the early stages of the new-born republic, but they also provide a rare insight on inter-Arab relations, rivalries, and petty enmities. Most importantly, they reveal a lot about the relations between Yemen and the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser. On reading about the troubles that Aini and his colleagues had dealing with the acolytes of Nasser, one is stricken by the similarity of the Syrian and Yemeni experiences vis-à-vis Nasser’s men. It is tragic how such a historic figure like Nasser would be surrounded by men that did everything possible, intentionally or otherwise, to undermine his achievements and tarnish his record.
Since all these books constituted an intense political dose, I found equilibrium by balancing them with a book I was reading in parallel to these memoirs: a novel in 
French by Robert de Goulaine which took me to a dazzling universe of stylishness, and artistic bohemian living. It is a fascinating book worth reading for its own merits, but I was particularly grateful that it offered me an antidote to the ‘other’ books - alternating between our harsh political realities, and the most exquisite French corporal, natural and culinary delights. The novel tells the story of Vincent, a young man who befriends and becomes totally influenced by an older artist, Alban, he even falls in love with the same woman Alban loves, Solana, and is also attracted to Isabelle, Alban's mistress. Its is a story of how Alban's life spirals down to its tragic end, and the great impact left on Vincent who attempts to pull his own life back together and regain some sort of normalcy. Le Dernier Ange also follows the best Proustian traditions of the French novel, in which style, evocation, description of the habitat and landscape are integral part of the novel and equally important as the plot and characters are.
