The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami --- A fabulous novel

 The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

A fabulous novel

Although it did not win the Pulitzer Prize, The Moor’s Account has been a finalist and what an excellent book it is.

The story is not that long, albeit it takes us over three continents, including The New World of that age.

The story takes place around the time when Spain conquers the Aztecs, 1527 to be more precise and for the most part it deals with the travels and ordeal of a party of 600 conquistadores at the start that number only…x at the end.

I was going to put a number on that x, but that would be divulging an aspect, which could be important.

At some stages, the novel has reminded me of the great film Aguirre, for the leader of the expedition has some of the madness portrayed by Klaus Kinski, under the direction of Werner Herzog.

The Castilians plan to conquer La Florida for the crown and become rich in the process from the gold they are sure to find.

Alas, pretty soon it becomes clear that there is no gold and the little they find serves only to make them dream of riches.

They encounter Native Americans and they deal harshly with them, for these “civilized „Europeans are used with slaves.

In fact, The Moor from the title is the absolute hero of the book and he is a slave from Morocco, who sold himself in order to help his family survive.

For the first chapters the story goes back and forth between La Florida and Morocco, up to the point where Mustafa ibn Muhammad is sold for the second time to his present owner who takes him to the New World.

The Castilians call him Estebanico and his adventures are equal to anything else that has been put in print or on screen.

As I write this I realize that a movie would probably be made based on this spectacular work that has everything.

There are battles, cruelty, the Indians are tortured with a hammer from the early stages, the in some tribes the Natives turn on to the intruders and kill a number of them, the conquistadores kill and even eat each other.

This does not happen en masse, there are some isolated cases where fugitives, or just some explorers stranded without food eat first the corpse of a mate and then one kills a few of the others for their…meat.

After the first clashes with the Natives, the Spaniards start dying because they are killed but also because of fever and other diseases.

It is a well-known historical fact that the populations of the Aztecs and other indigenous peoples have been decimated not as much by violent action- which although it happened it was less effective- as by the diseases brought by the Europeans.

Without food and water, the intruders had to rely upon the Natives for their survival and they stole or at various stages begged or worked for their nourishment.

In the first villages they raped women and killed the Indians, only to have suffering and death bestowed upon them later.

They did not know their way and tried in vain to find a way back to a harbor and the ships with supplies and colleagues.

A group of four has reached a high point in their life in the wild, when on account of the cures administered chiefly by Mustafa aka Estebanico, the four became respected as some kind of shamans with supernatural powers.

They even gathered a following of over a thousand people travelling around with them, who end up trapped by the Spanish.

This is when a life of privilege and even worship turns sorrow by a stroke of bad luck, in the form of some glass right in the middle of nowhere.

At various stages I wondered why the hero does not take a different course and just jump ship so to say, but then it is easy to figure out strategies from the comfort of an armchair- or at the pool where I read most of this book.

Finally, there is something really interesting happening, which I am not about to disclose, but I will say this- this book will keep you fascinated to the very end.