Gold Dust

                  Gold Dust.  Wow, quite an original little book!  When I first started reading, I thought to myself, “This might be a nice story about a little boy and his beloved camel.  Cool, this resembles our stories of kids with their horses!”  But as I got farther into the story, my feelings changed toward the book.  My feelings toward Ukhayyad especially changed.  In the beginning, I thought he was a little cocky, but I really started to like him when he showed his love for his camel, especially during the gruesome scene where he is dragged through the fields, hanging onto the camel’s tail.  But when he was expressing that everything would be lost and that saving the piebald was worth nothing if his color did not come back as beautiful as before, I thought, “Wow, this kid has got a major pride issue.”  Ukhayyad just seemed to want to be better than others by having this gorgeous Mahri camel, and though he really seemed to love him as his dearest and only friend, his perspective changed when the Mahri lost his beauty.  It seemed that he would not have loved the piebald/Mahri if he had not been just that- a purebred.  I maintained some respect for Ukhayyad, until the part where he devorced his wife and son in order to keep his camel.  The way he referred to women in the novel, especially his own wife, as “deceivers” and “traps” caused me to lose all respect for him.  Even more, he referred to his own little boy as a terrible burden, and not as a privilege. 

                  I think it is wonderful that Ukhayyad loved his animal devotedly, but this devotion meant nothing if he could not devote himself to his own family, nor see the love and friendship they could offer him.  Granted, he seemed to find this out after he had already divorced his wife, but the fact that he even came to that decision amazed me.  Oh, well, I guess I will have to see how the book ends!