I am always happy to read books written by former colleagues. David Craig has produced an unexpected, entertaining, but “complex” autobiography. His “FOOTLOOSE. Ramblings of Itchy Feet” is organized into nine Chapters: Innocence Lost; Escape to Europe and Beyond; Sweating in the Tropics- Papua New Guinea (PNG); Communism Implodes; Midlife Crisis; Enamored of Africa; the Ottoman Empire Updated; Edith My Mother-in-Law; and Life in the Global Village. As a contemporary in the same institution with David, I read the book knowing that a sterling and brilliant career was just one of several solid anchors of his reminiscences.
What makes “FOOTLOOSE” most interesting are the 130 anecdotes or Sections that make up the nine Chapters. These are all, cleverly and humorously-written “ramblings” that give body and texture to David’s story. Funny most times, David gives the reader glimpses of his soul in the stories of his adolescence, his school and college years, marriage, parenting, family, and travel. I related to several of the anecdotes including the experience of “Exorcizing the House” with the ups and downs of working with architects and contractors; and “The World Ends Not with a Bang” on being informed of the passing of a parent. I related very much to the anecdote on “Old Habits Die Hard” where David writes about how hotel rooms and floors were bugged by language in Homs, Syria, and guests assigned rooms based on the language they spoke. I had experienced the same in Libya. Unknowingly, I had requested a change in rooms to another floor and different view in a largely empty hotel. I was told this was impossible. I enjoyed the names of so many other anecdotes. Who cannot smile or laugh out loud with titles such as “Condoms in my Butter”; “The British Empire Has a Lot to Answer For”; “The Pith Helmet Lives To Fight Another Day”; “Antarctica, Shaken, Not Ice”; “The Spooks Who Dropped By For a Chat”; “My Best Friend Duke”; “Don’t Swim During Nasrallah’s Speech” ; and “How I became a Pastafarian”.
I LOVED the book.
But then I HATED IT. Hate is too strong a term to use. I know it takes a disciplined mind to sit and write 130 anecdotes of a life, to reflect on and edit them, rewrite them, often discard them, put them in a sequence, and tell a story of a consequential personal life journey. This is hard to do even when one is modest, does not blow one owns horn, but rather steps back from being a witness to key events to write a funny travelogue of sorts. As interesting and engaging as I found the style of writing, I was sometimes slightly irritated, knowing full well that storytelling and how we remember events in our lives, is never as neat as sequential Chapters of beginning, middle and end. I surmised that David and his editors tried to do both. But a continuous voice in the midst of many happenings was missing. Sometimes when that continuity was broken, it changed the spirit and tone in reading and caused some frustration.
My disappointment is that David Craig did not write the book that I wanted and expected him to write, and that is certainly unfair. Very evident in these “footloose ramblings of itchy feet” is the potential for a more “serious” book. I want to read more about his life in New Zealand, his work in PNG, West Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, and his encounters with the statesmen and scoundrels who were the movers and shakers of our world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
J.R.R. Tolkien Blaine Edwards, and Antoine Merriweather are correct when they say, “Loved it, Hated It”.
His story, despite an attempt not to conform, does have a traditional beginning, middle, and end. But the threads and linkages could have been stronger and more obvious for the casual reader. The cleverness of the writing and the sometimes randomness of the anecdotes, could be a distraction.
Mixed emotions, Yes indeed, but more often than not, I would like the book, even if I disagreed with the point of view or take of the author. I would have enjoyed the book because of the style of writing, the prose, the turn of phrase, the command of the language, the joy of exploration and the mind’s eye essential to recreation in reading, the genre, the theme, and the power of good storytelling. I would have enjoyed the experience of book reading.
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*David Craig worked at the World Bank from 1984 to 2012, including three terms as Country Director in West Africa, Egypt and West Bank & Gaza. After the Bank he was advisor on the Green Climate Fund and worked on regional refugee issues in Central Africa. He is retired and lives in France.
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