Travel: Travelling companions should be chosen with great care, as much for literary adventures abroad as for fly-drive holidays. If you found Jason Webster a congenial guide on his "journey in search of flamenco" in the critically acclaimed Duende, you will probably enjoy this new book.
If, on the other hand, you found he made you irritated and queasy by turns, as I did, you will find similar flaws here. The text screams for more editing. Webster's insistence on saying everything three times is unchecked. There is a jarring tackiness in the tone when sex rears its head, which it often does.
There is more substance here than in Duende, undoubtedly, but not enough, not nearly enough, to measure up to the enormous challenge he has set himself - "unlocking the secrets of Moorish Spain".
This is unfortunate because the theme could not be more timely. Spain's key role in the current dialogue of the deaf between Islam and "the West" has suddenly come into sharp focus with the radical decision by the new Spanish government to withdraw troops from Iraq. This role is not new - it is no coincidence that Madrid was chosen for the 1991 Middle East peace conference, which opened the door to the Oslo peace process. The last Spanish government's neglect (contempt might be a better word) of Spain's historic links with Islam has cost the country dearly.
The basic facts that made Madrid an auspicious site for the peace conference are well known, though often, as Webster points out, under-emphasised. Spain was a largely Islamic country with a predominantly Arabic (and Berber) culture from 711 AD until the end of the 12th century. The last and brightest jewel in the Iberian Islamic crown, Granada, was only taken by the Christians in 1492. To this day, Spain retains enclaves in Morocco, and the 50-odd kilometres of coastline from Algeciras to Tarifa is the European Union's front door - or frontier fortress, take your pick - facing the Arab world.
The degree to which Islamic Spain moulded subsequent Spanish culture is a thorny question, both because of its political implications and because it is by any standards a deeply complex issue. But Webster is undaunted by the dimensions of his subject. He plunges into it after reading a children's fable about Musa the Moor. Musa made his priceless treasures seem like worthless stones so that the conquering Christians could not benefit from them.
The idea that traces of a glorious Moorish legacy can be found all around the country dawns on Webster's mind. What is surprising is that he finds this idea, well, surprising. As he knows - he has already written about it in Duende - the Alhambra of Granada is one of the most visible monuments of Islamic, European and world architecture. So are the Great Mosque of Cordova and the Giralda of Seville. First-time visitors on package tours know this, so it is a mystery as to why it should be news to a writer who has studied Iberian Arabic poetry at Oxford. Unless, of course, proclaiming the obvious as a revelation just happens to help sell books.
Convinced that "the key to understanding \ now lay within my hands", Webster heads off in search of hidden treasure. To be fair, his definitions are very broad. He starts by leaping boldly into the epicentre of contemporary Arabic Spain, the hellhole agricultural labour camps of Almería, where illegal Arab immigrants often suffer conditions akin to slave labour.
Here, in a dramatic opening chapter, he meets Zine, a young Moroccan who is, or should be, the real protagonist of the book. Zine's street-fighting skills save Webster from farmers armed with baseball bats and hand-guns. He is given the role of the author's reluctant sounding-board on matters Moorish in a journey that criss-crosses southern and central Spain and Portugal. Zine's relationship with a Spanish woman, and the trauma of her ensuing pregnancy, become metaphors which cannot bear the weight of representing European-Arab tensions, but do have a certain tenderness in themselves.
Along the way, the encounters range from the engaging to the banal. One of the most fascinating should have been with the villagers of Belmonte, who kept their Jewishness a secret for centuries. But it is thrown away, because Webster puts most of the story in the mouth of an American tourist straight out of central casting, while his own attention is distracted by her outsize breasts.
The narrative is constantly interspersed with Webster's musings on Spanish and Arabic etymology. His interpretations are often speculative, though interesting enough initially if you speak either language. But they are likely be tedious to a reader who doesn't. To learn that so much of a Latin language is built with Arabic bricks is curious the first time you hear it, but here it is repeatedly presented as a fresh insight long after the point has gone stale.
The really interesting questions are what the cross-fertilisation between these great cultures means in historical terms, and whether that carries any lessons for today. No-one should demand definitive answers from a single book, but the light shed here is intermittent and unfocused.
The sharpest critique of the whole enterprise comes from Zine.
"What do you want?" he asks Webster. "Do you think you can recreate Cordoba \ just by driving around Spain with a moro in the passenger seat?"
The author's response says a lot: "Cheeky bugger, I thought."