Banality of Excess
Reviewed by Sheryl Ga Feldman
Too Rich: The High Life and Tragic Death of King Farouk
William Stadiem
Carroll & Graff Publishers, Inc.
New York 1991
405p
Search though one might, it’s difficult to find good things to say about the King Farouk, the last king of Egypt (1917-1952).
"It was singularly unfortunate,” Derek Hopwood writes in Egypt, Politics and Society 1945-1990, that when {Egypt] most needed strong and efficient leadership Farouk was King…”
The New York Times obituary was less kind, “One could pile up pejorative adjectives like sybaritic, avaricious, lustful, greedy …”
William Stadiem, the author of Too Rich, is more compassionate – sympathizing with Farouk’s poor little rich boy childhood, noting his occasional sneaky plays against British authority and eventually concluding that “he was a leader faced with an impossible task of leadership… The tragedy of King Farouk is that he almost pulled it off.”
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Publically, the army was said to be 200,000 strong. In fact, the largest force that Egypt could actually field was barely 35,000. Although 180,000 recruit were called up each year, 50,000 were exempted for various reasons, 60,000 declared unfit, and another 50,000 evaded service by not responding to the draft. Of the remaining 20,000, only about 5,000 would actually serve their full term.”
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Unless Stadiem is referring to the fact that Farouk could have rounded up the military gang which ousted him before they made their move, it’s hard to imagine what leadership he was referring to.
WASTED OPPORTUNITY
It’s not as if he had no opportunities:
· “He inherited a hundred million dollars, control of nearly seventy five thousand acres of the most fertile soil on earth, two hundred cars, …an air force ,etc" 128. By the end of WWI, Egypt was the richest country in the Middle East.
· The English needed the Suez Canal, thus providing the Egyptians with leverage against their continuing colonization. In WWII, Egypt lay in the middle of one of the pathways to Russia. Italians, Germans, English and French needed its support.
But, In spite of his vast experience of the gaming tables, Farouk played no great leadership hand. To the contrary.
For example, he went to war knowing full well that his military was not adequate (see box). Instead, he donned a Field Marshall uniform and awarded military rank to his sisters. Egypt and the Arab League were roundly defeated.
EXHAUSTING SELF-INDULGENCE
All this would be simply a sad case of a small man encumbered with a large responsibility if it weren’t for his indulgence of his gargantuan appetites: for women, food, parties, practical jokes (he lifted Winston Churchill’s pocket watch, tossed bread balls and dropped ice cubes down ladies’ décolletages), and collectibles. Farouk pleased himself.
Unfortunately for the reader, the glittery parts of the book - the ones that recount his European journeys for example, become the dullest. Even though the author, is an expert in reporting the gilded life – having authored or co-authored a biography of Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra's "right hand man," George Hamilton and Madame 90210: My Life As Madam to the Rich and Famous - his King's excesses exhaust and ultimately repulse. How many oysters on the half-shell can one eat, even virtually?
Farouk’s end, in exile in Italy, over empty dinner plates, seems remarkably just on the individual level. But it was another poke in the eye of the millions of Egyptian fellaheen who went perpetually hungry under his rule.
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