Word: seabrook
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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ASYLUM - William Seabrook - Ear-court, Brace...
Three years ago Traveler Seabrook told the U. S. something about Timbuctoo's No. 1 Citizen. Père Yakouba; last week he published the old man's informal but official biography. Written in Author Seabrook's usual man-to-mannish style, The White Monk of Timbuctoo is a racily sympathetic account of an unusual career. Devout Catholics will read it, if at all, as a warning; plain readers, as vicarious adventure...
...languages and for mixing with native Africans made him useful. He took to medieval Timbuctoo like a duck to water, sturdily resisted all attempts to send him elsewhere. When threatened with a transfer to Palestine, he announced that the only Jew he had ever loved was Jesus. Biographer Seabrook plays down the spiritual Père Yakouba's spiritual labors in Timbuctoo but gives him high marks as a popular character...
Instead of obeying, Yakouba renounced the Church, dressed himself like a native and turned fisherman. Said he to Biographer Seabrook: "I quit the Church because I didn't want to leave Timbuctoo and didn't want to give up women." A strapping Negress, Salama, gave him shelter, persuaded him not to be so melodramatic in his renunciation...
...after all. Rich by native standards, he has a large mud palace, a large black wife, a large dusky family, all he wants to eat, drink, smoke, a good library, a reputation that brings every foreign visitor to his door. But he is not happy. Said he to Seabrook, as the upshot of his life's experience: "In the end it is not well...