Out in the Blue: Letters from Arabia, 1937 to 1940: A Young American Geologist Explores the Deserts of Early Saudi Arabia

I am an American Educated Saudi businessman living in Jeddah, Saudi Arbaia but I have been doing business with Aramco for the past 20 years or so. I know the Eastern part of Saudi Arabia as well as Riyadh, where my family and I lived for 17 years before moving back to our home town, Jeddah.Saudi Arabia, seen in the eyes of a young geologist armed with little background information, became a fertile ground to develop his exploratory instincts prodded by his young wife through lovely romantic letters. He fell in love with the country and the country fell in love with him. This affair, I believe, fuelled his love for his wife and hers for him.It is a book I am recommending for my children to read to "re-discover" their country instead of relying on uninformative and largely incorrect description by satellite media moguls.

I have spent half my life living and working in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and have found few books that capture the early history of this country. Even though the accounts portrayed in the story are over 60 years old, they are timeless crafted and have given me additional insight into the rich past of the region.A book that's very difficult to put down.

"What does Out In The Blue mean?" I wondered as I began to read the letters that Tom Barger, former President and CEO of Aramco wrote to his young bride back in the late 1930s before the discovery of oil would work its transformation on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I soon discovered that for this young geologist, being "out in the blue" meant living and working for months on end under the open skies of the frequently merciless deserts and gravel plains of eastern Arabia, as opposed to studying rocks and sand from behind a desk in an air-conditioned office. I liked this guy right away! Then, as I read Tom Barger's letters, I enjoyed following the gradual transformation of a green newcomer into a seasoned desert veteran whose colloquial Arabic became so good that he was asked (in Beirut), "Are you a Bedouin?" This book is sprinkled with descriptions and anecdotes that any reader would find fascinating. For example, everyone knows how important finding water is in a desert, but few would imagine what the Bedouin had to contend with, once they found the precious liquid:"In general, the water in the Eastern Province would be considered unfit for drinking according to the American sanitary codes which considered 500 parts per million of salt as the absolute maximum that should be found in drinking water. In Arabia, water with 1,000 parts per million was regarded as practically rain water. We commonly drank water with as much as 3,000 parts per million; at one well, we saw some small Bedouin boys drinking water that was later analyzed at 10,000 parts per million...". Now imagine you are sitting around a flickering campfire in the desert under a sky bursting with more stars than you ever saw anywhere else, a sky bigger than belief because it stretches right down to a horizon perfectly flat in every direction. Here's the sort of tale Tom Barger picked up from his Bedu co-workers, perhaps on just this sort of night:"Several years later in Qatif, a man slipped and fell out of a palm tree, landing on a man below and killing him. The man's widow claimed her blood rights and wanted this man executed for killing her husband. This was a difficult question for the qadhi, the judge of the Islamic court, as the man was innocent because it had been an accident. After much thought, the qadhi ruled that the widow had the right to kill him the same way her husband was killed. She could climb up a palm tree and fall on this fellow or she could settle for her blood money. She settled for the money." I live in Saudi Arabia and have explored some of the places mentioned in this book, but I have a feeling anyone, anywhere, will enjoy the letters of this young, enthusiastic geologist.

This book offers rare insight into the work of a handful of men in a harsh hidden corner of our world. Thomas Barger may have been a geologist, but he wrote like a poet to a wife he missed and loved. I genuinely enjoyed this excellent insightful book that has offered glimpses to a lost world with compassion. I recommend it heartily.

I hated to finish this book, because it was absolutely entertaining while tremendously informative. Knowing only of ARAMCO as it is now, reading of the early days was fascinating. Barger and other geologists roamed and camped all over the vast desert, spending hours repairing and digging out broken vehicles, mapping by the stars,looking for likely oil reserves and spending days and months "out in the blue" with Arab soldiers and bedouins who frequently regarded them with bemusement. They travelled to places where no or few other "Europeans" had been, and his accounts of these adventures to his bride at home make the story. Well, there's another story, that of his courtship and secret marriage (his parents wanted him to marry someone else) to Kathleen, the dude rancher's daughter, rodeo rider and brunette beauty, who waited more than 3 years to be able to join him in Saudi Arabia. Barger's powers of observation were keen, and his letters, which comprise this book, are testament. Although a geologist by education, he was a student of life who took delight in learning the language, the customs, the history and the tribes of the men he met. To be kept safe in those not-always-so civilized times of separate tribes, the geologists were always accompanied by the King's armed soldiers who also became drivers, guides, teachers, campfire poets, entertainers and friends. We meet Khamis, the guide who seemed to have GPS implanted in his brain, and always knew where they were despite (to the Americans) no visible landmarks. We accompany the men on their dinners, sometimes hilarious, with various Shaikhs and princes, learning the customs and behaviors peculiar to Arabia. It is a lesson in history, geography, personal experience and acquaintance with a man who was truly prescient. His influence in the development of ARAMCO as an Arabian/American partnership, the advancement of Saudis within the company, is attested to in the appendices, in a speech given at his retirement. For anyone interested in the growth of the middle east, or the discovery of oil, or just wants a terrific read, GET THIS BOOK!