The Mysteries Of Angkor Wat: Exploring Cambodia’s Ancient Temple, by Richard Sobol

This book has the positive and negative features that one would come to expect from National Geographic, the Rolling Stone, and related magazines. For one, the author has strikingly little knowledge of history, in that he considers it a mystery where the people of Angkor Wat went when the city collapsed, when it is fairly well-known that after the natural catastrophes and political turmoil of the early 14th century, along with the threat of invasion from the Thais, the last ruler of the city moved his capital where it remains, in Phenom Penh. If it is a mystery that the Khmer people bit Angkor Wat to the author, that is largely because he is pretty ignorant about history, which is a pretty serious failing for someone who seeks to engage in the photography of historical geography in the way that the author does. It suggests that he did not do what is pretty obvious homework before going to a country and making a book out of the wonders of an ancient city of a glorious civilization which has seen some hard times in the 20th century.

Yet I do not want to make it seem as if this book is a bad one. The author’s work has some real charm, and as he describes his attempts to photograph and understand the site of Angkor Wat, and to relate to the local children who befriend him, there is a lot of genuine interest in what he has to say. And though some readers might find it puzzling that he spends so much time hanging around children (something that might be viewed with some suspicion by some readers), he is rewarded for his paying attention to the local kids when they show him a neglected part of the temple where one can see what appears to be a Stegosaurus. This is a genuine mystery, and the author properly considers it mysterious whether the builders of Angkor Wat were trying to draw a different animal or had some knowledge of dinosaurs or what, but whatever the solution is, it provides a genuinely satisfying conclusion to a book that seeks to record a travelogue in photos. The photos, of course, are stunning, as Angkor Wat is a place of great beauty and monumental architecture, despite its manifest failings as a city.

This book is written as one continuous narrative, beginning with a map showing the somewhat exposed location of Angkor Wat near Siem Reap in the northwestern area of what is now Cambodia. This is followed by a reflection of the author’s great (and understandable) desire to see this great city, which had once been covered with landmines laid down during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge, which led to the slaughter of a third to a half of the nation’s small population during the larger horrors of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. The author does not dwell on that scene, perhaps unsurprisingly, as this is a work that is meant for children. The author shows a great interest in both the monumental architecture of the ruins of Angkor Wat as well as the people who live there to this day, especially young people, some of whom appear to learn the music and dance of the Angkor period as a means of keeping the past alive. The book as a whole is an enjoyable read, if the author shows himself to be somewhat clueless with regards to his historical knowledge of the period. After the narrative of the book is complete there are facts about the region as well as a glossary.