American author Alexander Theroux has described writing as "an assault on cliché," and his novels, essays, and poems are distinguished by stylistic inventiveness and wit. In the following excerpts from a short essay on the camel, he both informs and delights--often relying on appositives to clarify and amplify his observations.

from "How Curious the Camel"*

by Alexander Theroux

It is a beast of great mystery, an ancient enigma--the camel, according to legend, alone knows the 100th name of Allah.


It is the ultimate paradox of whole parts: a mode of transportation, of exchange, of sustenance, indeed, of survival itself. . . .

Arabian camels have one hump. This is the famed dromedary, the runner. Many nomads might be astonished to see the two-humped Bactrian variety of central Asia, a slow, plodding beast of burden. The distinction, like that between stalactites and stalagmites, has confused schoolboys for generations.

A camel has been described as a horse planned by a committee. It has a comic munch of a face--loony, serene and disgusted all at once--with liquid eyes that shine bottle-green at night. Its eyelashes are as long as Ann Sheridan's. Its large nostrils can close against blowing sand. A ruminant, it chews its cud--the half-chewed slop that the animal sucks back up to its mouth with a slobbering sound as it plods along. . . .

The camel is called the Ship of the Desert--its habitat. It survives on guddha--leaves, dried plants, grass and withered tribulus. It relies on its humpfat, as well, which is stiff and upright when in top condition but decreases in size when the camel is overworked.

It is indeed an intricate equation, the camel a beast of binaries: wild but domesticated; savage yet submissive; vile and vulnerable; patient as well as perverse. . . . This can proudly be said: it bears its load.

* Alexander Theroux's "How Curious the Camel" first appeared in Reader's Digest, February 1983.

Selected Works by Alexander Theroux:

• Three Wogs (Gambit, 1972)
• Darconville’s Cat (Doubleday, 1981)
• An Adultery (Simon & Schuster, 1987)
• The Primary Colors (Henry Holt, 1994)
• The Enigma of Al Capp (Fantagraphics Books, 1999)
• Laura Warholic: or The Sexual Intellectual Fantagraphics Books, 2007)