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blurstoftimes's review against another edition
4.0
More accurately a 3.7
Darwish’s prose is some of the most powerful and erudite I’ve ever read. This book in its totality is a formidable manifesto of anti-war ideals. But what it is truly about is displacement: the infamous exile of the Palestinians in Beirut and how the Israelis worked to extinguish the Arabs during the 1982 Siege of Lebanon
For this reason and more, this book becomes exhausting rather quickly. While Darwish is exceptionally wise and strings together hauntingly beautiful lines of phantasmagorical poetry, staying with it for too long can become arduous.
This is a book that you really have to be patient with. Reading it in my Literature of Exile class allowed me the proper academic space to learn more about what Darwish meant by motifs like “the sea.”
An entire book of prose poetry is intimidating enough, but reading recurring statements about constant bombings with exponential causalities and the disappearance of a sense of self within the writer becomes an elegiac, often illogical, journey into disharmony and reverie; the result of this can either be enlightenment or nausea for the reader.
Still, this is a book worth reading. You just have to wrestle with it a bit.
Darwish’s prose is some of the most powerful and erudite I’ve ever read. This book in its totality is a formidable manifesto of anti-war ideals. But what it is truly about is displacement: the infamous exile of the Palestinians in Beirut and how the Israelis worked to extinguish the Arabs during the 1982 Siege of Lebanon
For this reason and more, this book becomes exhausting rather quickly. While Darwish is exceptionally wise and strings together hauntingly beautiful lines of phantasmagorical poetry, staying with it for too long can become arduous.
This is a book that you really have to be patient with. Reading it in my Literature of Exile class allowed me the proper academic space to learn more about what Darwish meant by motifs like “the sea.”
An entire book of prose poetry is intimidating enough, but reading recurring statements about constant bombings with exponential causalities and the disappearance of a sense of self within the writer becomes an elegiac, often illogical, journey into disharmony and reverie; the result of this can either be enlightenment or nausea for the reader.
Still, this is a book worth reading. You just have to wrestle with it a bit.
e333mily's review against another edition
5.0
Hauntingly beautiful. Part poetry, part memory, part something else that resists definition. The translation is so well done, but I can’t begin to imagine how breathtaking this book must be in the original Arabic.
“And I want nothing more from the passing days than the aroma of coffee. The aroma of coffee so I can hold myself together, stand on my feet, and be transformed from something that crawls, into a human being.”
“I want a language that I can lean on and that can lean on me, that asks me to bear witness and that I can ask to bear witness…”
“Something is missing from me. And I can't. I can't.”
“And I want nothing more from the passing days than the aroma of coffee. The aroma of coffee so I can hold myself together, stand on my feet, and be transformed from something that crawls, into a human being.”
“I want a language that I can lean on and that can lean on me, that asks me to bear witness and that I can ask to bear witness…”
“Something is missing from me. And I can't. I can't.”
soojinniee's review
2.0
I understand why so many people adore this, and it's an important book, but the writing style was just not my cup of tea.
I'm usually okay with the non-linear and episodic styles and I'm pretty good at keeping up with them, but for some reason this one felt especially disorienting and hazy to read.
I'm usually okay with the non-linear and episodic styles and I'm pretty good at keeping up with them, but for some reason this one felt especially disorienting and hazy to read.
jenlowe's review
5.0
Beautiful, wandering, difficult, uneven, a touch misogynistic. And yet, and still: the best book I've read in years.
If you make it to the aroma of coffee on page 6, you'll likely be hooked.
The book is best paired with a viewing of Waltz With Bashir.
I discovered this via a quote in an artwork at the SF MOMA. The quote and more info on the art: http://www.shadowidentitysystem.com/2012/11/06/memory-for-forgetfulnessmahmoud-darwish/
If you make it to the aroma of coffee on page 6, you'll likely be hooked.
The book is best paired with a viewing of Waltz With Bashir.
I discovered this via a quote in an artwork at the SF MOMA. The quote and more info on the art: http://www.shadowidentitysystem.com/2012/11/06/memory-for-forgetfulnessmahmoud-darwish/