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candacesiegle_greedyreader's review against another edition
2.0
So far, the dark side of love seems to be that, in Syria, if you glance at a woman not your wife or a family member, your entire family will be slaughtered and generations of men will devote themselves to revenge bullshit. Muslims and Christians are both involved (Muslims claiming the #1 spot)but Jews may get into the action, too--after all, I've got 750 pages to go.
What's wrong with these people? Is it the climate? Religion seems to play little part. I wish I could report that the novel is set in 1200, but it just seems that way.
Rafik Schami's novel came highly recommended, but it seems that I am just too sick of stories of middle-eastern "Honor" killings to get into it.
What's wrong with these people? Is it the climate? Religion seems to play little part. I wish I could report that the novel is set in 1200, but it just seems that way.
Rafik Schami's novel came highly recommended, but it seems that I am just too sick of stories of middle-eastern "Honor" killings to get into it.
elliejmatthews's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
lyndi_wi's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
kaffee_auf_ex's review against another edition
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
This book was torture. It started with a lot of stories that have no connections and are not necessary for the plot. Some of the stories are later expanded on in greater detail. At some point, the plot starts to get coherent. Still, the book is full of sexualizing women and children to a degree that's not necessary to get a point across. I read this to learn more about Syria and its history, and that's the only thing that the book successfully did to a certain degree.
fatamo's review against another edition
5.0
This is without a doubt one of my favorite books of all time. I'm surprised to see that some of the other reviewers criticized for being yet another book about honor killings in Arabia; one of the things I loved about was that it did NOT deal with honor killings as the all-encompassing story, in fact, it was just one of the many haunting and exquisitely told stories in this mammoth of a book.
Definitely the length of the book should not be looked at as a hindrance: once I really got into the book after the first 70 pages or so, I found myself thinking, yay I still have a lot more to go! I actually didn't want to get to the end because I was so thoroughly enjoying myself.
Somewhere towards the end I remember the author mentioning the story as a mosaic, and I think that's the perfect way to describe this novel. I also think it's the ideal way to show readers an image of life in an Arab country: each piece is a little fragment of the whole, on its own may not make much sense, but its still beautiful, and will be laid down, and little by little the image will build up in your head, until you see the whole picture.
Love is everywhere in this book, but I think the greatest love of all is the author's love of Syria, the country from which he has been exiled for many years. The dark side of love for land is a very strong theme throughout. Whilst personally I can't get over the title - I feel it's too cheesy to do the book justice, I guess it fits in some ways.
Definitely the length of the book should not be looked at as a hindrance: once I really got into the book after the first 70 pages or so, I found myself thinking, yay I still have a lot more to go! I actually didn't want to get to the end because I was so thoroughly enjoying myself.
Somewhere towards the end I remember the author mentioning the story as a mosaic, and I think that's the perfect way to describe this novel. I also think it's the ideal way to show readers an image of life in an Arab country: each piece is a little fragment of the whole, on its own may not make much sense, but its still beautiful, and will be laid down, and little by little the image will build up in your head, until you see the whole picture.
Love is everywhere in this book, but I think the greatest love of all is the author's love of Syria, the country from which he has been exiled for many years. The dark side of love for land is a very strong theme throughout. Whilst personally I can't get over the title - I feel it's too cheesy to do the book justice, I guess it fits in some ways.
valerixia's review against another edition
Was leant by a friend, I wasn't enjoying the misogyny in the language or the banality of the characters, then one of them fucked a donkey. Called it there ta.
bookchelf's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book! Poetic. Reminded me of Naguib Mahfouz.
archytas's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The second half of this book is much stronger than the first half, which feels important to lead with in a review of 900-page book. Schami tells the story jumping between generations in the first half, covering a lot of backstory setting up the second half, as well as a 'mosaic' of smaller stories, many just a page or two long, about Damascus and its surrounding villages. Much of this is interesting, but the lack of narrative focus can make it hard to track where we are and who we are talking about. Some important beats get a little lost at times. It is really not helped by the decision to create fictional versions of leaders like Nassar (I thought I was going mad or losing my history until I worked out the names were fictional).
The book's second half settles into a much more linear telling of the lives of our central star-crossed lovers, Farid and Rana, and Damascus itself in the 1960s. Schami's story unfurls here, with all the various beats coming together beautifully and the tapestry/mosaic of Arab life allowing a much richer context for the story. It helps, probably, that Farid and Rana are both drawn more sympathetically than their forebears and you feel both the urgency of what Schami has to say about Syria and a portrayal of the city so strong you can smell the coffee. This is not to say it is all set in Damascus; there are long stretches in the second half in both monastery schools and prison camps, providing a lot of plot and exploration of Syria in the 1960s. By the end of this book, I even thought it would be worth "just checking" if Damascus had stabilised enough for tourism (the answer is no, no it has not, and my heart broke for the people I had just read about and the grief of the author).
I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of women and the exploration of the impact of traditional ideas about honour upon them. Most women work their ways to escape the suffocation of sexism, and Schami portrays this struggle with sensitivity and focus. It didn't surprise me that he cites Sadaawi as an influence in the acknowledgements. Several women are killed through the text because they loved the wrong way or simply wanted to live differently. This reality helps contextualise Rana's choices and relationship with Damascus itself. I was less fond of the need to discuss almost every male character's sexual thoughts, but it isn't a huge part of the text, and you can't have everything.
I was very glad to read this, but I wish the first half had been less of a slog to get the wonderful second half.
The book's second half settles into a much more linear telling of the lives of our central star-crossed lovers, Farid and Rana, and Damascus itself in the 1960s. Schami's story unfurls here, with all the various beats coming together beautifully and the tapestry/mosaic of Arab life allowing a much richer context for the story. It helps, probably, that Farid and Rana are both drawn more sympathetically than their forebears and you feel both the urgency of what Schami has to say about Syria and a portrayal of the city so strong you can smell the coffee. This is not to say it is all set in Damascus; there are long stretches in the second half in both monastery schools and prison camps, providing a lot of plot and exploration of Syria in the 1960s. By the end of this book, I even thought it would be worth "just checking" if Damascus had stabilised enough for tourism (the answer is no, no it has not, and my heart broke for the people I had just read about and the grief of the author).
I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of women and the exploration of the impact of traditional ideas about honour upon them. Most women work their ways to escape the suffocation of sexism, and Schami portrays this struggle with sensitivity and focus. It didn't surprise me that he cites Sadaawi as an influence in the acknowledgements. Several women are killed through the text because they loved the wrong way or simply wanted to live differently. This reality helps contextualise Rana's choices and relationship with Damascus itself. I was less fond of the need to discuss almost every male character's sexual thoughts, but it isn't a huge part of the text, and you can't have everything.
I was very glad to read this, but I wish the first half had been less of a slog to get the wonderful second half.
kate_in_a_book's review against another edition
4.0
Rafik Schami writes in his afterword that ever since he was a 16-year-old boy in Syria, back in the 1960s, he had wanted to write a realistic Arab love story, but it took him 40-odd years to get it right. The result is a novel that looks at dozens of permutations of doomed romance against a backdrop of decades of Syrian history, though the bulk of the story is set in the 1950s and 1960s.
The novel opens with a murder mystery – a body has been found, and when the assigned detective is suddenly removed from the case by the secret service he is determined to secretly continue investigating. What he unravels is a clan war that goes back generations, and continues to claim victims no matter how hard those involved try to hide or distance themselves.
What prevents this from being a slightly distanced, slightly raced through family saga, is the central story that forms the bulk of the novel – that of Rana and Farid, lovers whose struggle to be together is thwarted by feuding families and political instability, jealousy and revenge. Although every character in this novel is wonderfully elucidated, Rana and Farid are truly alive to me. They are young people trying to embrace the modernity and opportunity of Damascus while respecting their families, and finding that it just isn’t possible, and that in Syria tradition and old-fashioned values will always win.
Rana is well educated, with an immediate family that is forward-thinking and comfortable with Western influence, but her extended family is not so tolerant and the threat of honour killing hangs over her. Farid is passionate about the need for radical social change, which attracts him to ideas and people who are dangerous in a country ruled by ever-changing despots and tyrants.
- See my full review: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2016/03/22/love-should-bestow-sublimity
The novel opens with a murder mystery – a body has been found, and when the assigned detective is suddenly removed from the case by the secret service he is determined to secretly continue investigating. What he unravels is a clan war that goes back generations, and continues to claim victims no matter how hard those involved try to hide or distance themselves.
What prevents this from being a slightly distanced, slightly raced through family saga, is the central story that forms the bulk of the novel – that of Rana and Farid, lovers whose struggle to be together is thwarted by feuding families and political instability, jealousy and revenge. Although every character in this novel is wonderfully elucidated, Rana and Farid are truly alive to me. They are young people trying to embrace the modernity and opportunity of Damascus while respecting their families, and finding that it just isn’t possible, and that in Syria tradition and old-fashioned values will always win.
Rana is well educated, with an immediate family that is forward-thinking and comfortable with Western influence, but her extended family is not so tolerant and the threat of honour killing hangs over her. Farid is passionate about the need for radical social change, which attracts him to ideas and people who are dangerous in a country ruled by ever-changing despots and tyrants.
- See my full review: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2016/03/22/love-should-bestow-sublimity