Choice
(July 1, 2001; 977-424-499-0)

A well-known Palestinian poet, Barghouti was exiled from his village near Jerusalem for 30 years and finally granted permission to return for a brief visit. In a rich and evocative language, he reveals his feelings as he re-enters Palestine and begins to visit again places he knew as a boy. Barghouti writes in a poetic prose whose unexpected images constantly open new vistas for the reader. With neither polemics nor exaltation he explores the sense of self and loss, the interaction of the past and the present in the emotional baggage that exiles brings with them on return home. He makes the reader feel in the most personal way a sense of presence and absence and the changes that time has wrought both on him and on his homeland. In the growing body of exile literature (the Iranians contribute an important share), this book is one of the most human and humane documents available. It is both timely and timeless, a powerful statement of an existential condition that is becoming increasingly common in the world. It should be in every library.

Do you want to know the story, suffering, feelings etc. of the Palestinian refugees? You won't find, as far as I know, better than this book to give you the picture. I think it is time for us to realize the misery of these people.

Having heard Barenboim and Said interviewed on NPR I rushed to Amazon to acquire this book. I was not disppointed! These are highly literate men, wise men, who see music in a social context. Although their roots are Israeli and Palestinian, their exposure to other cultures has broadened their perspectives so that their opinions are informed by their experiences in Egypt, Argentina, America, Germany, Israel, etc. The continuing theme is music, especially that of Beethoven and later Wagner, but in the context of their societies and ours. It may be that the hope forpeace in the world is shared music!

If there is a book that presents valuable and valid lessons in how to resolve differences, be they in attitudes towards the arts, the lack of music in our educational system, the etiology of the Israeli/Palestinian dichotomy, and so much more, then this collection of conversations between Daniel Barenboim and Edward W. Said as edited and synthesized by Ara Guzelimian is it. This powerful but too brief book reaches for the Nobel Peace Prize in its courage, exploration of the state of man and the possibilities for the future, and in its tremendously accessible format that makes the workings of these three great minds available for us all. Each of the extended conversations taped betaween 1995 and 1999 addresses an interesting topic that serves to open vistas that go far beyond the crux of the topic. Hearing Barenboim expound on the fact that no one can exactly interpret a composer's score because the spirit is not on the page but in the making and experiencing the 'sound' that happens in a live performance rather obliterates all critics who descry individual interpretation of the great composers as "not the composer's intention!" Said carries this into the realm of literature, suggesting that contemporary writers are where they are because of the giants of the past and that we, as readers, are influenced in our interpretation of new work dependent upon our exposure and digestion of works by the old masters. Contemporary music by composers such as Carter, Schoenberg, and Birtwistle are discussed in a way that assists our concept of listening and learning in the concert hall. Similar parallels and similar paradoxes in the international political arena are given the same level of inspiring dialog and paths to understanding. This is a fine, fine book and we are indebted to Ara Guzelimian not only for his written and conversational contributions, but for persevering in having this volume published. Read this and gain insight and intelligence on many streams of thought that will help us all save this planet.

Said's work is complex, intertextual and far reaching. Barsamian's interviews are a enlightening yet they are an incomplete portal to the work and impact of Edward Said. Don't get me wrong, the conversations with David Barsamian squarely place Said as a player in an often oversimplified discussion of a very complex issue - Palestine.

One of the more controversial, yet not often discussed topics is the role of the PLO in general and Arafat's in particular to the future of Palestine. The role of Arafat is not to be underestimated - he has singlehandedly represented (or at least singlehandedly represented himself as the voice of a nation) the interests of the Palestinian Arab. What are we to do with Arafat? More importantly, what at the disparate Palestinian Arabs going to do about Arafat? That is one of the key questions Barsamian and Said takes up here. If an organization that was built on "Liberation" is involved in Administration - is it a good thing? Are the players in this case qualified to perform Administration? If not, should others be considered to carry the banner. Ironically, you can draw a metaphor here that is patently Jewish. Moses did the liberation but Joshua took the Jews to the "promised land" - mind you, I am not making any comparisons of Arafat to Moses or the notion of the "promised land" as 100% legitimate - I am merely agreeing with Said that a second look might be advantageous.

One of the major points is the notion that there will never be normalization of relations unless the relationship is a relationship of equals:

"We are now on a new stage. What the Israelis want is a normalization of relatiohips between Israeland the Arab states including the Palestinians. Of course I'm all for normalization. But I think real normalization can only come between equals. You have to be able to discriminate between tutelage and dependency on teh one hand and independence and standing up as a co-equal with your interlocutor. We haven't done that. That's why I think it's the most important political task for the coming decade." p. 167.

How much simpler can it be?

Miguel Llora

This little book is about 170 pages and made up of about five interviews from between 1987 to 1994 with Edward Said, the leading Palestinian intellectual, interviewed by David Barsamian, the producer and host of "Alternative Radio," famous for his collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky.

Said discourses on, among other topics, the role of culture in shaping literature, the pro-imperialist inclinations of V.S. Naipaul, the simultaneous anti-imperialist and anti-liberation outlook of Joseph Conrad, why Albert Camus is portrayed as having been an anti-colonialist when he was, in fact, quite the opposite, Western stereotypes about Arabs, why it is possible to have an honest discussion of Israel's flaws in the Israeli media but not in the United States, and the decline of the American left. Occasionally, he gets, well, a bit recondite, but he is often very interesting and I like him very much.

But he is at his best when discussing the Palestinian movement and its leadership, Arafat and the PLO, with whom he was on close terms before the 1993 Oslo accords. The thoughts in this book are from when the "peace process" was in its infancy but not much has changed, in spite of all the new agreements and changes of government in Israel. He discuses the PLO leadership's corruption, opportunism, utter ignorance of the U.S., Israel and anything else outside the Arab world, preference for acceptance into the high society of Washington, London and Paris instead of attending to the grassroots struggles of their people. He points to Arafat's resistance to pressures for internal PLO democracy as the reason for his acceptance of the Oslo accords, which gave the PLO control over a portion of the Gaza strip, which has become an ubelievable hellhole as a result of deliberate Israeli policies (Israel's responsibility for its condition is never noted in the U.S. media, as Said notes), so Israel seized at the chance to give some of it to Arafat; and accepted the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as "legal", allowed Israel to continue building in Jerusalem and expanding "greater Jeruslem" to include all of the central West Bank, expropriating and robbing Palestinians as they go about it, Israeli retaining complete control over the settlements, the Jordan valley, the water and all the other resources, the economic policies, and a veto over all decisions passed by the Palestinian parliament. Arafat's basic duties are to pick up garbage and arrest and punish all persons whom Israel thinks threaten its "security," a very elastic concept, that includes a great many non-violent persons.

It is this "limited autonomy" that the PLO leadership has said, and the quite honest and decent persons who repeat everything that they say, will eventually evolve into a genuine Palestinian nation. Of course, as Said says, it will probably evolve into a state, but only in the same sense that the bantustans of apartheid South Africa were a state for its black inhabitants. This has not been, of course, the version of events of the PLO leadership, Yossi Sarrid, Ehud Barak, Amos Oz, Anthony Lewis, "Peace Now," nor genuine supporters of the Palestinians who have been supporting the "peace process" for whatever reason. These latter brethren, Said notes, seem to have completely put in the back of their minds that the Israeli prime minister who signed the Oslo accords, Yitzhak Rabin, was a man who had helped ethnically cleanse Palestinians back in 1948, who directed the reign of terror against the Palestinians during the intifadah, who was conducting mass atrocities and housing expropriations of Palestinians at the time of the signing of the accords and immediately escalated them afterwards, who, in July 1993, bombed hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, including many Palestinians, towards Beirut, in order, as he told the Knesset to put pressure on the Lebanese government to bend to Israel's demands.

As Said says, the Labor party has been and is every bit as racist and oppressive towards the Palestinians as Likud, which lacks the sophistication and appearance of moderation of Labor that endears it to the Anthony Lewis-Daniel Schorr type liberals. Said has been somewhat isolated in Palestinian circles because of his opposition to the "peace process." Hopefully, for their own sake, in light of the current horrible events in the territories, they will start listening to them.

....we are all aware of the greatness of chopin. a few are privy to the greatness of george sand. here finally we learn a little of the chemistry which flowed between these two giants of the artistic paris in the 1840's. also importantly, the details, clearly presented, of the questions concerning chopin's music of the last years. this is a calm and reasoned book, showing the author's comprehensive knowledge of the subject. this is not a biography, rather a set of vignettes on particulars of chopin's life and gorgeous music. if you want some brilliant and clear-headed discussion of his gender ambiguity as a person and as expressed in his nocturnes, i encourage you to read this fine work.

By far the best informed and most complete review of Edward Said and his thoughts that I have come across to date. Ashcroft and Ahluwalia take the time to explain all the background information that is absent in most introductory books.

This volume take great pains to explains Said's key concepts, ideas, contexts and impact. Both authors take the time to address reference to both his scholarship and journalism. The range of ideas include:
(1)the function and space of text and critic in "the world"
(2)Power/Knowledge
(3)the social construction of the "Other"
(4)the joins between culture and imperialism
(5)exile
(6)identity and
(7)Palestine.

It needs less explanation from me and more engagement from the reader to get the fullness of the experience. What is key is how well they have taken the time to explain through most of Said's interlocutors such as Dennis Porter, Aijiz Ahmad and Robert Young - to name a few. The key is to keep in mind the critique of Said and how fair and relevant they are. Said's use of Foucault is problematic and is discussed and certainly well explored in this book. Buy it, read it and digest it - then re read Orientalism.

Miguel Llora

The Library of America has published 5 volumes of Henry Jame stories, covering 1864 - 1910, and I'm hooked. Henry James has to be read slowly; every word he writes seems to matter to the story. He is a master craftman of the English language, and can say so much without being explicit.

James wrote most of these 19 short stories while living in London and visiting the continent. This volume of his stories starts with "Professor Fargo" and ends with "The Author of 'Beltraffio'". But, perhaps the most famous of the stories included here is "Daisy Miller: A Study." Few, if any, of these stories will disappoint a 20th century reader.

Unlike some fortunate reviewers, who have had careers as librarians or who have degrees in English Literatue, I started reading authors like Henry James on my own. I approach a author just for the pleasure of reading his/her work. I started reading Henry James with these short stories and have graduated to his novels. At first his writing seemed slow and stiff. But, once I settled into the cadence of his writing, I concluded that this suited the formality of the upper classes he wrote about. Now, I can't seem to put down one of his stories until the end.

James wrote so much during his life that it seems impossible to read all that he wrote, but I think I'll try.

This is an interesting series of essays on the work of Edward Said, with many perspectives on the issues of Orientalism, and the reactions to it, both in the West and in the Arab world. The many distortions and attacks of Said's work are reviewed and clarified, as the question of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict looms in the background. Steady as she goes.

Others reviewd this legendary book already. But I have a point to tell: Mimesis not as content but as form. Mimesis, the title of the book comes from latin word, reflection. Traditionary, mimesis is used to analyse the content of text. You can see that kind of approach in Arnold Hauser's 4 volumes of 'The Social History of Art' or Lukacs's aesthetic theory. But that kind of approach mainly inspired by Marxism went out of mode. Alternative approach is the one of Adorno's 'sociology of art'. Adorno's analysis of music is distinct. He insisted that we could detect the totality of society not in content but in the form of text. He himself is the composer and pupil of Schonberg. So he advocated Modernism in this light. At first glance, Modernism could not match to Marxism. But persausively, Adorno showed the opposite case. You can see that kind of approach in the textof Frederic Jameson's 'Marxism and Form'.
Auerbach's approach should be captured in this line. He analysed various Western literary text in the light of form and the social structuer of that time. His point is that we could detect the social structure of that time or totality, in the term of Marxist tradition, not only in content but also in form, or in Auerbach's term, style.

Beginning with episodes in Homer and the Bible, this amazing study concludes by analyzing passages in Woolf and Proust. To echo Rene Wellek's assessment: it is a book of such scope and depth....it combines so many methods so skillfully, it raises so many questions of theory, history and criticism, it displays so much erudition, insight and wisdom.... I returned to this book after being out of graduate school for twenty years (where it was already out of fashion in most English departments but read with care by all students of Comparative literature), and it is so much better this time around. The essay on Fortuna continues to resonate with timely warnings, and what I once admired about "Odysseus' Scar" is even more luminous after my recent rereading of the book.

In the 30 odd years since I read this book it has never been far from my thoughts. It has changed my understanding of how people think and how they look at their world. I cannot do true justice its impact.

We are apt to think that people are the same wherever and whenever they lived. This is probably a legacy of our democratic, universalistic heritage. It is also what gets us in trouble when we get involved abroad in changing other nations and their societies. Auerbach shows us that humankind is not and has not been alike in its thoughts, aspirations and character but has distinctly changed and varied over time and place.

By closely reading, analyzing and comparing texts of different periods through time, the author demonstrates how the structure of language interacts with the structure of thought, how the way one writes delimits ones vision. This is a more radical thought than its converse that the way we think affects how we write. To Auerbach, an early medieval religious writer, because of the way that Late Latin worked, could not think the way a classical author could. This seems intuitively wrong to a person who has knowledge of one language, but if you have ever tried to translate anything beyond the simplest sentence, you can appreciate what Auerbach means. This is one of those books that stay with you for a lifetime.

It is hard not to like Ahmad as you read these interviews. First, he is a thoughtful critic of international politics and economic systems. He is as tough on the Soviet left as he is on the capitalist right. And in the process he is engaged by such thinkers as Edward Said, Albert Camus and Antonia Gramsci. Like many leftists, however, Ahmad offers more criticism than solutions. He is not as rabidly anti-American as Chomsky, but he does embrace some of the third-world cliches about the West and the US that grow tiresome after a while. I, for one, am not convinced that the rest of the world is trapped in an American economic construct from which there is no possibility of liberation or advancement. The tough work of building a civil society, of opening the doors of debate and freedom, of embracing a reasonable economic policy that allows for some human ingenuity, none of this is prevented by a US power structure. On the contrary, the US generally has only blocked -- on a few occasions -- forays into Stalinist systems hostile to both local and international interests. On the other hand, some of his observations are keen -- his conclusion, for example, that non-violent resistance can only be effective against oppression that is morally founded, such as British colonialism (bringing enlightenment to the rest of the world). It would not work against Stalin or Hitler (or Saddam). He is also a valuable guide through some of the India/Pakistan issues that are confusing to many of us. Like William Appleman Williams, another US critic, Ahmad has some interesting things to say, but they must be weighed against the total evidence of history.

I read this book in 3 hours on a long haul flight and then talked my neighbouring passenger into following suit. It's that good.

A stirring page turner with simple unawashed straight-talk about politics, religion, world order, even the vagaries of corporatization. Really, I hesitate to make this into a long intellectual review but you will find themes ranging from the opportunism of Gandhi, to the seeds of discord that US itself sowed in the middle east and south east asia (and what the future holds), to the after-effects of blatant commercialization on our social lives, to.... Wait, what am I doing. There is no way you will regret the 11 dollars that go into this incredibly eye-opening insight, so stop wasting your time reading these reviews and just buy it!

Quite simply as close to an intelligent thriller as a work of non-fiction can come. Required reading.

Eqbal Ahmad is a rare example of a man who struggled to live by his principles and has shown others the way by the sheer humanity and clarity of his thought. He was a true and worthy inheritor of the sufi tradition.

"Letters of Transit" is a collection of five essays originally presented, in somewhat different form, as lectures sponsored by the New York Public Library from November, 1997, through February, 1998. Andre Aciman, the editor and author of both the Foreward ("Permanent Transients") and the first of the essays ("Shadow City"), focuses on the theme of being an "exile" (as opposed to being an "expatriate" or a "refugee" or an "emigre"). Aciman suggests, in his Foreward, that "[w]hat makes exile the pernicious thing it is is not really the state of being away, as much as the impossibility of ever not being away." He goes on to elaborate, in his ensuing essay, that the exile is not just someone "who has lost his home; it is someone who can't find another, who can't think of another." Aciman, impressionistically explores the way in which living in a new city (New York) can vividly reincarnate the memories of cities in which the exile has lived previously (the "shadow cities" of his title). Aciman's essay is fascinating, perceptive and insightful; it is a wonderful short piece which illustrates why his much-praised memoir, "Out of Egypt", has become a minor classic of the genre.

Similarly, Bharati Mukherjee's essay, "Imagining Homelands", provides thoughtful elaborations on the nuances and connotations of the words "expatriate", "exile" and "immigrant"; she draws fine and interesting distinctions among these words and carefully entwines these distinctions with an elaboration of her own life experiences.

The strongest essays in this collection, however, are those of Eva Hoffman, Edward Said and Charles Simic. All three of these writers provide classic insights into the experience of "exile, identity, language, and loss" which are worth careful thought and consideration. All three suggest (as does Mukherjee when she describes herself as an "integrationist" and a "mongrelizer") that the exile can only ultimately be redeemed by rejecting irrational devotion to the narrow and myopic tribalism of nation, ethnicity, religion, and ideology which so often encumbers the exile community; that redemption comes only through freedom, reason and syncretism. Thus, Simic writes, in concluding his essay, "Refugees", that the poet "is a member of that minority that refuses to be part of any official minority, because a poet knows what it is to belong among those walking in broad daylight, as well as among those hiding behind closed doors."

Hoffman's essay, "The New Nomads", is clearly the best of this collection. She carefully delineates the universality of the exilic experience, an experience which can be found in the Ur-text of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden. She then discusses the way in which exile can magnify the impulse to "memorialize" the past. The result, she suggests, is that exile distorts the vision of the past, tending to make it an idealized "mythic, static realm" which forever impedes the ability to deal with the present (what Hoffman perceptively characterizes as the "rigidity of the exilic posture"). She then provides an interesting discussion of A.B. Yehoshua's provocative essay, "Exile as Neurotic Solution", wherein he postulated that there were many opportunities for the Jews (prior to the creation of the modern State of Israel) to settle in Palestine more easily than in countries where they had chosen to live, but it was the one location they avoided. In Hoffman's words, "[i]t was as if they were afraid precisely of reaching their promised land and the responsibilities and conflicts involved in turning the mythical Israel into an actual, ordinary home." The ultimate result of the "memorialization" of the past and the "rigidity of the exilic posture" is that exile communities often cannot function in the locus of the larger society; rather, they conceive of themselves as perpetually "Other".

Edward Said's essay, "No Reconciliation Allowed", describes the dislocation of the exile in vivid terms: "a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport, and no certain identity at all." Thus, he finds himself in a secondary school where only English is permitted to be spoken, even though none of the students is a native speaker of English. While his entire educational experience is Anglocentric in the extreme, he is also trained to understand he is a "Non-European Other", someone who can never aspire to being British in any true sense of the word. While Said has been criticized recently for allegedly misrepresenting his past, he is quite forthcoming in this essay in acknowledging his admiration for "self-invention". In some sense, Said's essay and the narrative of his life reflects his theory, specifically the notion that we can (and do) use language instrumentally to construct social realities (in this case the reality of his life).

While somewhat uneven, as all collections are, "Letters of Transit" ultimately provides a rich, varied and deeply insightful range of readings on what it means to be an exile.

This is a great book for those who want to be able to place Exile, Identity, Language and Loss in some kind of coherent context. It allows the reader to be able to understand his/her own behavior and the behaviors of those around them. It can also be applied to novels written in the various genres that deal with immigration and exile--to understand the motivation of the authors regarding plot and character development.

There is not, however, based on just one perspective. We read five different authors' point of view and their personal experiences, which allows for a range of inquiries.

I highly recommend this book.

I loved the book becuase the authors have written very honestly about their feelings and about being different in a society. As a emigrant who has lived in the United State for the past 20 years, the book hits home for me. And I will read it again and again.