La pierre du rire

by Hoda Barakat هدى بركات

Dans une ville en proie à la guerre civile, un jeune homme, Khalil, veut faire le pari de l'innocence et récuse la nécessité, pour survivre, de prendre parti. Réfugié dans sa petite chambre, il donne libre cours à une étrange frénésie ménagère et médite sur la décomposition du monde alentour. Inexorable, le " dehors " débusque cependant Khalil de sa retraite... En évoquant, à travers l'initiation de son héros, l'étrange logique que ces guerres aux invisibles champs d'honneur installent au coeur de toute existence, Hoda Barakat met en scène les mécanismes de la folie très particulière qui s'organise quand tuer et vivre deviennent synonymes... Bien loin de toute une littérature nostalgique du Beyrouth d'antan, la Pierre du rire mène une enquête exigeante et nécessaire sur l'alchimie qui, au coeur du plus grand trouble et en l'absence de repères, permet quelquefois au réel de reprendre corps.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Lebanon, Middle East, Novels, Historical

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Hoda Barakat هدى بركات is an acclaimed Lebanese novelist who lived much of her life in Beirut and later moved to Paris, where she now resides. Her works, written in Arabic, have been translated into many languages.
Her first work Hajar al-Dahik (The Stone of Laughter), is the first Arabic work to have a gay man as its main character. Her third novel, Harit al-miyah (The Tiller of Waters), won the 2000 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. She has also written Ahl el-Hawa (People of Love).

ولدت هدي في بيروت عام 1952، درست الأدب
الفرنسي، وأصدرت أولي أعمالها الروائية( زائرات) في عام 1985 بعد أربع سنوات قررت أن تترك بيروت إلي باريس حيث تعيش هناك إلي الآن.
وتعمل في إذاعة الشرق. وفي الفترة الباريسية صدر لها أربع روايات: (حجر الضحك) ، (أهل الهوي)، (حارث المياه)،( سيدي وحبيبي)

Reviews

[Tariq Alferis · Rating 3 out of 5]

.الفرق أنك تقرأ رواية عن الحرب الأهلية وأنت مش مجرب الوضع وبين أنك تقرأ رواية عن الحرب الأهلية وأنت عايش في نفس الوضع بكل تفاصيله .

لو قريت رواية زمان كانت حاتكون مملة وسيئة جدا ., لكن حاليا كل حديث عن وضع الحرب من قتل وتشريد يمثلني .

القضية الانسانية الموجودة في الرواية شئ شجاع من الكاتبة , لما تحط مشكلة جدلية في مضمون شبه تاريخي عن الحرب حايكون عندك شئ ممتاز .
..

[Vampire Who Baked · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been one of the most compelling books I have read so far. A mix of genres- queer fiction + feminist writing + "Arab" literature + a spirited anti-war commentary- and the first Arab novel with a gay protagonist, this packs revelation after revelation in every page.

In no particular order, a few obvious-in-hindsight but beautifully articulated insights--

1. When you live in a region of instability, there's a constant undercurrent of fear even while performing day to day activities (even though my home town has not seen an insurgent attack or an explosion in years, I know people who are still apprehensive around parked cars and crowds). And there's that weird mixture of hope and guilt whenever a bomb does go off in the distance, in the direction of your home- you pray it be your neighbor's house that has been blown up, and not yours; relief when you find out that your family is safe, grief when you find out that your friend's family isn't.

2. Life doesn't stop even if you are being bombed everyday- you get so used to it that children will come out to play in the streets right after a raid. One of the most interesting passages in this book involves Khalil observing this woman who is cleaning her wine glasses and watering her plants on her balcony that has been damaged in multiple explosions- it seems like such a frivolous thing to do when your life is in danger everyday, but you do it anyway.

3. It can be interesting the way people adjust their daily life around the rituals that come with being under attack every day. The protagonist of the book, Khalil, has a unrequited infatuation over a (straight) guy Yousseff, who is his neighbor in his apartment complex. One of the ways this manifests in the book is that, whenever there is a bombing raid and they need to seek safety in a tiny cramped bomb shelter, Khalil always waits for Yousseff to knock on his door ("Khalil, the raid is on, come to the shelter") so that when they reach the shelter together, Khalil can squeeze in next to Yousseff, which gives him an opportunity to feel close to Yousseff, physically and psychologically, which he otherwise would not be able to do.

4. When you or I think of "lgbt" (people, relationships, ideas, whatever), we can imagine, say, Neil Patrick Harris (or whatever his name was) or Alan Turing or Oscar Wilde or any number of other templates, and when we think of someone being gay, we can imagine all sorts of things, say, the guys you saw holding hands on the subway the other day, or the women posing with their marriage certificate, or more abstractly, lgbt rights movement, or AIDS or the whole idea of "coming out". For Khalil, living in the Arab world during the war torn 70's, these templates are not available, which makes it extremely difficult for him to make sense of himself.

As a result, with the lack of gay role models or even lgbt prototypes of any kind, Khalil constantly tries to make sense of his situation using heteronormative male-female gender roled templates. He reads (heterosexual) love poetry and relates to the emotions described within, and tries to imagine himself and the man he loves (Naji in this case) in the scenes depicted in the poem. Since Naji can only occupy the role of the man in the scene (Naji being a man is what attracts Khalil in the first place), Khalil's only choice is to imagine himself as the woman. He thus models his life, almost as a default, based on what he saw his mother and aunts doing with theirs- cleaning the house obsessively, shopping for groceries, cooking, sewing, knitting, etc.

An analogy for this would be to consider the setting of this other experimental novel where a woman falls in love with the color blue (literally the color blue, the RGB value 0-0-255). Can you relate to or even imagine anything about this kind of a romance, what it's like, how it will work? Khalil's situation is something similar- he struggles to even define these infatuations properly- is it (romantic) love or is an extreme form of friendship? Not knowing how to come to terms with his attraction towards men without imagining himself as a woman, that is exactly what he does, adopting mannerisms and occupations and society-defined characteristic traits of women around him.

5. Again, this is feminist literature interspersed with queer fiction. A very interesting development in this book is how Khalil's confusion about not being attracted to women manifests itself in misogyny. Because it's a culture where women are subjugated and considered inferior, he tries to explain away (to himself) his lack of interest for women by convincing himself that this is because women are inferior.

This problem gets severely exacerbated in the hyper-masculinised environment that is a civil war, where cowardice (and "womanliness" as the book describes) is the lowest of vices. This simmering build up of vitriolic misogyny reaches its peak as a single woman with young son starts living in the apartment where both men of Khalil's desire, Naji and Yousseff, lived and later died during the war, and Khalil's grief over his lost loves manifests itself in resentment towards the woman. This leads Khalil down a path that ends up in the book's dark climax where he, a gay man, violently rapes the helpless woman in the damaged apartment, all the while the narrator laments the destruction of Khalil's purity and innocence, and his hateful rejection of everything that was "feminine" within him.

-----

Having said all this, this is also a rather difficult book to read (and going by the other reviews for this book on Goodreads and elsewhere, everyone reads the book differently, including the author herself). This is one of those books where reading the plot beforehand on Wikipedia actually helps a lot in understanding what is going on. It is also important to have at least a vague understanding of the historical background, the basics of the Lebanese Civil War and (this is mandatory knowledge) what the Green Line is, the narrow strip of no-man's-land that divides Beirut. The prose is very fragmented and takes some time getting used to- it is filled with complex phrases separated by ellipses, which gives off the impression that someone is literally recounting the story extempore, as opposed to writing it or articulating it over multiple revisions. The language is also very poetic, and laced with a lot of Arabic metaphor and similes, and colloquialisms, some of which I could understand (for example, they refer to electricity as "current" as in "the current was switched off for the day"- this is common usage in India, but I'm sure an American would be confused)

And the narrative voice can be the most confusing aspect of it, though this confusion adds to the reading pleasure rather than taking away from it. It keeps shifting between Khalil's internal monologue, an omniscient narrator and the elusive figure of "woman writer" who is at various times a motherly figure to Khalil, a "representative" of womanhood, especially Arab womanhood, and a prototype for "women who speak out". The voice keeps shifting from one to another intermittently and without warning, so it's difficult to keep track (which is good, in a sense). For example, during the rape scene, you hear Khalil's internal monologue which seamlessly switches immediately afterwards into the "woman writer" who laments Khalil's rejection of his former "feminine" self and how he becomes a "man who laughs" ("laughs" is used metaphorically here, to mean callousness and a lack of empathy about what is going on- there's also an entire chapter devoted to that).

Nevertheless, despite all the challenges I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in feminism, queer fiction or Arab literature. A stellar read, and one that you will keep thinking about for days after you are done with the book.

[Hilal · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية أيقونية إلى حد كبير عن الحرب اللبنانية بالنظر إلى تاريخ صدورها في بداية التسعينيات من القرن الماضي. كان من الممكن أن تنزلق إلى خيارات سيئة مع الشخصية الرئيسية المثلية التي تبحث عن هويتها . لكنّ هدى بركات تتفادى ذلك باحتراف (لا عجب!). لقد طبّعت الرواية شخصية المثلي الباحث عن هويته الجنسية. وقدمت لنا مقاطع توصيفية فذة للشعور اللبناني الذي يعاد إنتاجه مع كل أزمة وآخرها تفجيرات الأسبوع الماضي في بيروت. من المذهل أن تقرأ عن شعور جماعي يعاود زياراته بين حين وآخر منذ خمس وعشرين سنة.
بخلاف فكرة ابتلاع الحرب للبطل من أيدي الكاتبة، وسرقتها لهويته الجنسية الرقيقة، فإن هذه الرواية من مفضلاتي التي ستبقى لسنين قادمة على الأرجح.

[Ward Khobiah]

كتبت هذه الرواية هدى بركات عن معايشات لشاب وحيد في غرفته الصغيرة أثناء الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية وفي أجواء شديدة الظلمة يلفها البؤس والوحدة والقصف توصف لنا هدى مآلات القصف اليومي على واقع هذا الشاب (خليل) وتأثيراتها على حياته اليومية والمحيطين به. فترصد لنا بتفاصيل دقيقة جدًا أحيانًا -قد تبدو لبعض القراء مملة وهذه مغامرة تحسب لهدى- كيف يقضي يومه معتنيًا بنفسه وقاضيًا حاجياته الروتينية جدًا.
وهنا أحب أن أتوقف في هذا السرب الوصفي التفصيلي عند نقطة تناول هدى لمطبخ خليل وخطوات إعداده لطعامه في العديد من المرات؛ إعداده للطعام الشعبي كـ(الفول المدمس) بوصف جميل جدًا منطلقة من شخصية خليل الهادئة الأنثوية أكثر.

استعملت بركات تقنيات متعددة خلال عملية السرد كتعدد الأصوات مثلًا فإلى جانب الراوي العليم كان هناك صوت خليل وصوت ثالث لروح/نفس خليل تحدثها وكأنها خارجة منه لأمامه، علاوة طبعًا عن استعمالها تقنية الحديث الذاتي/المونولوج.

تناولت هدى شخصية مركبة ورقيقة والتي هي الشخصية المحورية (خليل) ذو الميول الجنسية غير الواضحة أو المضطربة في كثير من الأحيان والمائلة على خط الرواية إلى المثلية الجنسية ولكنها مثلية ملتبسة بحب محكم بظروف يومية ووقتية جدًا، الرواية كثيرة المشاهد الدرامية القوية والإسقاطات الهازئة من الحرب وجنون فكرة الحرب.

وبخصوص فكنت أتحدث وصديقي عن سبب الانقسام الواضح وتحديدًا في حالته التطرفية اتجاه هدى فترى من يحب قلمها كثيرًا فيتابع رواياتها وجديدها دائمًا وهنالك من لا يؤمن بها ويرى أنها اشتهرت أكثر من اللازم وأرجعت ذلك في الحالتين ومن خلال تجربتي الأولى وقراءة عن رواياتها السابقة وشخوصها أن شخصياتها مركبة وأسلوبها غير مباشر وقد تكتب أحيانًا لمجرد الكتابة فهذا ما يسبب الشرخ الحاد في وجهات النظر برأيي.

- النهاية بحث آخر في اتجاه الرواية؛ فخط الرواية وتحليلاتها يأخذ منحى آخر ولن أضع رأيي بها لأن بها نهاية رمزية واضحة تفتح باب التحليلات على أوسعه وقد تقلب تحليلات البعض رأسًا على عقب.
سعيد جدًا بتجربتي الأولى لقلم هذه السيدة الأصيل.

- الرواية هي رواية هذا الشهر ضمن مناقشات مؤسسة الوراقون الثقافية - مكتبجي.

[Abdullah Abdulrahman · Rating 3 out of 5]

وكأنها أحجية طويلة كان جوابها في الصفحة الأخيرة، بأن الحرب قادرة على أن تغير فيك كما هي قادرة على تصحيح إنجذابك الجنسي ايضاً، هي المرة الأولى التي أقرأ فيها لـ "هدى"، ورغم جمال أسلوبها في إلتقاط المفردات وإعادة فرزها على الورق إلا أن تتبع مسار الحكاية وتقلبات مزاج "خليل" وهواجيسه وأسماء أصحابه وأشكالهم كان أمراً شاقاً بعض الشيء، الأمر الذي جعلني أستغرق وقتاً طويلاً في قراءة الروية رغم أنها نسخه من الحجم المتوسط، الرواية تتبع "خليل" وإضطراباته النفسية وتقلباته في إنجذاباته الجنسية، وتدور داخل معضله الحروب الأهلية في "بيروت"، وتلقي إسقاطاتها على مفهوم الموت والحياة، والدم والحزب والطائفة، وهو ليس بموضوع جديد بالكامل، فقد سبق وقرأت مؤلفات كثيرة تحكي عن ذات التفاعلات، لكن الجديد هنا هي رؤية "خليل" للأمور وتحليلها، وتفهم خلفية "خليل" الإجتماعية، ومشاركة سكان العمارة المهجورة ذكرياتهم التي تخطفها الريح، والركض خلف حكايا بقية أصحاب "خليل" الذين كانوا يتوافدون عليه في شقته واحداً تلو الآخر، ثم تتبع سيرة المرض الذي أودى بـ "خليل" ليكون تحت رحمة مشرط الدكتور "وضاح"، وصولاً إلى النهاية التي يعلن فيها "خليل" إنقلابه على الحياة ولحاقه بدرك الموت.

كانت قراءة رغم إنقطاعاتي المتعددة فيها خفيفة وشيقة، إلا أنني كنت أتوقع من النص شيئاً مختلفاً تماماً، مع ذلك لم يقدم لي إلا القليل مما كنت أبحث عنه، خصوصاً وأنني قرأت في أماكن متفرقة بأن العمل شائك وذائع الصيت بسبب حساسية المواضيع التي يتطرق إليها، والطريقة التي عالجت فيها "بركات" مسار الشخصية الرئيسية في الأحداث، إلا أنني لا أرى أي داعي لكل تلك الضجة التي حصدتها الرواية على كونها رواية مثيرة، فهي مجرد ضجة أكثر من كونها شيئاً حقيقياً سوف تتلمسه حال قرائتك للنص، لكن يغفر لذلك كله أسلوب "هدى" في مخاطبة عقل القارئ وتشكيل الهوية الشخصية لـ "خليل" وتفاصيلها الكثيرة.

[Aziza · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel won the Al-Naqid prize and is hailed as a “poignant portrayal of the Lebanese civil war” and a “must read.” However, much like with Assia Djebar’s Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade, I did not enjoy the overtly symbolic plot that was contrived to get across the point of the author. Barakat shows how the horrors of the Lebanese civil war of the 1990s and the heartbreak of being exiled and marginalized in his native country turn the homosexual, male protagonist into an aggressor as well. Some critics even argue that the author deliberately chose an effeminate, marginalized male character exiled in his own country because it was her only way as an equally marginalized Arab woman (who now lives in “exile” in Paris!) to voice her feelings in a repressive nation that is violent to women and homosexuals. As clever and courageous as that is, I felt no connection to the main character and did not mourn his losses whether they were literally his neighbors or lovers, or more symbolically, his innocence and morals. The Stone of Laughter made me understand on an intellectual level why Khalil changed from a quiet, sad victim desperately trying to hold onto his sanity and home into Mr. Khalil, a rapist, terrorist, and "a man who laughs." While The Stone of Laughter is technically much better written than for example Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin, it did not nearly accomplish what the latter did, which is make me understand the roots of a conflict on a more visceral level.

[إيمان الشريف · Rating 1 out of 5]

رواية مقززة ويؤسفني أن تقوم وزارة الثقافة الأردنية بطباعة هذا الكتاب وعرضه بثمن رمزي في معرض "القراءة للجميع".

[Shadwa Saad]

طيب ..
الرواية كأنها مشاهد متتالية ، يفصلها وقت غير محدد كذلك تفصلها احداث لم تذكر وكانت تلك المشاهد نتائجها
عن لبنان فترة الحرب الطائفية واعتداء إسرائيل
وهي فترة انا اجهلها تماما وربما لذلك ستكون مراجعتي مجحفة .

لكن حقا الرواية كانت تحتاج إلى مزيد من الإيضاح والشرح والربط ، حتى تضع الكاتبة قارئها معها على أرض واحدة بدل هذا القص واللصق ، وعن بطلها خليل فقد كان معذب برأسه ورهافته في حيرة من أمره لا تستميله المرأة التي ما هي إلا انعكاسة وطن انثى يعذبه

أما آخر صفحات الرواية فحدث ولا حرج يا خليل !
بصوت مدحت شلبي : ايه ده يا خليل يا نهار ابيض
تحول صادم لم اجد له ما يبرره خاصة وان كانت شخصية البطل من البداية شخصية كتلك ، تحول ضايقني لأنه وعد بضياع الامل ، تحول كان كخبطة على الرأس .

نهاية : لو كانت الرواية أكثر وضوحا وأقل فذلكة ربما كانت امتع
او لربما أحبها قاريء أكثر هضما لأحداث عصرها
لكني واأسفاه .. لم أكن هذا القاريء

[Noor Jasem]

من اسخف ما قرأت

[Cecilia Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

certain lines stuck out to me a lot, but that happens in a lot of books. the blurb said she really spoke for Beirut, but it was hard to find her love for the city anywhere, which may have been honest, but seems unlikely considering she laments what it "now is" so often.

what I really didn't like was the conflicting fem/masc sides of Khalil which often devolved into a violent hatred of women ("so revolting" and "secreting"). I didn't dislike it because it was sexist or whatever—she could be sexist I don't care. it was just poorly executed. his "female side" was introduced with disdain and basically amounted to 1) being quiet and 2). attracted to men. like her treatment of Beirut, you do have to feel something akin to love to then hate something so violently. she never proved that love for either the city or her character.

that being said, the violent end seemed like the most honest part of the book. less airy and metaphorical than the rest, which was a nice contrast considering it was Khalil's final hardening and the dismissal of his femininity.

I also don't know how much the translation is to blame in all of this. probably, I would guess, a lot.

[Scott Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author wrote this novel in a Beirut basement during the Lebanese civil war which broke out in 1975 between the Christians (Maronites) and the Muslim-PLO alliance. The protagonist is a male homosexual (Kahlil) who responds to the ravages of civil war with an obsession for cleanliness. He often withdraws into a world of reading and day dreaming of lovers who could make his world safe. Much of the novel seems disjointed and other-worldly. This fits with the picture that Barakat is trying to portray as the effects of warfare and political upheaval on her beloved city and country. The novel ends on a very disturbing note as Kahlil attains “manhood” in the way of succumbing to the warring patriarchal culture that surrounds him. The final words of the epilogue are a moving testimony of the author’s profound sense of loss and hopelessness personified by Kahlil’s change of character: “Kahlil is gone; he has become a man who laughs. And I remain a woman who writes. Khalil: my darling hero. My darling hero…“

[Nadine Araby · Rating 5 out of 5]

رواية رائعة تتابع هدى بركات تداعيات الحرب وما يفعله القصف والموت العبثي والعنف ثم اعتياد العنف وأثره في تشويه الإنسان حد التوحش، حد انتزاع الآدمية ذاتها، تفعل بركات هذا دون عنف في السرد بل رقة خالصة، ثراء في اللغة ورهافة في الوصف. رواية فعلا رائعة

[نادية كامل · Rating 5 out of 5]

رواية مدهشة ورائعة وجريئة
كل شئ في هذه الرواية فيه ابداع
اللغة والاسلوب والقصة والحبكة والمضمون
أخذتني الى متعة بعد متعة على مستويات مختلفة
مكتوبة من القلب بتألق نادر
هناك مقاطع نادرة في الكتاب حيث نبتعد عن خليل قليلا فيمسني الملل البسيط ولكنه سرعان ما يتلاشى
شكرا على عمل ادبي فخم وممتع

[أمل نشوان · Rating 1 out of 5]

يؤسفني جداً على الوقت الذي أضعته وأنا أقرأ هذا الشيء !!
توقف عقلي عند الكثير من الأحرف ليجمعها ويلقي بها في القمامة .. بصدق أقدم أشد الأسف لوقتي وعقلي ، ومقعدي !

[I. A.Charaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

واحده من اجمل روايات الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية

[kayleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

Read for my Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Middle Eastern History class, not going to review.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this in an Arabic literature class taught by Professor Hussein.

" . . . the street after the explosion was even more meek and peaceful, like a believer after he has said his prayers" (32).

"On his way home from the party Khalil passed underneath the balcony of the woman who was doggedly resisting the dirt that came up from the street . . . . she was standing on a high chair and was busy polishing the glass, busy with the irresistible love of life" (95).

"This is the most beautiful relationship that people can have . . . . We're great friends, me and the four passengers in the car. We make friends with each other's voices and each other's warmth with infinite lightness, not sullied or burdened by any consequences because we all of know how transient our meeting is, how swift, how purely by chance. None of us will impose his memories on the other or his thoughts . . . . we'll just chat for a while, like brother sparrows soon to fly the nest, we won't have time to fear evil from one another or to harm one another" (152-153).

He is wounded, has a breakthrough...and laughs! As he drives around in a taxi watching life go by:
"They're playing, thought Khalil as he smiled. They're making up games like children, and playing. All these are games to celebrate life" (172).

Then something else happens...

"Khalil feels disgusted because a shoulder bumped his shoulder in the street. He feels disgusted, his stomach shrinks, nauseated, don't touch me don't touch my purity . . . don't touch me" (203).

[Katie M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another powerful novel from Interlink World Fiction's excellent series of translated Arabic literature.

[Huthaifa Alomari · Rating 4 out of 5]

روايه تتحدث عن الحرب اللبنانيه وتتطرق إلى موضوع حساس في المجتمع
روايه جيده بالمجمل :)

[Mahmoud Omar · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية تؤكل.

[River · Rating 2 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book but the ending was awful enough to ruin it for me. It didn't make sense from any point of view, and if you read this I recommend stopping a few pages before it.

[خديجة رجب رفيدة · Rating 3 out of 5]

كفتاة من بلد يعاني حروبا مستمرة منذ سنوات، هذه الروايات تشدني
تشبيهات الكاتبة جميلة على بساطتها، الرواية مملة بعض الشيء، لكنها لا تجبرك على تركها.

[منيرة المهندي. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"مسكين يا خليل العالي.. يا خليل الذليل.. يا خليل القليل"!
رواية من الطراز الفاخر لوصف ويلات الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel about the civil war in Lebanon was a no nonsense tribute to people trying to carry on with their lives among air raids and destruction. The juxtaposition of quotidian activities and war also highlighted the contrast between traditional male and female roles. Women became even less valued as men hyper charged their masculine traits to carry out war. Conceptualizing the narrator as a gay man added another dimension to the dichotomy of gender norms. He identified with domestic tasks women were assigned, having modeled after the mothers and sisters in his life. Yet he was caught in the toxic masculinity of war. This was fascinating and I will think about it for a long time.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a favorite of mine. We also read this for my Arab literature and film class. Interesting in that it centers around an issue not often discussed in the Arab world - homosexuality. The main character, Khalil, is depicted as a very in-between character, not wholly man nor woman, child nor adult, ignorant nor knowledgeable. I think much of this novel was lost in translation. There is a distinct lack of punctuation, and an overabundance of ellipses ... which makes for a long and cumbersome read. It is quite hard to follow, and goes back and forth between Khalil as a first-person narrator and a third-person omnipresent perspective, making it difficult to discern what are Khalil's thoughts on himself and society and what are from an outsider's perspective. Censorship allows this novel to only go so far in what it says about masculinity and homosexuality in Arab society, so it is limited in how much it can push boundaries and open up a discussion about this "taboo" topic.

[amal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The strained social fabric of Beirut during the Civil War and its effect on relationships - platonic, familial, intimate, political - is poignantly reconstructed in this short story. However, the portrayal of women is lacking and borderline demeaning. When the entire book diminishes their role and visibility in society, one questions whether the author retains the artistic right to depict violence and rape against them. This may have been intentional, and done in order to show that a man with social and sexual inclinations towards men may naturally view women as separate, if not inferior, members of society. In any case, I found the use of sexual violence to advance the plot of the main character to be superficial and underwhelming.

[Rosebud · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what I think of this book. It may have to settle in before I know, so I've rated it three stars. I will be interested to hear what the other members of my international book club think of it.

It takes place in war torn Beirut and definitely portrays the tragedy of living in the middle of a war with bombs dropping all around you. As the author describes, people get used to war, and children come out to play after the bombs temporarily stop. It's hard to imagine living like this day after day. We are lucky, living in this country, to not know what this feels like. If we did, maybe we'd be less aggressive.

[Amanda J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still not sure what to think of this book. The excessive use of adjectives definitely reflected the original Arabic style in which it was written. The storyline never seemed to progress anywhere - and in the last moments was intensely shocking. A view into Lebanese culture, including harsh politics yet avoiding a political agenda. I've never read anything like it - and am unsure whether I'd want to read more by this author without recommendation.

Read as book 10/50 for 2014 50 Book Challenge.

[Angela Freckle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the flow of Khalil's story in this however the ending, whilst deeply saddening, didn't completely make sense. Perhaps I was tired or perhaps the event that triggers his change in character was not marked out well enough.
Some passages were very beautiful and memorable. Others were the opposite. Loved the way Barakat weaves together the themes of masculinity, home and war. Well worth a read but probably best savoured chapter by chapter.

[Bath-sheba Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book! It's such an interesting read and I didn't want to put the book down. It's about so many things, most importantly war and living in it every day as a civilian, but also about homosexuality and losing loved ones. The ending kind of surprised me a bit too, in a good way. I like when a good has a surprise ending and is written well.