إدوارد سعيد: أماكن الفكر

by Timothy Brennan, محمد عصفور (ترجمة)

The first comprehensive biography of the most influential, controversial, and celebrated Palestinian intellectual of the twentieth century

As one of Edward Said’s graduate students and close friends until his death in 2003, Timothy Brennan had unprecedented access to his thesis adviser’s ideas and legacy. In this authoritative work, Said, the pioneer of postcolonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender, eloquent advocate of literature’s dramatic effects on politics and civic life.

Charting the intertwined routes of Said’s intellectual development, Places of Mind reveals him as a study in opposites: a cajoler and strategist, a New York intellectual with a foot in Beirut, an orchestra impresario in Weimar and Ramallah, a raconteur on national television, a Palestinian negotiator at the State Department, and an actor in films in which he played himself. Brennan traces the Arab influences on Said’s thinking along with his tutelage under Lebanese statesmen, off-beat modernist auteurs, and New York literati, as Said grew into a scholar whose influential writings changed the face of university life forever. With both intimidating brilliance and disarming charm, Said melded these resources into a groundbreaking and influential countertradition of radical humanism, set against the backdrop of techno-scientific dominance and religious war. With unparalleled clarity, Said gave the humanities a new authority in the age of Reaganism, one that continues today.

Drawing on the testimonies of family, friends, students, and antagonists alike, and aided by FBI files, unpublished writings, and Said’s personal letters, Places of Mind synthesizes Said’s intellectual breadth and influence into an unprecedented, intimate, and compelling portrait of one of the great minds of the twentieth century.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, History, Philosophy, Middle East, Biography Memoir

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Esraa · Rating 4 out of 5]

هنا إدوارد سعيد بتفاصيل حياته التي بدأت في فلسطين وانتهت في امريكا مرورا بمصر ولبنان.
بحث عظيم وتتبُع لم يترك ثغرة في حياته إلا واطلعنا عليها. حياته الشخصية، مقالاته وكتبه، أعماله، سفراته، مواقفه مع جبهة التحرير الفلسطينية، كواليس تكوين مواقفه وأفكاره، مراحل مرضه ووفاته بالإضافة لتفاصيل عن الكُتَّاب والمفكرين والموسيقيين الذين أثّروا في حياته.
من قرأ كتابه (خارج المكان) ويريد أن يعرف باقي حياته- التي كان ينوي كتابتها لولا اشتداد المرض والوفاة- فليسارع لهذا الكتاب الرائع.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2 stars. I had harbored such high hopes for this. The biographer apparently gambled to be more exacting on the political side of the ledger at the expense of the critical and theoretical. My disappointment isn't exclusively tied to the biographer's understanding of Heidegger or Cixous. It is likely too soon (Said passed in 2003) for a detailed biography as a critical stance becomes a tissue of gossip. Said's ideas remain problematic for many, both right and left. Consequently, do we need to know of the serial slights endured? Apparently, Christopher Hitchens and Clive James could be bitchy, does that really surprise anyone? What becomes problematic is that Said the critic and thinker sinks like hypostasis amidst the name-calling. More fundamental questions are likewise untouched. Vico was rather foundational to Said, exactly how did this happen? His embrace of French theory coincides with such being a global phenomenon, what precipitated his (somewhat) of a retreat? There are allusions made that Said wanted to model his approach on Edmund Wilson, did this actually happen and what works of Wilson's served as model? Hopefully this research will facilitate something truly masterful, Said deserves such. This is a solid effort but one that relies on too few sources, most of them alive and one's rather opinionated.

[Bagus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first got into Edward Said’s thought during the class of postcolonial literature during my college days. His book which was first published in 1978, Orientalism, caused controversy in the West and stirred countless debates until his death in 2003. In his book, he establishes the eponymous term ‘orientalism’ as a critical concept to describe the West’s commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of the East (or the Orient). As Said’s former student, Timothy Brennan got access to know Said personally besides extensive archives ranging from Said’s personal documents to notes by the FBI which was the results of Said’s years of activism to champion the cause of the Palestinians.

Born Edward William Said on 1 November 1935 in Jerusalem, at that time part of British Mandate Palestine, it is interesting to see how the author in this book tries to clear up a fact that Said’s nemeses used to undermine his legacy. Many online sources, even Wikipedia, cite Said’s middle name as Wadie which was his father’s name, as an attempt to Arabize his name. Said had countless enemies in the academic world, much more so in terms of his activism to support Palestine after his family’s displacement in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel.

Timothy Brennan, through this book, attempts to provide some clarifications to Edward Said’s life through which we might notice some contradictory information from what commonly believed about this person. Various scholars who have read Said’s works might be familiar with his theories in post-colonialism and comparative literature, but little that we know about Said the Man and the contradictions within himself. We get exposed to some behind the scenes of Said’s adolescence in Cairo and his days as a Princeton undergraduate which is free of Said’s own subjectivities, unlike in his memoir Out of Place.

Another interesting fact that I encountered from this biography is also the musical side of Said. During the time he lived in Cairo, Said learned piano under the tutelage of Polish pianist Ignacy Tiegerman and even considered a career as a professional musician after several years studying at Princeton. It was his decision to immerse himself in the literature that gave birth to various interesting works such as his magnum opus Orientalism, but actually, there have been many papers published by Said about music and Timothy Brennan could analyze through various works of Said that seem to be unrelated to one another to show the complexities inside this individual.

Said’s relation with religion was also a strange case too, as he was born into a family of Christian Arab, whereas many people even to this day keep associating Arab with Muslims. I find his life an interesting case study, especially the way he delved deep into Joseph Conrad’s works and personalities for his dissertation. Both Said and Conrad were exiled (Conrad left his native Poland to settle in England) and both wrote in a borrowed language (English). Their lives found parallel to each other somehow, even though Conrad had been dead for 11 years by the time Said was born.

And it was really news to me that Said even harboured literary ambition up until 1965, drafting his novel and sending out short stories to a few magazines and newspapers, only to be rejected. He soon however made his name as a prominent literary critic in the 1970s, along with the kind of Susan Sontag and Noam Chomsky, without pursuing further his literary ambition. Sometimes, I wonder whether it is possible to be both at the same time an accomplished literary novelist while also becoming a staunch critic. And I have been thinking for a while that literature departments at colleges are more suitable to produce literary critics rather than literary novelists. Looking at Said’s life, I got reminded more that all of us are in this constant race against time and this book is surely an interesting gem to dig deep more into Said the Man before Said the Critics.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farras, Straus and Giroux for providing the e-ARC.

[أحمد ليثي]

أفكر دائمًا أن إدوارد سعيد شخصية لها سمت الشخصيات الأسطورية، بحيث لا ينتهي الحديث عنها من وجه، إلا ويبدأ حديث من وجه آخر، فهو، رائد لدراسات ما بعد الاستعمار، وناقد أدبي واسع الثقافة، وباحث غيرت كتاباته وجه الحياة الجامعية في أمريكا إلى الأبد، وكان ينظم الحفلات الموسيقية في فايمار، ويبرع في سرد الحكايات على شاشة التلفزيون، ويفاوض من أجل فلسطين في وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية.

يؤكد أسطورية سعيد ما قاله الطيب صالح عنه. سعيد أسطورة ستزداد جمالاً مع الأيام. ويمكنني أن أقول أن كتابه "خارج المكان"، وهو واحد من أعظم السير الذاتية التي قرأتها أضاف طبقات على أسطورية سعيد بالنسبة لعالمه وقراؤه، وأعتقد أن هذا الكتاب، "أماكن الفكر" سيرة أخرى، كتبت لتثري السيرة الذاتية التي قدمها سعيد في "خارج المكان" وتزيدها جمالاً.

[عبدالرحمن عقاب · Rating 4 out of 5]

إدوارد سعيد، أو إدورد كما اختار كتابته المترجم محمد عصفور، مثقف حرّ قلق، ومفكّر أصيل. وقد جاء هذا الكتاب ليستقصي سيرة القلق من جهة، ويبحث في جذور الأفكار الأصيلة ويعرض لتشكّلها وملامحها.
الكتاب غني، ويقوم على جهد استقصائي عظيم. ولا أظنّني قد استنفدت فوائده ولا حتى متعته. وذلك لأنني لم أقرأ سابقا من كتب إدوارد سعيد إلا "صور المثقف". ولن يرى عظمة الكتاب إلا من قرأ أعمال سعيد وتأملها، ثمّ جاء إلى الكتاب ليعرف قصتها.
أمّا شخصية إدوارد؛ فالكتاب كفيل بتعريف القارئ بهاته الشخصية الفريدة وأبعادها الاجتماعية والمهنية. ويتركك الكتاب على مسافة تكفي لترى إدوارد الإنسان بكل أناقته وطبيعته. وتراه في أدوار حياته، متقلبًا على خيط ناظم وإن اضطرب.
سيظل هذا الكتاب عالقا في قائمتي، لقراءة ثانية لازمة إن شاء الله. ولكن بعد قراءة كتبه الأخرى. وقد شجعتني ترجمة الأستاذ محمد عصفور الموفقة لهذا الكتاب، على محاولة قراءة "الاستشراق" بترجمته، بعد الترجمة المريعة القديمة.

[James Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love reading about intellectual debates. Consequently I was able to enjoy reading Brennan's book even though I f0und it fairly disorganized and less a biography and more of a discussion (not a critique) of Said's writing. Even this discussion disappointed because I found it hard to understand absent a substantial familiarity with that writing. Brennan assumes that familiarity even though the book seems to be for the general reader rather than the specialist.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive cradle-to-grave biography of Edward Said, meticulously researched, detailed and scholarly but always clearly and accessibly written. Author Timothy Brennan knew Said and conducted interviews with many other people who also knew him, giving a balanced view of this most complex of men. Brennan doesn’t hide his affection and admiration for Said, but the book is in no way a hagiography and he doesn’t ignore Said’s failings. I found it an absorbing and engaging read.

[Baher Soliman · Rating 3 out of 5]

دخلت إلى عالم إدوارد سعيد من خلال كتابه الاستشراق، وكان من فرضياته الأساس أنَّ الاستشراق له علاقة بالإمبريالية ويعني أساسًا الحديث عن المشروع الثقافي البريطاني والفرنسي، فالاستشراق تتمثل قيمته الكبرى عنده في كونه دليلاً على السيطرة الأوروبية على الشرق أكثر من كونه خطابًا صادقًا عن الشرق، في "أماكن الفكر" لا يأخذنا تِمُثي برنَن إلى قلب الصياغة الفكرية لأطروحة الاستشراق بوصفها الأطروحة المركزية في منتج سعيد الفكري بشكل أساس، ولكن يأخذنا إلى حياة سعيد نفسها، الطفل الذي ولُد بالقدس لأسرة مسيحية تتَّسم بالثراء المادي ثم انتقلت إلى مصر وعاشت فيها لفترة من الزمن، دخل فيها إدوارد مدرسة فيكتوريا كولدج التي تُعد في ذلك الوقت المنفذ الثقافي والتعليمي البريطاني في مصر، ويُلاحظ أنّ إدوارد عاش مع إخوته البنات حياة تغريبية، كانت كفيلة بأن تجعل منه غربي النزعة، فالثقافة إنجليزية، حتى لغة الكلام في البيت إنجليزية رغم محاولة والدته في أحيان كثيرة جعل التحدّث داخل البيت باللغة العربية، لكن هذه الحياة التغريبية لم تجعل سعيدًا متماهيًا مع الثقافة الغربية، بل جعلته كاشفًا لعوارها.

هذه السيرة التي كتبها تلميذ إدوارد سعيد بلغة توثيقية تحاول أن تكشف الجانب الآخر من سعيد، أو ما لم يقله في سيرته " خارج المكان" أو ما قاله ولم يكن يقدّم حيثياته الموضوعية مثل سبب تركه لفيكتوريا كولدج، وبروح التلميذ المُحبِّ لأستاذه يؤكّد أنَّ سعيدًا كان أكبر من واقعه، نعم هذا ما قاله، وما حاول فعلًا التأكيد عليه عمليًّا من خلال تناول أعمال سعيد بالتحليل والتدقيق والتمحيص، لكن ليس الم��تج الفكري هو ما أراد المؤلف أن يكون عمدة الكتاب، هو ينقل تجربته مع سعيد واحتكاكه بحياته، فكما يقول إنَّ الذين عرفوا سعيد من قراءة كتبه فقط لم يروا كل ما فيه، لكن ماذا أرانا تِمُثي برنَن من الجانب الآخر.. طفولة قلقة العلاقة مع أبيه وديع، عشق سعيد للموسيقى، أحلامه أن يكون عازفًا، مشكلته في فيكتوريا كولدج التي تركها ورحل إلى ماونت هيرمن في أمريكا، حلمه أن يكون طبيبًا وكيف آلت الأمور به إلى طريق الأدب.

لا يبدو أنّ كتاب الاستشراق هو كل شئ في سيرة سعيد ولا ما كتبه بعده؛ إذ يظل موقف سعيد من القضية الفلسطينية وما كتبه من المواقف الحاسمه في حياته، يحكي لنا الكتاب كيف أدرك سعيد هويته للمرة الأولى من خلال حكايات نبيهة أخت أبيه الأولى، فقد تركت فيه أثرًا كبيرًا بما روته من قصص مُحزِنة عن المصاعب التي واجهها الفلسطينيون بعد ١٩٤٨، وصف سعيد تلك السنوات في طفولته بأنَّها كانت شرنقة، بينما يؤكّد تمُثي بأنّ شخصيته السياسية كانت قد تبلورت في تلك الفترة، ومع إيمانه بقضية فلسطين يبدو أنَّه لم تكن مشكلته مع اليهود كجنس، فالكتاب حافل بأسماء المعلِّمين اليهود الذين تتلمذ على يدهم إدوارد سعيد، مثلًا تعلم الموسيقى على يد البولندي إجناسي تيغرمان، ولاشك أنَّه اعتُمِد كموسيقي محترف بعد عدة سنوات من الدراسة في جامعة برينستون، ولكن كان قراره بالانغماس في الأدب هو الذي قاد إلى أهم ما كتبه وهو كتاب الاستشراق.

لا تبدو علاقة سعيد بالدين جيدة أو قوية، البعض حاول تصويره ملحدًا، لكن الرجل يبدو علمانيًا متسامحًا مع الاعتقادات الإيمانية، قال عن نفسه " أنا ملتزم بالعلمانية، ولكن هذا لا يعني أنني ضد الدين"، وما يهمني أنا كقارئ لسعيد أنَّ الرجل حاول أن يكون منصفًا ومتسقًا في تقييماته التي أثارت عاصفة من الجدل حول الاستشراق، والبعض مثل رودنسن شكّك في إمكانياته لتقديم مثل ذلك النقد للاستشراق بوصفه متخصّصًا في حقل الأدب الإنجليزي والأدب المقارن، ويُدرك الكتاب أنَّ ثمة تناقضات في أطروحة سعيد لكنه يرفض تلك النبرات التشكيكية في قدراته، ويرى أنّ كثيرًا من الاتهامات لا أصل لها مثل كون سعيد من أتباع ما بعد الحداثة، في حين يقول تمُثي أنَّ سعيدًا نسف مفهوم ما بعد الحداثة و عارض ما بعد البنيوية ووصف جاك دريدا بأنَّه " مفكّرًا منحلّاً متصنّعًا " .

قرأ سعيد في التحليل النفسي السياسي، وكان من أنصار الحركة النسوية، لكن ما يمكن الاستفادة فيه من سعيد فعليًا هو نقده للاستشراق ولو كانت هناك مؤاخذات، وكذا ما تكلَّم عنه الكتاب من كون سعيد لم يكن مستعدَّا لحصر الإمبريالية في " الاتجاه الذهني" وحده، بل ربط ذلك بالحقائق المادية المتمثِّلة في الاستيلاء على الأراضي، قد يكون من الحقائق أنَّ أطروحة سعيد حول القضية الفلسطينية شائكة بل ومرفوضة، لقد رفض سعيد أوسلو ووصفها بالخيانة، لكن بالمقابل كان سعيد يذبح فلسطين وهو يقوم بالتأويل الهوياتي لها، كيف لم ينقد تمُثي هذا؟! ويؤمن سعيد بأنَّه من غير الممكن إبعاد الفلسطينيين و«الإسرائيليين» عن بعضهم البعض، وأنَّ «اليهود الإسرائيليين» وُجدوا في فلسطين ليبقوا فيها إلى الأبد، ومن الوهم الاعتقاد بعكس ذلك. ولذا فهو يرى أنَّ تحرير «اليهود الإسرائيليين» المغلوبين على أمرهم من الصهيونية التي لوثت طهارة اليهود «المساكين» إلى حد البراءة، يقع على الفلسطينيين حيث العبء الأخلاقي يتمثل في نهاية المطاف «في النقلة من التعرض للانتهاك إلى المسؤولية عمن يمارس الاضطهاد، من المعاناة إلى التكفير عن الآخر».

لقد أصابت سعيد حالة هذيان واسترخاء عقلي، أو قل إن شئت الدقة، في لحظة هزيمة نكراء تكبَّدتها الحركة الوطنية الفلسطينية، جعلته يقرر أنّ الحل يكمن في ترتيبات فيدرالية تؤدي إلى نظام ثنائي القومية، إن تِمُثي يرفض تسميه هذا الأمر انهزامية ويُعلِّله بأنَّه انطلاق من واقع سياسي لا يسر، بالتأكيد قول تِمُثي هو الذي لا يسر، بتصوري لم يقدّم الكتاب التحليل المناسب لانهزامية إدوارد سعيد هنا، وأرى أنَّ المشكلة الحقيقية هي أنَّ ثمة فرضية مهيمنة على منظري ما بعد الاستعمار الذين يعد سعيد أبرزهم وممن وضعوا الإطار النظري لذلك التوجه. تنطلق الفرضية من فكرة أنَّ الاستعمار أعاد تشكيل الجماعات المستعمَرة. لذا تبقى من المهمات الأولى للمقاومات المحلية أن تتمثَّل منطقًا لا يعيد المجتمع إلى الحِقبة السابقة على الاستعمار، إلى مرحلة النقاوة ما قبل التاريخية، بل عليها أن تشتق فعاليتها من حرمانات الحاضر الراهن، وأن تجترح لمجتمعها طبيعة ثالثة تتجاوز الحِقبة الاستعمارية وما قبلها. فالعالم الاستعماري وما بعده باتا شديد التداخل، وأنّ البحث عن موقع يُحرر الثاني من الأول فعالية مستحيلة، وبالتالي قبل سعيد بالوجود الإسرائيلي إلى جانب الفلسطيني.

في الحقيقة الكتاب به تفاصيل شخصية قد تبدو مملّة في أول فصلين وإن كانت مهمة، ثم شرع في بقية الكتاب في فكر سعيد ومعاركه ومواقفه، وإن لم يشرح فكره بتفصيل، فأعتقد الكتاب يخاطب من يعرف عن فكر إدوارد سعيد ابتداءً، والترجمة ليست أفضل شيء لكنها مقبولة .

#قراءة_2022

[Julia Simpson-Urrutia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timothy Brennan’s in-depth study of Edward Said shows that people will still argue about Edward Said, still be confused as to what he represented, perhaps for the simple reason that no one of his stunning backgrounds and immense capabilities has stepped in to fill the void. Said’s life work shows how an individual from a demonized ethnicity can use his talent and intelligence to command respect and challenge attitudes for what he represents.

Said represented the Middle East.

He is an almost mythical presence now to readers with Middle Eastern ties. This American Christian Palestinian born in Jerusalem, raised in Cairo, steeped in American traditions, educated at Princeton and Harvard, fluent in French, English and Arabic and capable of classical piano performances as a professional, was the educated spokesperson for an abused, exploited and misrepresented people. His lifetime pursuit was not just to hold up the standard for humanism in the Middle East, to challenge “the anti-Semitism [that] had shifted from Jews to Arabs in the modern West,” but to be the advocate of symbiotic intellectual conversations with the goal of promoting truth and justice, particularly in relation to the Middle East. In essence, he was a constructive critic, an intellectual advocate for assessing the weight of philology in cultural intercourse.

The Middle East has traditionally been represented from the 19th through 21st century news as a place of warring religious factions, yet Said—in a sense like Gandhi—considered himself an “honorary” Muslim and was certainly no enemy of Judaism, considering that so many of his friends were Jews of great intellect, like Noam Chomsky. He could not have been otherwise to have made the stand he did for the inherent dignity of Middle Eastern culture and to expose its exploitation by the West. It is one of the all-time ironies that a place on Earth honored as the cradle of civilization is more devastated with Western-sponsored bombings, which the “first world” justifies for the region’s alleged incapability for democracy, than any other geographical location on earth.

Brennan, for whom Said was both mentor and friend, has woven a powerful biographical study, showing the sometimes-wandering steps that led Said to settle on teaching English literature as his profession. Given the debatable reputation of a career in English literature as a powerful political force, it was a momentous decision.

In Said’s initial major work, Beginnings, the first book to receive the Lionel Trilling Award at Columbia University (where the author was employed as English professor), Said used his intellectual pursuits in philology to show how the development of the novel in the West is a beginning that shapes the way we humans evaluate experiences, art, and knowledge. The influence of Vico, Valery, Nietzsche, Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Husserl and Foucault can all be felt. Orientalism, published in 1978, deals with the portrayal of the Middle East through the Western lens. Brennan’s assessment of the misunderstandings that “plagued the book’s reception” demonstrates the need for the book to have been written in the first place. Edward Said realized that only literary critics “can explain how a mania like Orientalism” impacts “mass density and influential power” and thus shapes politics.

Who can deny that the interpretive prism of humanities is political? Herein lies the key to Said’s defense of all that was Middle Eastern, including Islam even though he was not himself a Muslim. When superpowers wish to defend and continue exploitation of a region, the most useful tools are those of projected images. Perspective, taking place through images, stories and language, clearly props up exploitation. The diagnosis of any culture as backward and in need of being managed will easily take place through the arts, influencing audiences.

Before Said, no Middle Easterner had written a work in English that probed Western attitude towards the Middle East through secular expression with the express goal of demonstrating that a one-sided perspective must be unjust. No Middle Eastern intellectual, until his time, was able to capture the attention of the world’s most respected writers and thinkers on the subject of how that representation had come to hold sway.

Since the time of Ibn Khaldun, who wrote the Introduction to History—Al Muqaddimah—that explains how civilizations rise and fall, a work which Said considered one of the all-time great books of the millennium, few were the commanding voices to explain the trajectory of mankind’s efforts in a study of human pursuits and expressions. In that trajectory lie the keys to intercultural strength and weakness. Said was a holistic analyst. That was an uphill battle for him since in the West, the niches of human study have long been compartmentalized: psychology, science, literature, and so on. Walls exist between the fields. He asked readers to consider how the language of interpretation impacts world order.

In Orientalism, Brenan explains, Said not only exposes Western caricatures of the Middle East but underlines misrepresentations that contribute to the East-West divide. Said stayed in conversation with the major intellects of his era, sometimes losing friends, for he was unwilling “to fall victim to dogma.” Said studied the impact language and its usage in portrayals of the Middle East. Close friends with Kamal Nasser, Said was the final editor of Arafat’s speech at the UN on November 13, 1974, famous for the closing line: “Don’t let the olive branch fall from my hands.” Certainly Said’s emphasis on language usage would have resonated with Benazir Bhutto, twice prime minister of Pakistan and author of Reconciliation, published in 2008, who implored readers to stop using the term “secularism” when talking about democracy’s compatibility with Islam but instead to discuss the equal human rights supported by both democracy and the Qur’an.

Of great value in this book are the assessments of the thinkers and writers with whom Said debated. For instance, Christopher Hitchens, the British-born author and friend of Salman Rushdie, who started out his career pro-Palestine, turned his acidic wit to slander Orientalism in particular and the Middle East/Islam in general, in pursuit of a lucrative reputation for the same. During a public debate between Hitchens and Egyptian novelist Soueif in New York, Said jumped up in the audience to ask, “Why does no one talk of truth and justice anymore?” Brennan is convincing in his rendering of a self-critical intellectual who opened the world’s mind to the impact of language and art in global relations and specifically in respect to relations with the vast Middle East.


My books include The Red Sea Bride under the pseudonym Sylvia Fowler, Burning Boats: The Birth of Muslim Spain, The Jinn in the Clock and Wax Works.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed by this book even though I learned a good deal. I'm interested in the political Said, including his work with the Palestinian cause and his general critique of imperialism and US foreign policy. However, the overwhelming focal points of this book were 1. way-in-depth portraits of his literary theory and musical/artistic commentary and 2. A lot of stuff about the petty feuds of New York and transnational intellectuals. There obviously had to be some of both of these things in a book about Said, but I just felt I was reading page after page of boring musicology or little squabbles about who got invited to what banquet or cocktail party. If you want a lot about Said's work on the Palestinian cause, you might just want to read Said's books on the subject, as Brennan oddly minimizes that work. I would have also liked to see more about his critique of imperialism in general and his philosophy of "humanism."

I also thought Brennan was openly biased in favor of Said, so I'm less than fully trusting of the presentation of the evidence. He simply echoes Said's caustic, often mean-spirited blasts at his rivals without bothering to present other sides to the discourse. This is a structural problem with the kind of analysis Said champions. While he's not a full-on post-modernist (he's too much of a humanist and pragmatist for that), Said has long argued that there's no problem with blending of scholarship and political advocacy. I disagree; these things should be kept as separate as possible to ensure that the scholarship can be convincing and useful across ideological and political lines; otherwise, scholarship is just more preaching to the choir. There's a reason why Said rarely got his stuff published in peer-reviewed presses or journals (besides his fame): he blended politics and scholarship so promiscuously it would be hard to an expert to really evaluate. As a fan of Said, Brennan seems to be following in his footsteps here, and it doesn't make the book any stronger.

An example of where this book could have been better comes at the end. Brennan just ends the book with Said's death and makes little effort to summarize the book or assess Said's significance. Is he most important as a literary theorist, a public intellectual, maybe as someone who kept the paradigm of imperialism alive after the fall of formal empires? I'm working on an article about Said right now, so it was disappointing to not get more of a thesis out of this book. This is too bad because the archival work and interviews done for this book were impressive.

However, what Brennan does really well is chart Said's life and give you a sense of his personality. Said emerges as a very complex character, someone who is genuinely worth reading and listening too along with a few grains of salt. He had a somewhat armchair revolutionary style, supporting the PLO vehemently and blasting US foreign policy in a typically Chomskyian manner. His work was sweeping and bold, probably written too quickly, but he set down big ideas that have fueled research in dozens of fields (including my own: US political and diplomatic history with a focus on interactions with the Middle East). While he is in some ways the core figure of post-colonial studies, he distanced himself from that field, believing it was ridiculously theoretical and irrelevant to the actual lives and problems of the Global South (I agree). He kept his politics out of teaching and took teaching very seriously. He was a great defender of the liberal arts education, opposing left-wing attempts to bring down the West-focused common core while also resisting efforts to professionalize tertiary education. He was almost a professional level piano player with a great respect for many musical traditions. While Said was a political warrior with whom I disagree a lot, to his credit he was not a culture warrior, as he saw value in both the traditional and the new and believed that an education required bringing these things into conversation. So I ended the book with complicated feelings about the person and the thinker, which is probably a good thing.

This book leaves plenty of room for work on Said; it is a good start but by no means the definitive biography. I'd say pick it up if you are really interested in him and have a high tolerance for a lot of lit crit and musicology (I don't), or if you are working on something related to Said and need a good source.

[زينب مرهون · Rating 4 out of 5]

يمثّل أماكن الفكر واحدًا من أهم الكتب التي تناولت حياة إدوارد سعيد، لا بوصفه مفكرًا فحسب، بل بوصفه كائنًا إنسانيًا تشكّل عبر سلسلة من الانكسارات والتوترات العابرة للقارات. تمثي برنن هو صديق مقرب وتلميذ سابق لسعيد يكتب هنا ما يشبه “السيرة الموازية”، سيرة تُكمل ما لم يقله سعيد في كتابه الذاتي خارج المكان، تكشف المساحات التي صمت عنها، أو ربما لم يملك المسافة الكافية لرؤيتها من الداخل.

القيمة الرئيسية للكتاب تكمن في منهجه المركّب: فهو لا يكتفي بتتبّع مراحل حياة سعيد، بل يحاول بناء خريطة ذهنية توضّح كيف تسرّبت التجربة الشخصية إلى مشروعه النقدي. يبيّن برنن أن سعيد لم يكتب “الاستشراق” من برج عاجي، بل من جرح قديم يعود إلى طفولة موزّعة بين القدس والقاهرة وبيروت، وإلى إحساس مبكر بأن اللغة والمكان والانتماء كلها أشياء قابلة للانكسار والالتباس.

يُظهر الكتاب كيف نجح سعيد في تحويل المنفى إلى مختبر فكري: موقع يراقب منه العالم من مسافة، ويُدقّق في خطاباته، ويختبر حدود المعرفة. لم يكن سعيد مجرد أكاديمي يكتب عن السلطة والتمثيل؛ كان شاهدًا واعيًا على أثر الاحتلال والتهجير والتشويه الثقافي. وقد استطاع برنن أن يضيء هذه الزاوية تحديدًا، فيجعل القارئ يرى أن قوة سعيد الفكرية ليست منفصلة عن هشاشته الإنسانية.

من أجمل جوانب الكتاب أنه يقدّم سعيد في تناقضاته الطبيعية: موسيقيًّا مهووسًا بالتناغم، لكنه ناقدًا لا يرحم. غاضبًا من صورة العرب في الغرب، لكنه ناقد شرس أيضًا لثقافته العربية حين تستحق النقد. أكاديميًا صارمًا، لكنه إنساني الحضور مع أصدقائه وطلابه. هذه الصورة المركّبة تمنح القارئ إدراكًا أعمق لفكرة أنّ المفكرين الكبار ليسوا مبالغات لغوية، بل بشر تتكثف فيهم التجربة حتى تتحول إلى فكر.

أسلوب برنن سهل وقريب، لكنه يعتمد على كم هائل من الوثائق والشهادات التي تجعل الكتاب مرجعًا موثوقًا. ورغم ذلك، قد يشعر القارئ أحيانًا بأن المؤلف يقع في شيء من “العاطفة التقديسية” تجاه سعيد، وهو أمر مفهوم من شخص عرفه عن قرب، لكنه يفتح سؤالًا نقديًا: هل كان يمكن أن تُكتب سيرة تعيد توازن الضوء والظل؟
مع ذلك، يظل الكتاب قادرًا على تقديم سيرة فكرية تُنصت إلى الإنسان قبل المفهوم، وإلى الحياة قبل النظرية.

باختصار، أماكن الفكر ليس كتابًا عن مكان عاش فيه سعيد، بل عن الأماكن التي عاشته؛ عن كيف يتكوّن عقل مضاد، كيف ينشأ فكر كبير من حياة مكسورة، وكيف يتحول المنفى إلى باب واسع للتأمل في العالم، حيث تتحول الجراح إلى رؤية، والفقدان إلى معرفة، والغربة إلى وعي.

[Jimmy Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relevant book for the current situation in the Middle East, interesting to hear about how it was to be a Palestinian-American person in the second half of the 20th century. My only drawback is I wish this was an autobiography. Very thankful I was gifted a copy

[The Contented · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grateful for the opportunity to have read this book, which explains - much more than anything else I have read - how Said’s ideas developed

[Hussein Harbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

لا أعلم لماذا ترجم محمد عصفور كلمة mind (الفكر)؟
الكتاب، عن أحد العقول المسكونة بتفاصيل التفاصيل، وبالمشاغبة والتطرّف أحيانًا. رجل، خارج المكان، كما وصف نفسه، عاش الحداثة كما يجب وانتقدها بضراوة، كان فلسطينيًّا بأدواتٍ أمريكيّة. ولد على يد قابلة يهوديّة وعولج في مرضه الأخير على يد طبيب يهوديّ في مركزٍ يهوديّ، إلاّ أنه أتهم بمعاداة الساميّة.

[Differengenera · Rating 4 out of 5]

decent biography. good balance between the life and accounts of the works

[Fran Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed but I thought it was slightly too ambitious

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read Orientalism in college and using it as a pivotal text in my undergraduate dissertation, i was excited to read this! too bad the writing style was dryer than a saltine on Mars.

[Eric Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Said, along with Foucault and Barthes, was one of the more well-remembered literary scholars I studied in graduate school. I remember particularly his sparring with Achebe over the racism of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," with the latter being quite polemical (understandably) and Said playing a devil's advocate of complexity. I enjoyed this essay, and will hopefully someday read Orientalism in its entirety, although I find reading long works of criticism or theory daunting. My long, anecdotal opening mirrors my feelings on Brennan's biography of Said: incredibly impressed with the man and his ideas; grew tired of reading about the critical spats he got into. What will linger is Said's contrarianism, and his willing acceptance of it. I wish more people were like this. We become fixed in patterns and unwilling to concede former positions we may no longer believe in. Said was constantly refining his thinking, even if it meant subjecting himself to calls of hypocrisy. Often, we align our positions with our perceived identities, and one of Said's greatest strengths as a critic and pseudo-politician was his split identity - Arab/Christian, Palestinian/American, Easterner/Westerner - which allowed for the progression of his ideas over decades instead of falling back on worn scholarship. As such, he moved from literary critic to political attache and minor celebrity, increasingly scrutinized but also highly influential. His seminal work is Orientialism, through which he unwittingly established a new era of scholarship (post-colonialism) and pathway for scholars from the third-world to enter Western academic circles (thus influencing long-held canonical tropes). His lifetime's work is prolific and controversial, hallmarks of true genius. If I can make a poor comparison, he reminds of Dylan, of constant reinvention and re-evaluation, of "I just can't fit" (his memoir is aptly titled Out of Place). Brennen catalogues his adventurous and introspective life well, it just became too esoteric after a time.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said by Timothy Brennan is a fascinating look at what helped to make Said the person, and thus the intellectual, he was.

Place is an idea that permeates Said's work, whether geographical, of the mind, or the intersection of the two. While much thought is abstract how a person frames those abstract concepts is often influenced by where they have been. Again, this can mean where one has physically lived or the mental journeys one has taken. Brennan takes us through Said's life with an eye toward the physical places he lived and worked as well as the places of the mind that he journeyed, both with his own mentors and later when he was a mentor to many.

While many readers, especially as time moves on from his popular press writings, may only be familiar with a couple of his works, this biography will hopefully lead the reader to read more of his writing. I might suggest the revised edition of The Selected Works of Edward Said, 1966-2006 that was published in early 2019. It has a nice selection from all of his major works as well as a nice cross section of his various types of writing.

Whether one agreed or disagreed with some of Said's positions, I think most would agree that he tried to be equitable and consistent in his assessments. This book will help you to better understand why he held many of the views he did.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[حمزة المطلع · Rating 5 out of 5]

أماكن الفكر.
سيرة ذاتية مذهلة، كثيفة من حيث التفاصيل.

تتناول حياة المثقف ادورد سعيد، صاحب كتاب الاستشراق.
تناولت السيرة حياته من مختلف جوانبها، وهو المولود في فلسطين، والذي عاش فترات من حياته بين لبنان ومصر قبل ان ينتقل بشكل رسمي الى الولايات المتحدة الامريكية.
تهمم بالقضية الفلسطينية، وكان من رواد منظمة التحرير الى جانب ياسر عرفات وغيرهم.

اهتم بالفلسفة والأدب والفكر، فشل في ان يكون أديبا وروائيا، لكنه كان مدرسا لامعا ومفكرا ألمعيا.

وكان ولعه بالموسيقى شديدا، كان عازفا ومؤلفا.

السيرة طويلة نوعا ما، لانها تتناول بالتفصيل أفكار سعيد التي تبلورت في مرحلة الدراسة وبعدها وهو أستاذ جامعي، تتبعت السيرة تطور هذه الافكار، وتبلورها من خلال مؤلفاته الكثيرة على الرغم من انه اشتهر بالأساس بكتابة المقالات. ونجد في الكتاب أيضا أسماء كثيرة، لكل الأشخاص الذين مروا في حياة سعيد، وكان لهم تأثير سواء كان ايجابيا أو سلبيا.

لا شك ان حياته كانت غنية جدا، وعريضة جدا. من حي�� الافكار لا استطيع الحكم بعد، لابد ان أقرأ شيئا من انتاجه الفكري حتى استطيع ان أكون صورة جزئية عن من هو سعيد المفكر. صحيح ان الكتاب يعرض بعض الاشارات من هنا وهناك. ولكني لا أحبذ الافكار الجاهزة.

ما يعاب على السيرة انها لم توجه أي نقد لسعيد، وكأنه شخص مثالي، بل انبرى المؤلف للدفاع حتى عن الانتقادات الماضية وتبريرها، أجد انه من غير الطبيعي ان يكون لكل نقد/نقص جواب.

عموما يعد هذا الكتاب من أجمل ما قرأت في السيرة الذاتية، وقد كانت فقط مقدمة بسيطة، هناك الكثير لكي أتعلمه من سعيد، وهناك كثير من الزوايا التي تنتظر الاكتشاف. وهذا ما سأفعله بقراءتي لسيرته المكتوبة بقلمه : خارج المكان.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning biography.

[Gadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened over the course of six months, so not sure how much I really retained, but parsing through my notes, definitely think this was a meaty intellectual profile of a great thinker.

"To call me a refugee is overstating it a bit," Said wrote at some point. He was brought up in Jerusalem and then in Nasser's Egypt. I deeply empathized with his life-long narrative of dislocation, belonging neither here nor there, blending into the immigrants' republic.

Said wasn't the radical that later moral panics would paint him as. He was bewildered by SDS protests in Columbia against the Vietnam War, claiming that "the classroom was the last place to wage war" — something today's Columbia protestors would disagree with him about. He believed that "armed struggle is a mere slogan", failing to call suicide bombers "martyrs", and was threatened with assassination during the time of the Lebanese Civil War. Later on he got involved in Arafat-Carter discussions around recognition of PLO in exchange for talks, which Arafat rejected.

The book delves deeply into theory, of course. Orientalism, of course, but also a rejection of postmodernists and post-structuralists like Derrida, critiquing their detachment from reality. In The Question of Palestine, he worked to re-invent a Palestinianism rooted in positive values, like "inclusion" (as opposed to Zionism's "exclusion".) He adapted Freudian psycholinguistic analysis to his theories, exploring how the unconscious affect national identity, but seemed to reject its oversimplified schematic perspective, comparing it to Zionism. He admired Isaac Deutscher for his idea that social marginality was what drove famous historical Jews to a common cause with the oppressed. Said seemed to be obsessed with Vico and especially with Adorno, but I may lack the philosophical background to really understand their ideas and how Said related to them.

He helped draft the Algiers declaration in 1988, where the PLO accepted the two-state solution, though he predicted its leadership would turn out to be seen as corrupt and inept. He proposed in Culture and Imperialism the "collision" between "the formative power of ideas" and "the hard materiality of the land", suggesting that legal claims over land are decided by narrative claims. He appears to be a bit reductive here too by claiming that imperialism precedes colonialism as this elemental psychological "lust". In an essay called The Politics of Knowledge, he seemed to assail identity politics — opposing belief in the link between what one knows and what one is.

Though he came definitively against Oslo, he was also critiqued for saying things like "Exile seems to a more liberated state" and that Palestine was "precisely irrecoverable . . . ​We are moving away from it. It is not to create the beautiful place with orchards and so on" — kind of reminiscent of Amos Oz, no? He critiqued the "imaginary spatial structures of Zionist territory" / Zionist archeology; at the same time he founded an Israeli-Palestinian orchestra that was boycotted by BDS. He did promote the idea of humanism, despite the fact that it had been historically abused by Zionists etc.

I wish there was more around his struggle with CLL, his death — which seemed rather sudden, a result of Richter's transformation. My father died from the disease recently and so it has been interesting to learn so much about Said's diagnosis and struggle with the disease.

[Mo'men Tawhid - تَوْحِيد‎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

نموذج حياة إدوارد سعيد يدعو للغبطة، حتى بكل ما يحمله من آلام إلا أنها تجربة حياة غنية ومليئة بالقصص والتعلم.
مزيج بين شرقي مسيحي فلسطيني ينتقل للقاهرة في شبابه لفتح مسارات تعليمه ثم ينتقل لأوروبا ثم أمريكا ويقطن فيها لزمن طويل، يقطف من كل مكان أصوله وطباعه وما يمكن أن يستخدمه ليتعلم شيئًا جديدًا عن العالم الذي يحيا فيه ويفهمه ويؤثر فيه.
خلفية أدبية رصينة وعقل لغوي حاد، ومطالع جيد للفن، ورغم الدرجات الأكاديمية الرفيعة قادر على الانسجام مع منتج الفن الشعبي الحديث

في فيلم وثائقي من كتابته وحكايته، عام 1982، ترى قدرته على التواصل المباشر مع نسوة فلسطينيات في لبنان، اللهجة وفهم لطائف الإشارات، والتواضع الحكي في طلب النصح والتوجيه، يتحرك بسهولة بدون عوائق الرطانة الأكاديمية.

عقل كبير
اهتماماته وإسهاماته الفكرية جاءت في حقول مفتوحة، بعضها مستقر وآخر حديث الإنشاء، ونظريات الفكر الإنساني عامة، مع وجود انحيازات واضحة لقضايا تاريخية لازلت حاضرة ومؤثرة في العالم، وفي مجتمعه خصوصًا

اهتم الكتاب بالتوثيق الزائد، والإحالات الكثيفة، خرجت منها بترشيحات جيدة لكن بنسبة ضئيلة من الكمية المذكورة.

المترجم ممتاز، منتبه وحاضر وعلى معرفة بصاحب السيرة، إدورد، ربما إنسانيًا بشكل أكثر من الكاتب، وأعتقد أن ذلك رفع من قيمة الكتاب.

أسلوب الكاتب الأصلي متشعب ومضطرب، لا نسيج زمني أو لغوي واضح، كاستدعاء من ذاكرة وذكر لكل ما يعرفه، كلما حالفه التوفيق في إطار جيد خرجت النتيجة مبهرة، ولكن ذلك ظهر قليلًا في 12 فصل. العادة أنه مضطرب ويريد ذكر كل ما يعرفه في السطور بأي مكان.

من نقاط القوة الحديث عن الظروف التي تخرج فيها كتبه ومقالاته، وتبعاتها وسجالاتها مع المؤيدين والخصوم، وسرد رأي سعيد نفسه في ذلك

نقطة انطلاق جيدة لمطالعة كتابات سعيد نفسه وفهم شكل الضجة التي حدثت حولها، والتفريق بين نقاط جودتها وبين سوء الفهم
ينجح الكتاب في توصيل صورة قريبة لشخصية إدورد، يتمكن بعدها القارئ من تصوره وهو يكتب والتعرف على ما يعنيه بدون حواجز فكرية وإعلامية لاختلاف البيئة



إدوارد سعيد يلقي حجرًا على موقع إسرائيلي يفصله سياج عن لبنان، اعتاد مرتادو المنطقة على التعبير بهذه الطريقة
وقد أثارت جدًا واسعًا، كيف تخلى الأكاديمي عن عقله وشارك الهمجيين في أفعالهم العنيفة بإلقاء الحجارة، لكن هذه الواقعة تُخبر كثيرًا عن طريقة إدورد في الحياة.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book for someone like myself who only knows of Said from him pro-Palestinian position. Having never read any of his publications, except for perhaps the odd op-ed piece, it shows how little I knew about his life to find out that his academic credentials were in comparative literature and not political science or history or Middle East studies and thus much of the book was comparing his literary criticism and his techniques to other critics and authors. That and the profusion of names and works unfamiliar to me and Brennan's style of jumping back and forth in time periods, made the book a hard slog for me. When the Israel-Palestine issues did make an appearance in the book, Brennan seemed to take it for granted that Palestine was always the victim and Israel the aggressor although it wasn't entirely clear to me that was Said's stance who came across as a universal humanist, for many years (at least till Oslo) in favor of the two state solution, pushing Arafat to accept the two states in the 70s and frustrated when he didn't. Although the book covers in minute detail the development of Said's thinking on Conrad, Swift, Vico etc., it never really delves into his thinking on Palestinian terrorism (hijacking of airplanes, suicide bombings) as opposed to what he considered Israeli terrorism, or on Zionism. If in the 70s he was the first to call Israel a colonial power, was that a position purely against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, since he supported a two state solution? And if so, would he support the current claim of Israel being a colonial occupier of the entire area "from the river to the sea?" Certainly by his death he was a proponent of a one state solution, but of some sort of federation, recognizing Jewish sovereignty as well. What is clear to me is that he would not support the current campus demonstrations as he did not support the anti-war demonstrations in the late 60s and early 70s as he felt strongly that universities, academia, needed to be sanctuaries open to free discussion.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prior to reading "Places of Mind," I mainly viewed Said as a literary critic who found great interest in the politics of the Middle East due to his unique identity. Brennan remarkably captures this unique identity of Said, while also showing that he was much more than just a politically fluent literary critic. Said's interests in music, different forms of theory, and, of course, literature are detailed throughout the book. While Said's focus on poststructuralist theory and Marxist thinkers represents a significant portion of his intellectual life, at times I found it uninteresting; part of this have to do with my lack of knowledge on poststructuralism, but a large part of it has to do with these themes lingering on throughout specific chapters. Regardless, the book's about Said are impressive, which is fitting for such an impressive character. Through his writing, Brennan displays his admiration for Said, which is no surprise considering he studied under him and regarded him as a friend. Overall, this was an intriguing read from its start to its last words describing Said's place of burial as "not quite right" — a fitting descriptor of Said's life.

[Aya · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rich and detailed account of almost every aspect of Edward Said’s life as a human being. I rated this based on a "would I read this again?" The book was almost TOO detailed as to lose my interest, but I suppose it’s what the reader is looking to learn about the most. I was more interested in Said’s inspirations to write "Orientalism" and other such works, but a scholar interested in other parts of Said’s life—like the mundane— would appreciate this biography a lot more

[Mohamed Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

أماكن الفكر

من أهم اصدارات سلسلة عالم المعرفة هذ العام
ومن أقوي كتب السير الذاتية التي قرأتها

اهتم الكاتب تمثي برنن وهو تلميذ لادوارد سعيد بكل التفاصيل الخاصه به
منذ ولادته مرورا بتعليمه ، علاقته بأسرته وانتقاله لأكثر من بلد وكيف اثر ذلك علي شخصية ادوارد
ناقش أعماله وتأثيرها كتبه ومقالاته والافلام الوثائقية التي شارك بها ومن هم الكتاب والأعمال التي تأثر بها ادوارد ، آراءه السياسية
حتي مرضه وكيف كان يقضي أيامه الأخيرة

اهتم الكاتب بذكر وتوثيق كل شئ عن ادوارد سعيد بكل صدق فلم يهتم بتجميل صورته فقط
الترجمه أكثر من رائعة

[Iva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found it tedious and disorganized. Too bad. I was really looking forward to this book.

[Hanan Hafiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

قلت للطيب " كان صديقنا إدورد يا طيب، أسطورة جميلة"
أجاب الطيب: " وستزداد الأسطورة جمالاً مع الأيام "

من أجمل السير اللي قرأتها مؤخرًا

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF