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Out of Place A Memoir Edward W Said 9781862073708 Books

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Out of Place A Memoir Edward W Said 9781862073708 Books

I had never read Said and fell in love with him, and this book. His insights into the world of The Other -- a world I've inhabited basically forever -- are brilliant and poignant. Half-way through the book, I learned Said had died, which made me very sad, since I'd wanted to write to him.


Tags : Out of Place : A Memoir [Edward W. Said] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Edward Said experienced both British and American imperialism as the old Arab order crumbled in the late forties and early fifties. This account of his early life reveals the influences that have formed his books,Edward W. Said,Out of Place : A Memoir,Granta Books,1862073708,Biography & Autobiography,Biography: general,Cultural studies,Imperialism,PoliticsInternational Relations

Out of Place A Memoir Edward W Said 9781862073708 Books Reviews

fascinating story, good writer, check out his daughter's book "looking for Palestine"
Revelation of a life-long struggle riding in the ever changing waves of cultural - political, identity-destroying turmoil of his-our time, an autobiography of a great mind .
Interesting perspective on an incredible author. The prose is not as compelling as After the Last Sky, but if you care for Said's books this memoir is worth your time
So sad we lost this brilliant mind way too soon. This is different from anything else he wrote. It tells the story of his childhood, who he was and where he came from with unbelievable candor.
This book provides insights into the people, places and experiences that shaped the man and his ideas. I believe he is trying to provide the backdrop for how his thoughts were shaped in the numerous books he produced over the years. This is not a summary or crescendo of the big ideas he worked on or through over the course of his life.
This is a remarkable work of a truly fascinating man. Much of the memoir is dedicated to Edward Said's relationship with his mother and father. Said recounts the history of his father, a Palestinian, who went to America and possibly fought for it in the First World War. The father Wadie, later returned to Palestine and then moved on to Cairo to establish a great business success. The father comes across very typical Middle Eastern conservative authority figure with a rather peculiar but very strong American patriotism.
Said's mother, comes across as a truly fascinating woman; a Palestinian Lebanese Christian, who possessed a great passion for music, literature and original thought. In the tradition of the Middle Eastern mothers she had a large presence in the lives of her children. She was an original woman, who felt comfortable amongst the many different cultures of the middle east, yet held on to her views, which at times were at odds with her environment.
Said tells of the huge influence his mother had over him during her life and even after her death. The story of the mother's search for a passport, a nationality, her dislike of life in America, her eventual death in America are beautifully told by Said. The mother's early conversion to Nasser's cause is mentioned, it even alienated the mother from her Lebanese family, but Said never tells us where it led.
I loved Said's self analysis relating his behavior to his mother "...I seem to have absorbed her worries, her tireless concern for details, her inability ever to be calm, her way of constantly interrupting herself, preventing a continuous flow of attention or concentration on anything." Said is capable of very vivid language indeed.
The school life of Said in Cairo is fascinating. He attended English Colonial schools, American and Egyptian schools in Cairo and eventually moved on to Massachusetts, Princeton and Harvard. Much of his pre college school life was problematic, at times there is too much dwelling and self-pity but it is largely interesting. On a week trip, with his mother, that for some not clearly explained reason left him indifferent to Egyptian Monuments, he says " ....I was relieved of the pressure and the continual anxiety of not getting anything right."
The "out of place" theme is repeated throughout the book, at times very eloquently told, " ...the habit of always being dressed differently from the natives, any natives." I do however find it remarkable that Said does not also seem to see how well he did apparently fit everywhere outside of his early Colonial school. In fact, from his stories at the American School in Cairo, Princeton, Harvard and mostly Victoria College in Cairo, you often see a fairly popular kid with many friends.
I laughed out loud at the part describing his episode of revisiting Victoria College in 1989. He bribed his way in to show his family his old classroom, and later got thrown out by a woman wearing an "Islamic-style dress". Said proceeds to describe Victoria College in 89 as a "privileged Islamic sanctuary" that expelled him twice. The fact that the first time he got expelled was due to punching a kid and sending him to the hospital for a week and the second through trespassing both by his own admission does not seem to matter, in both cases, to him it was discrimination. Victoria College is a million miles away from being an Egyptian Islamic sanctuary, with a mixed high school. Said's self pity and righteousness is a times reminiscent of the Maggie Thatcher memoir, well no, not 10% as bad but it does detract a bit from the book.
There is one thing I hated about the book. Where is part two? Edward Said gives you so much detail about his early pre political life. I read this book, because I often find myself at odds with Edward Said's political views, I wanted to know more about the man. I thoroughly enjoyed "Out of Place" but it has not satisfied my desire to understand his viewpoint. I often thought that he simply fails to understand Egyptians and Egyptian attitudes but had no idea how much time he actually lived there.
This is a great book, very enjoyable and full of reflection. I gave it 4 stars only because as much as I loved it I could not bring myself to give it an identical rating to Leila Ahmed's Border Passage.
I very much connected with this book where Edward Said is narrating with great sincerity his feelings and interactions with the details influenced him and his upbringing as an Arab, Christian from rich family yet of Palestinian origin. Said reflects on his family chosen solitude and his own struggle to define himself across different worlds. The complexity of his relationship with his both parents,how he perceived them and how they placed their heavy expectations on his shoulders . The most touching parts for me where Said expresses intelligently the sorrow of losing a country the palace to come back to and how he transfers the sorrow in to creativity maintaining uncertainty and the capacity to question.
I had never read Said and fell in love with him, and this book. His insights into the world of The Other -- a world I've inhabited basically forever -- are brilliant and poignant. Half-way through the book, I learned Said had died, which made me very sad, since I'd wanted to write to him.