Out of Place: A Memoir

Edward W. Said's "Out of Place" is one of the most moving books I've ever read. The great British TV dramatist Dennis Potter said that autobiography is the most fraudulent of literary modes; he just couldn't believe that people wouldn't lie about themselves. Potter himself told a lot of embarrassing truths about himself in fictional form; Said's book is a noble reminder that some people still believe that the facts are not only worth telling but can be told.The farcical charge that this book is a "quickie" written to pre-empt an article about Said's alleged coverup of his personal history can be easily dismissed. The article came out in "Commentary", a magazine that has never ceased to encourage Israel to become the United States' hired gun in the Middle East, thereby doing a lot to destroy Israel in the process. (Fortunately, the Israeli press are less corruptible than their American counterparts, and have never ceased to treat Said as someone whose opinion was worth listening to). And anyway, the sheer literary quality of the book belies any idea that it was dashed off in a hurry.Said hasn't spent decades teaching literature without any sense of how to write well. He brings to life a world that is literally lost - that of pre-1948 Palestine and pre-Nasser Cairo. He describes his father's terrifying inability to take his own son seriously, while still paying tribute to the man's extraordinary genius at business. His descriptions of his relationship with his mother rival Proust. His sharp analysis of his own education is generous but never sentimental. For a book written in the shadow of its author's impending death, this is an amazingly revealing portrait of the critic as a young man. Said's intelligence, his sympathy, his vividly felt pain at what happened to the world that he grew up in, puts his mindless critics to shame. He is still working; still reminding us about the value of secular culture against religious fanaticism, still reinterpreting the classics of Western culture for a world that seems to grow smaller, not bigger, every day. He will be sorely missed, but this small book will serve with the rest of his work as a memento to the difficulty of knowing what is true and what is merely easy to get along with.

A sensitive treasure of a book, offering rare insights into the early life of one of our finest thinkers. Richly-drawn settings in Palestine, Cairo, and Lebanon, with fascinating details of school-life, friendships and the perplexing struggle of growing up in many places. A provocative journey examining complexities of exile and mysteries of families. Stunning prose, unforgettably honest and beautiful.

Out of Place is a great examination of the difficulties (and rewards) of cultural hybridization. Due to the storm of criticism and subsequent rebuttal that greeted the book, I expected a much more overtly political piece. Instead I found an engaging coming-of-age story. As a result, I wonder why this book, out of all of Said's work, was chosen for attack?

Prof. Said has indeed articulated his inner feelings and deep thoughts surrounding a crucial part of his life with an eloquence that is difficult to match. In his search for identity he revisits some of the countries he lived in and reconstructs events that have touched his life as a child and later on as a young man. In his memoir, Said takes the reader from one country to another (Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and the USA) and shares his sincere feelings about each with an unparalleled power of expression and a deep sense of the historical, geographical, political events that shaped his thoughts. His relationship with his parents and the way he analyses his feeling towards each are weaved into his memoir with such grace that keeps the reader aware of his relationship throughout the entire book without it being at all tedious. Once you start reading Said's memoir it is difficult to put it down.

Having shared some of his Palestinian-Jerusalem experiences,I found Said`s story compelling.It chronicles the daily life of the educated class of Palestinians in the pre 1948 era with great accuracy.It depicts a deserving level of sophistication of the non Jewish Palestinians, long denied by the media.He writes lyrically,and reveals his inner self all the way to a triumphant conquest of his cancer.