Gate of the Sun | Elias Khoury | Deserves Nobel prize for literature

Gate of the Sun | Elias Khoury | Astonishing and revealing story of beauty in the midst of oppression and suffering

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Matthew Broderick Hackett Pub Co Metaphysical Medit... Dinner on the Dine... Gate of the Sun

	Gate of the Sun Elias Khoury Archipelago Books, 2006 - 539 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Gate of the Sun: Bab al-Shams is the first true magnum opus of the Palestinian saga. Through the passing of the beloved midwife and matriarch of the Shatila refugee camp outside Beirut, the reader enters a world of displacement, fear, and tenuous hope. A doctor tells a story to a man in a coma in an attempt to keep him alive. The patient, Yunes, is from Galilee, where he left Nahla, the love of his life. The novel unfolds at his bedside through Dr. Khalil?s intimate and haunting flights of memory.

Khoury humanizes the complex Palestinian/Israeli -struggle for us, shedding light on the turbulent history with love and empathy. Khoury opens up a whole new territory, envisioning a place where confronting pain and humiliation might lead, if not to reconciliation, then at least to finding an element of the other in one?s self. ?Us? and ?Them? become inextricably entwined through this realigned 1001 Nights. Originally published in Beirut in 1998, the novel has been a sensation throughout the Arab world, in Israel, and throughout Europe.

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Deserves Nobel prize for literature

Elias Khoury weaves a multitude of stories of people, some good, some less so, all flawed in their various ways, into a narrative that makes up the story of a people. One can recognize and identify with the human condition and struggles of each of those individuals, and yet through Khoury's eyes one can also see the whole of the society as it suffers the destruction from being uprooted and exiled by outside forces.

Not just about Palestinians - but about humanity everywhere.

Astonishing and revealing story of beauty in the midst of oppression and suffering

This is an extraordinary story, essentially a personalized account of the history of the Palestinians of Galilee since the Zionist immigrations -- certainly, after the genocide of the Jews in the 1940s, the cruelest assault on a people in the 20th century (though the Armenian genocide too is right up there if one is counting), and it continues today in all its horror. The story is hung on an initially irritating conceit, one man's monologue as he cares for a mentor who has suffered a stroke and is brain dead. The protagonist imagines that his charge can hear and comprehend him. But as the story progresses, the immediacy of the reality of the intertwining biographies and the awful -- and often beautiful -- story they tell is so engaging that the irritation passes. But what also makes this novel extraordinary is that it is told without rancor -- not that hatred wasn't swirling around and everpresent. The people are real, that world is real, the suffering and death are real. It is this, and the opening of a window on that world heretofore glimpsed only on the news, that is the beauty of this book. There were occasional and brief what seemed to me trite pop-philosophical digressions, but they did not seriously affect the power of the reading. Some episodes seem to be present to emphasize that the author is not anti-Jewish, but they feel contrived. In this feverish situation it is no doubt a good thing to emphasize an author's rejection of anti-Semitic prejudice, but one would hope the author could find a way that feels as real as the rest of the book. Well, truth to tell, there was one subplot that stretched credulity in the interest of creating an artful story. Nonetheless, this is a truly powerful book, and the reality of that world comes through despite the occasional novelistic artifice. How to right the wrongs and avoid further horrors for either peoples! But Gate of the Sun is a resolutely non-political novel about individuals -- largely unheard from individuals caught up in the maelstrom of the 20th century's awful story.

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Gate of the Sun

This is a sadly moving, if not depressing book. It is very well-written and tells the saddest of stories, the rip-off and expulsion of a people from their homes and their lands. I found it fascinating and learned from it although I am an Arabist long familiar with the subject matter. I would consider this a must reading for any American who truly wants to understand and come to his/her own conclusions about the on-going crisis in the Middle East. It is for any interested person who is unwilling to swallow the party line as put forward by the zionist entity and its lackeys.

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The Palestinian Experience since the Nakba

Occasionally you come across a great book by a great author and after reading 10-15 pages you realize that you could never write a novel like this, the prose, the detail, the character development are simply outstanding. After finishing the book you sit and reflect on it a bit and recognize that it has, in some greater or lesser manner, changed your world view forever. The novel has left you with images you will never forget. Elias Khoury's novel Gate of the Sun is this type of novel. Future generations will speak of Khoury in the same breathe with Zola, Dickens, and Dostoevsky.

Gate of the Sun is a story about the Nakba (or Catastrophe) that occurred in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed and the Palestinian people were scattered to the winds: some to life as second class citizens in Israel, many forced into ghettos in Gaza and the West Bank, and many other scattered throughout Lebanon, Jordan, and rest of the Muslim world. The story begins as a famous Palestinian freedom fighter lay in a coma dying in a hospital outside Beirut. A close friend sits with him day and night and spends the next seven months recounting stories from their lives. What follows is a recounting of the Palestinian experience from the Nakba through the '67 war, Black September, the Lebanon War, and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. We learn about life in refugee camps, the struggle of the freedom fighters, how the Israelis drove the Palestinians out of their villages and homes before and after '48. In short, we learn about the peregrinations and vicissitudes of the Palestinian people.

This story isn't told in a linear fashion. There are jumps in both time and space as various episodes in both characters lives are revisted, and stories that were told to them by others recounted. We learn about all aspects of the Palestinian condition, big and small. The tales range from domestic disputes, love affairs, and parent-children stories to tragic tales of expulsion in '48 and genocide in '82. One of the great strengths of this book is that it is not simply a paean to the Palestinians. Khoury recounts many episodes that are not particularly flattering to the Palestinians.

This is not an easy book to read. Although the style is very different, I would compare it to the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in that it will take a bit of discipline to get through (this is definitely not a beach read). The only negative comment I can make about this book is that it is, in some ways, too bad that this book is so difficult to work through. I wish that this novel was more approachable by the average reader in the United States (not that Khoury was necessarily writing for these people). Any Westerner who reads this book cannot possibly look at the Arab-Israeli conflict in the same light. We have been conditioned to view the Israelis as the victims, after reading this book, you would be hard pressed to hold this view ever again.

Finally, on one quasi-political note, this novel also explained to me why the Palestinians have been so adamant about retaining the right of return in their negociations with the Israelis. I could never understand why they held onto this so tightly, but after reading this novel, you'll completely understand.

Bottom line is that this is one of the most detailed, well written novels I have ever read and I think that it compares favorably with the best novels written in any language. There are so many unforgettable images in this novel that you'll be shell-shocked when you finish it. Not a trivial undertaking, but you'll be richly rewarded if you take this journey.

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Excellent

Really a wonderful read - Khoury gives us the people inside the statistics. Reading "700,000 refugees" doesn't make the average person feel much, but Gate of the Sun gives us the individual faces and stories that make it all real. Other reviewers mentioned the artifice in the structure; I found it a touch annoying at first, then very appropriate as the book went along. Given the quality of the novel and the importance of the topic, I am surprised this novel has received only five reviews - are so few people reading this book?

reviews: page 1, 2

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