A narrative that feels disconnected from the narrator herself. She is outside herself, looking in, rarely inhabiting what is happening around her in specific moments: rather the narrative skates over the surface. Written more like a history.

The translation/writing is not evocative, particularly. Places where the writing itself is striking are very few: two, I think.

Ends with her seven years in prison, then her walking free. Then a translator's note which gives the reader a better idea of the setting: it's 1970s as the background and the suppression of the uprising post 1982. That was never clear during the book.

Still, I've enjoyed being transported to Aleppo, even if for a dark moment in its history. ( )

Like Reading Lolita in Tehran, this turned out to be a very literary book. Although the author sometimes compared feelings to physical objects in ways that didn’t resonate with me, there was no denying that his writing style was beautiful. On a sentence level, this was very well written. I wasn’t as impressed by the plot. The author often digresses to talk about the main character’s family members. These bits were some of the easiest to follow and some of the most exciting parts of the book. However, I didn’t like how they broke up the main story. Each time we returned to the main character’s perspective, I felt as though she fluctuated between hatred and more compassionate, accepting feelings. I didn’t understand what influenced her feelings or how she ended up feeling the way she did very well at all.

The last section of the book worked a bit better for me. It almost exclusively followed the main character and I could at least logically see how her emotions were changing. We still don’t get much in the way of her thoughts though, so I never felt a true connection. This was by far my favorite part of the book, because I enjoyed seeing the main character change, but I liked some of the earlier parts as well. The author began with a helpful little history lesson which at least gave me somewhere to start googling so that I could understand the events taking place in the book. The snippets of the different character’s lives all gave me interesting glimpses of what life was like in Syria in the 1980′s. Part of me feels like the problem might be me not the book. Perhaps if I read more slowly, more thoughtfully, I might find some meaning there I missed? I’m not sure. As is, I enjoyed the factual, educational parts of the book, but the feelings meant to be conveyed escaped me.

This review first published at Doing Dewey. ( )

The topic of this book is an important and interesting one, and I really wanted to enjoy it, but the writing (or translation) was just atrocious. I forced myself to keep reading under the hope that it would get better, and managed to make it to almost the middle point, but I'm giving up on it now. The first 30 pages or so are the worst were the author skips back & forth in time constantly sometimes two or 3 times in the same paragraph making it really hard to follow. Movement through time often makes for an interesting book, but only if it's done with structure and discipline, which it wasn't in this case. The author also seems to rush through everything, never getting into any depth on any character or topic. As a result, it was extremely difficult to feel any kind of emotional connection to any of the characters.I would not recommend this book. ( )

IN PRAISE OF HATRED by Khaled Khalifa

I tried really hard to like this book, but the bad translation stymied me. I made it through 75 pages before giving up. It badly needs some explanation of the many Islamic/Turkish/Arabic words and phrases used. ( )

Unfortunately I find it very difficult to praise anything about this book. I found it to be so over-written and over-stylized that it was impossible to actually break through to the story itself. Other than the main character’s internal dialogue, there is no conversation in the book at all, I admit I found my eyes glazing over and skipping many of the long descriptive paragraphs. This is a shame because I believe the author has a very interesting story to tell. I know very little about Syria and was looking forward to finding out about this mysterious country that is figuring so prominently in the news but obviously this wasn’t the book to help me.

The unnamed narrator of In Praise of Hatred is a young, deeply ultraconservative Muslim girl and her hatred of others is complete and intense. Ultimately she becomes an extremist. The level of hatred expressed in this book was disturbing, such strong convictions all based on differences between sects, infidels or any opposition is frightening and the willingness to kill or be killed is something I find almost impossible to comprehend.

The book is set in the city of Aleppo during the violent upheavals that took place during the 1980’s . The book has been banned in Syria and I believe the author, Khaled Khalifa, is trying to expose this darkness and show that such a strong hatred will never bring this country to a peaceful resolution. I simply could not get over the flaws of this book, and I found myself often counting pages in a desperate manner, hoping to reach the end. I should mention here that I would have abandoned this book except that I received it though Library Things Early Reading Program. ( )