rabiaakhtar's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
jkatey's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
jess_segraves's review against another edition
2.0
The blurb on the back of this book seems to tell a greater and more complete story than the novel itself, which was disappointing.
lizmart88's review against another edition
3.0
The theme of this novel is dysfunction - the unnatural state of ongoing war and tension between Arabs and Jews in Israel and Palestine ; the conflicts between family members; and ultimately, the tension between the vision of what you want yourself to be and who you really are.
If you're looking to understand Israel and Palestinian life a little more, this book is a good start.
If you're looking to understand Israel and Palestinian life a little more, this book is a good start.
daviden__'s review against another edition
5.0
Un'interessante (anche se profondamente amara) indagine del concetto di identità, che l'autore porta avanti in modo ottimo con una scrittura che fa sentire ogni tormentoso sentimento del protagonista. Interessante come, pur descrivendo una serie di piccole scene (anche distanti tra loro nel tempo), Kashua riesca comunque a darci un ritratto non frammentato dei personaggi.
towardinfinitybooks's review against another edition
2.0
Read Harder 2016 task: Read a book set in the Middle East.
emmashutup's review
2.0
I did not answer any of the usual StoryGraph questions above because I have literally no idea how to answer them. This book was like a void. I think something's in there, but it sure didn't stick with me.
This book is a satirical coming-of-age story about a young Arab man living in Israel who gets a chance to enter a Jewish school and tries to erase as much of his Arab heritage as possible. I appreciate the cultural divide that the story is depicting, but most of it wasn't enjoyable for me as a reader. The characters are sketches, not really people (by design, I'm sure, but it didn't make me very interested in them). Characters also popped up and disappeared, or appeared at times that made no sense.
I also didn't find the writing as funny as I'd hoped - I know that can be a struggle in translation, so perhaps it is more overtly funny in the original Hebrew?
To be honest, I mainly finished this book because it fulfilled two prompts for two different reading challenges I'm participating in. Liked some cultural details, but it wasn't for me overall.
Note on the format: I read the English translation by Miriam Schlesinger.
This book is a satirical coming-of-age story about a young Arab man living in Israel who gets a chance to enter a Jewish school and tries to erase as much of his Arab heritage as possible. I appreciate the cultural divide that the story is depicting, but most of it wasn't enjoyable for me as a reader. The characters are sketches, not really people (by design, I'm sure, but it didn't make me very interested in them). Characters also popped up and disappeared, or appeared at times that made no sense.
I also didn't find the writing as funny as I'd hoped - I know that can be a struggle in translation, so perhaps it is more overtly funny in the original Hebrew?
To be honest, I mainly finished this book because it fulfilled two prompts for two different reading challenges I'm participating in. Liked some cultural details, but it wasn't for me overall.
Note on the format: I read the English translation by Miriam Schlesinger.
yossikhe's review against another edition
5.0
Dancing Arabs has everything from disenchantment with life to questions of identity or cultural critique. Sayed Kashua writes in his Keret-esque satirical style, which makes the book funny at times. However, underneath that fun, the reader finds topics as hard to read as discrimination (Arabs that are happy with Jews’ death and systematic racism from the Jews to the Arabs in Israel), patriarchy (honor killings within Arab-Israeli society, wives exchanges) and identity (What does it mean to be an Arab-Israeli? Where do you belong? Is it worth it to pass-off as a Jew?). I loved this book because it was complex: it goes beyond the politics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to display its effects on the personal, daily lives of the people that are involved in it, particularly Arab-Israelis. I also like that it doesn’t glorify either community: the book constitutes a critique of systemic discrimination against Arabs, but that doesn’t mean that that community is perfect.
In my opinion it is a must-read on the Israeli-Arab conflict for two things: 1) Phenomenal book, incredibly complex and 2) It is written from an Arab perspective, which is rare.
In my opinion it is a must-read on the Israeli-Arab conflict for two things: 1) Phenomenal book, incredibly complex and 2) It is written from an Arab perspective, which is rare.
uncle_shai's review against another edition
5.0
Great book. Coming of age story where the protagonist's struggle with his identities: cultural, ethnic and national is a painful process that manifests in significant self-loathing.
As a fan of the author, Sayed Kashua's sit-com Arab Labor, I find that a coming of age novel is a richer and deeper place to deal with the issue of self-loathing. In Arab Labor, we meet a self-hating bafoonish Jew-wannabee adult, Amjad, who is a successful journalist. He's balanced by his wife who feels perfectly comfortable in her own Arab Palestinian skin. It does work as a sit-com and there are even deeply moving scenes. But too few of them and Amjad is too often insufferable. Dancing Arabs conversely can hold the self-love and self hate inside the same person and deal with that struggle more deeply and intelligently. Also appropriate in the Dancing Arabs is that we know the narrator from a child through to his mid twenties. The issues of identity work well in a coming-of-age novel.
The novel reminded me some of Catcher in the Rye. The wry cynicism, disgust, and longing are shared by both books. As an adult at least, I find it a lot easier to feel compassion for Dancing Arabs' unnamed narrator than for Holden Caulfield.
My emotional response to Kashua's narrator is to want to reassure him that "everything will be okay." But then I fall into my own despair that to tell him so would be a lie.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel in Dancing Arabs. But you certainly feel like you've been enriched by a truly human whose perspective and difficult situation you werer unawares of before you read it.
As a fan of the author, Sayed Kashua's sit-com Arab Labor, I find that a coming of age novel is a richer and deeper place to deal with the issue of self-loathing. In Arab Labor, we meet a self-hating bafoonish Jew-wannabee adult, Amjad, who is a successful journalist. He's balanced by his wife who feels perfectly comfortable in her own Arab Palestinian skin. It does work as a sit-com and there are even deeply moving scenes. But too few of them and Amjad is too often insufferable. Dancing Arabs conversely can hold the self-love and self hate inside the same person and deal with that struggle more deeply and intelligently. Also appropriate in the Dancing Arabs is that we know the narrator from a child through to his mid twenties. The issues of identity work well in a coming-of-age novel.
The novel reminded me some of Catcher in the Rye. The wry cynicism, disgust, and longing are shared by both books. As an adult at least, I find it a lot easier to feel compassion for Dancing Arabs' unnamed narrator than for Holden Caulfield.
My emotional response to Kashua's narrator is to want to reassure him that "everything will be okay." But then I fall into my own despair that to tell him so would be a lie.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel in Dancing Arabs. But you certainly feel like you've been enriched by a truly human whose perspective and difficult situation you werer unawares of before you read it.
jenah's review
4.0
This one is hard to describe. Primarily, it is a coming of age story of a Palestinian kid who goes to a Jewish school and learns to hate who he is and where he comes from. His MC does remind me a lot of some of Sherman Alexie's characters, in the honest and jaded way that the MC viewed and judged himself, his family and his people. Not a very likable MC but the really good passages made up for a lot of it and the ending managed to pull the disparate parts together.