ihashem's review
4.0
Pleasantly surprised by the fact that this was a bilingual book. For a bilingual reader; (but not proficient enough to read the pure Arabic) life is given to the cold and empty translations, it adds to the emotions Darwish is trying to portray.
Darwish uses the siege to portray, not only the geographical struggle but physical and psychological effects of siege on every day life and beyond.
''At the brink of death, he says: I have nothing to lose. Free, here at least I'm close to my freedom and tomorrow is at hand. In a while, I'll bond with my life and be reborn without parents: free!''
Darwish uses the siege to portray, not only the geographical struggle but physical and psychological effects of siege on every day life and beyond.
''At the brink of death, he says: I have nothing to lose. Free, here at least I'm close to my freedom and tomorrow is at hand. In a while, I'll bond with my life and be reborn without parents: free!''
illyricvm's review against another edition
5.0
“In my solitude, I scream out loud –
not to wake everybody from their deep sleep,
but to shake myself from my own captive imagination!”
“All you who stay up late, aren’t you sick of watching
the glitter in our salt,
the glowing roses in our wounds?
Hasn’t this gone on long enough?”
“Peace, elegy for a youth hit squarely in the heart
not by bullets or a bomb, but by a woman’s beauty-mark.
Peace, a song for life itself
sung by a tassel of living wheat.”
not to wake everybody from their deep sleep,
but to shake myself from my own captive imagination!”
“All you who stay up late, aren’t you sick of watching
the glitter in our salt,
the glowing roses in our wounds?
Hasn’t this gone on long enough?”
“Peace, elegy for a youth hit squarely in the heart
not by bullets or a bomb, but by a woman’s beauty-mark.
Peace, a song for life itself
sung by a tassel of living wheat.”
arash_maba's review against another edition
5.0
کتاب پنج از پنجه مطمئناً ولی ترجمه شاید سه از پنج. ترجمهی بدی نیست ولی زیادی ادا داره.
archytas's review
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
"When warplanes leave the sky
white doves take flight
to scrub the blue with their free wings,
restoring its magnificent sheen and their sovereignty over
open space and play, their white wings
soaring higher and higher.
“Ah, If only the sky were real!” said one man
slithering in between two bombs."
I wanted to read this after how popular this work was in Syria, with communities under siege. Written during Israel's siege of Ramallah in 2002, it is also a volume that Darwish himself viewed as one of his best works. Poetry in translation is tricky, exacerbating all the usual issues with translation as a separate work. But while there is sometimes a slightly stilted quality to the poems (in English, the Arabic versions accompanying the translations are sadly beyond me), I have found myself coming back and back again to this volume, tasting the textures of grief, longing, fury and sadness, as well as the intricate imagery and allusions.
"Myths refuse to adjust their plots.
They might mesh, for just a moment, with a certain flaw.
Ships might drift towards land, towards a bewildered land,
and the imaginary might afflict the real.
But they refuse to adjust their plots.
To confront an undesirable reality
they simply “adjust” it with bulldozers.
For the truth, holy writ, obedient maidservant to her master,
is too gorgeous, pale-skinned and without blemish."
There is political content here, and how could there not be, but there is also just such intense raw emotion - they transmit a sense of fracturing grip on sanity at times, and of intense boredom at others. It doesn't surprise me this volume held the hands of starving besieged men and women, even as I can only hesitantly imagine what that is like.
"All you who stay up late,
aren’t you sick of watching the glitter in our salt,
the glowing roses in our wounds?
Hasn’t this gone on long enough?"
white doves take flight
to scrub the blue with their free wings,
restoring its magnificent sheen and their sovereignty over
open space and play, their white wings
soaring higher and higher.
“Ah, If only the sky were real!” said one man
slithering in between two bombs."
I wanted to read this after how popular this work was in Syria, with communities under siege. Written during Israel's siege of Ramallah in 2002, it is also a volume that Darwish himself viewed as one of his best works. Poetry in translation is tricky, exacerbating all the usual issues with translation as a separate work. But while there is sometimes a slightly stilted quality to the poems (in English, the Arabic versions accompanying the translations are sadly beyond me), I have found myself coming back and back again to this volume, tasting the textures of grief, longing, fury and sadness, as well as the intricate imagery and allusions.
"Myths refuse to adjust their plots.
They might mesh, for just a moment, with a certain flaw.
Ships might drift towards land, towards a bewildered land,
and the imaginary might afflict the real.
But they refuse to adjust their plots.
To confront an undesirable reality
they simply “adjust” it with bulldozers.
For the truth, holy writ, obedient maidservant to her master,
is too gorgeous, pale-skinned and without blemish."
There is political content here, and how could there not be, but there is also just such intense raw emotion - they transmit a sense of fracturing grip on sanity at times, and of intense boredom at others. It doesn't surprise me this volume held the hands of starving besieged men and women, even as I can only hesitantly imagine what that is like.
"All you who stay up late,
aren’t you sick of watching the glitter in our salt,
the glowing roses in our wounds?
Hasn’t this gone on long enough?"
More...