Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

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Summary: Exile, emigre, expat !
Review: The UN estimates that one third of mankind today does not live in the cities where they were born. No one can give voice to these feelings of dislocation more than Edward Said, one of the most perceptive living cultural historians whose range of erudition is astonishing. In these essays published over the past thirty years, he discusses a remarkably diverse set of questions dealing with the literature of estrangement (Conrad), the confrontation between colonized and colonial and of course, many literary and cultural questions relating to the arab middle east. But, as the title essay shows, a theme runs through the whole book, how does one deal with living elsewhere when you cannot go back home because home does not exist anymore or even perhaps because it never existed. The psychological burden of such an estrangement is born with great fortitude, even welcomed as a necessary component of living in the world today. It generates resistance to the powers that be at the same time that it engenders engagement with the world. The essays are stimulating because Said gives voice to the discontent we all feel when confronted with the culture of conformism around us, whether it is the manufactured consensus produced by politics and media, or the corruption of our political language or the emphasis on entertainment in every aspect of life. He ends by discussing Huntington's Clash of Civilizations; Said shows emphatically that the nature of civilization is changeable and permeable instead of monolithic, as Huntington would have us believe. Said believes that his view, based as it is on deep scholarship is the only hope we have for peaceful and just future. Huntington's view is combative and is based on an "Us versus Them" approach, when in fact the more carefully you look the more of Us you see in Them and vice versa. Of all the essays this should be required reading for decision makers.

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Summary: Criticism at its Best
Review: This collection of essays is a new triumph for Said whose exceptional energy and courage should be an example for all of us. Ever since he was diagnosed with cancer, he has been engaged in a Proustian race against time producing such compelling works as "Culture and Imperialism", "Out of Place", and "The End of the Peace Process".
"Reflections on Exile" includes some of the finest essays written in the second half of the twentieth century. No critic could afford to ignore such important pieces as "Opponents, audiences, constituencies, and community" and "Traveling theory reconsidered". Not for Said is jargon or ill considered perspective; his thought is always sober and penetrating.
His greaest contribution was that he forced the academy to consider the narrative of the marginalised, the "voiceless", paving the way for an understanding of the world as inhabited by equal humans-- not superior "westerners" and inferior "easterners". But his contribution is not limited to deconstructing the Manicheanism of the post-colonial world; Said is the most insightful critic of his generation. He has an unmatched ability to capture the most delicate nuances in both the aesthetic and political realms. Whether he is comparing Nietzsche and Conrad or reflecting upon the Question of Palestine, Said proves his indispensibility by avoiding the pits of hazy thought that others regularly fall into.
Professor Said is simply the finest essayist alive; even on a purely literary basis, the merit of his writting is undeniable. He is passionate, coherent, and eloquent.
This collection of essays should be of interest to anybody concerned with literary theory, music, cultural criticism, politics and theory of nationalism. It provides a good overview of Said's breathtaking range of thought, and also includes first rate criticism on many thinkers,novelists, and musicians including: Conrad, Vico, Adorno, Lukacs, Orwell, Naipaul, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Gould, Hemingway, Mahfouz, Hobsbawm, Blackmur, Gramsci and Foucault.
Said is an engaged intellectual hero. Like Sartre, Russell, and Chomsky, his presence has been essential as a thinker who chooses to be in exile, who avoids the centres of dominance and keeps a distance (but is never detached) from society in order to be able to speak truth to power. His work provides a base for us to work on building human narratives free of hegemony. After Said, we cannot afford but to have a "contrapuntal" reading of the world, celebrating the values of enlightenment, hybridity, and freedom.

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Summary: Reflections on Exile and Other Essays
Review: This long-awaited collection of literary & cultural essays, with the political undercurrent not uncommon in Said's work, affords rare insight into the formation of a keen critic & the development of an intellectual vocation.