Out of Place: A Memoir

However, as the title suggests, Said's memoir is a far more ambivalent and at times personally painful account of his early years in Palestine, Egypt and the Lebanon, and the often paralysing embrace of his loving but often overbearing parents. Said's memoir is powerfully informed by his sense of personally, geographically and linguistically "always being out of place." Born to Christian parents, caught between expressing himself in Arabic, English and French, Said evokes a vivid but often very unhappy portrait of growing up in Cairo and the Lebanon under the crushing weight of his emotionally intense and ambitious family. The early sections of the book paint a poignant picture of the oppressive regime established over the awkward, painfully uncertain young "Edward" by his loving mother and expectant, unforgiving father, both of whom cast the longest emotional shadows over the book. Those expecting an account of Said's subsequent intellectual development will be disappointed; apart from the final 50 pages that deal with Said's education at Princeton and Harvard, Out of Place is, as Said says, primarily "a record of an essentially lost or forgotten world, my early life." It is this carefully disclosed record that accounts for Said's deeply conflicting relationship towards both his family and the Palestinian cause. Composed in the light of serious illness, Out of Place is an elegantly written reflection on a life which has movingly come to terms with "being not quite right and out of place." - -Jerry Brotton

This book touches on themes of displacement, dissolusionment, crises of identity, and ultimately unexpected sources of freedom and resolvings with an honesty associated more with the poet than the academic. Qualities of honesty and emotion that surface in Said's academic texts can be embraced more fully in the less structured genre of autobiography, this one written under the shadow of a terminal illness. Rather than analysing his career we are treated to an insight into his formative years.

There are perhaps two main themes: the first is education under an anachronistic British system and an alienating American one. In a British school in Cairo, resistance to the power took the form of talking Arabic: a people resisting merely by using their mother-tongue.

The second is the enduring influence of his parents upon him. His overbearing father's almost total control over his time, direction and sexuality in his early life. The mixed blessing of his mother's love, having an almost spiritual quality in the way it nourishes him and yet leaving him with crippling guilt as he attempts to develop adult relationships with women.

To relate to this book is to acknowledge one's pain, and to become more aware of the life long project of coming to terms with one's self. Though I write from the perspective of a half-english, half-arab adult of English culture, I feel that this has something to say to every citizen of the world that is willing to grapple with questions of his identity.

A must read, beyond the intellectual world.


Superb!   February 3, 2000
3 out of 5 found this review helpful

Edward Said can do no wrong, I couldn't put the book down. Both informative and touching a real gem!


Different to any other Biography I have read!   December 7, 1999
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

Edward Said's book describes in great detail the "in between" stages of life, i.e. as in the supposedly less interesting moments, totally overrunning what would classically be emphasised upon, i.e. the "highlights". So we get endless passages describing his new watch, where as a marriage and subsequent divorce get only a fleeting remark. For an excruciatingly detailed account of a childhood, this book although surprisingly very easy to read, is painful to experience because of the author's incredible capacity to convey how it felt like more than how it was like. Therefore we go with him through the difficult stages of adolescence with the backdrop of the death of a nation, i.e. Palestine and the birth of another, feeling a constant sense of anxiety perfectly conveyed to us by a witness, victim and survivor of 20th Century Arab History.


Stunning!   October 15, 1999
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Fantastic memoir!If you ve ever read any of Said's other work and appreciated his adept handling of many difficult issues,then 'Out of Place' sheds light on the personal background and beginnings. A ransacking journey through his early life and the incidents and contradictions of colonial-era Cairo and all the other settings of his life; a catalogue of the experiences that would ultimately produce such immense contributions to the largely white-dominated intellectual landscape through important works such as 'Culture and Imperialism' and 'Orientalism'. Definately one to read if even if you are a not a card carrying sympathizer of the Palestinian cause and/or a fan of his thoughts on Orientalism , which may even make for a bigger reason to do so.