Gate of the Sun Paperback – 1 January 2007
by Elias Khoury (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars (75)
Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga, putting human faces to a political tragedy at the forefront of the news even today.
In a makeshift hospital in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Yunis, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma. His spiritual son Dr Khaleel - who has no real medical qualifications - nurses the older man, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness.In an attempt to revive his patient, Khaleel, like a modern-day Sheherazade, begins telling Yunis the stories of their people's exile in Lebanon. He evokes deserted peasant villages, the suffering caused by the Lebanese civil war and the refugees' hopes to return home with a subtle mixture of anger and compassion. Khaleel also narrates Yunis' own extraordinary life- his childhood in Palestine and his commitment as a member of the fedayeen.Interweaving many true-life tales collected throughout Lebanon and its refugee camps over the course of seven years, Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga.
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'Gate of the Sun,' by Elias Khoury
Palestinian Lives
By Lorraine Adams
Jan. 15, 2006 NYT
GATE OF THE SUN
By Elias Khoury.
Translated by Humphrey Davies.
539 pp. Archipelago Books. $26.
TO Americans, the novel in Arabic remains on the margins. Nonfiction devoted to the Arab world may be in demand, but interest in Arab literature, even after Naguib Mahfouz's Nobel Prize in 1988, hasn't moved too far past Aladdin and Sinbad.
Elias Khoury is one of a handful of contemporary Arab novelists to have gained a measure of Western attention. He is also one of the few to write about the Palestinian experience, albeit from the perspective of an outsider. As a Christian born in Beirut in 1948, at the moment of Israel's inception, Khoury was too young to know firsthand the events that "Gate of the Sun" encompasses. Unlike the Palestinian novelists Emile Habibi and Ghassan Kanafani, who were born earlier in the century, Khoury could not rely on his own memory. To write this novel, he spent considerable time in the camps -- more accurately, concrete exurban slums -- throughout the Middle East, interviewing Palestinian refugees.
Narrated by a peasant doctor talking to a comatose, aging fighter, "Gate of the Sun" relates a swirl of stories: of grandmothers and grandfathers, midwives and children, wives and lovers -- the lucky and the hapless, the mad and the hopeful. Employing a strategy that's an inversion of "A Thousand and One Nights" (whose narrator, Scheherazade, tells stories to save herself), Khalil half believes that these stories are keeping his dying friend Yunes alive.
Between November 1947 and October 1950, some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced to flee their homes as the British departed and the Israelis took control. Disputed and complicated, the refugee problem has been a sticking point in more than five decades of war, terrorism and failed peace talks.
But while Khoury's narrator explores Palestinian privation and Israeli cruelty, this is not a predictable novel of despair and accusation. It contains, for example, a story about the madwoman of Al Kabri, a reputed bone collector who actually searches for wild chicory. There is a wedding-night farce involving a cotton swab. And a dark story of infanticide -- and pita bread.
Khalil assembles these vignettes with a clumsy talent, digressing as often as he gets to the point. His moods are many. One minute, he's swooning about a French actress, the next he's saddened by the antics of a shampoo seller. He crows about Yunes's wife telling Israeli interrogators she's a whore in order to hide Yunes's whereabouts. And he gives another man's wife the last word on what happened to his prized buffaloes: "I'm certain the Jews didn't kill them. . . . Why would they kill them? They'd take them. And how could they have killed the buffalo and not him with them? No, the Jews didn't kill the buffalo. I'm certain his cousin stole them. Took them and disappeared. The man must have waited a month at the border, then despaired and had no choice but to make up the story of the buffalo massacre. Everything foolish we do, we blame on the Jews."
Interspersed with Khalil's stories is his one-sided conversation with Yunes, which gradually reveals the history of a friendship where nothing is withheld. The two men "discuss" everything and nothing, but always they return, with respect and wonder, to the women in their lives. Early on, Khalil recalls that the novelist Kanafani interviewed Yunes but decided not to write about him because "he was looking for mythic stories, and yours was just the story of a man in love. Where would be the symbolism in this love that had no place to root itself? How did you expect he would believe the story of your love for your wife? Is a man's love for his wife really worth writing about?"
This love roots itself in Bab al-Shams, the cave where Yunes and his wife, Nahilah, met secretly over the decades of their marriage. Bab al-Shams (Arabic for "gate of the sun") is where they made love, shared meals and discussed their children. It is also the scene of Nahilah's loving exposure of Yunes's self-delusion, an inspired monologue that chastens and enlightens him. The cave is the novel. At one point, Khalil explains this to Yunes: "We've made a shelter out of words, a country out of words, and women out of words."
All of which is not to say that historical events are absent from Khoury's fiction. But he confines them to the conversation between Khalil and Yunes. Speaking about the Holocaust, Khalil tells his friend: "You and I and every human being on the face of the planet should have known and not stood by in silence, should have prevented that beast from destroying its victims in that barbaric, unprecedented manner. Not because the victims were Jews but because their death meant the death of humanity within us."
On the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, Khalil tells Yunes: "I know what you think of that kind of operation, and I know you were one of the few who dared take a stand against the hijacking of airplanes, the operations abroad and the killing of civilians."
On Palestinian identity before 1948, Khalil admits to Yunes: "Palestine was the cities -- Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem and Acre. In them we could feel something called Palestine. The villages were like all villages. . . . The truth is that those who occupied Palestine made us discover the country as we were losing it."
Asking why the Palestinians fled their land, Khalil demands: "Tell me about that blackness. I don't want the usual song about the betrayal by the Arab armies in the '48 war -- I've had enough of armies. What did you do? Why are you here and they're there?"
There has been powerful fiction about Palestinians and by Palestinians, but few have held to the light the myths, tales and rumors of both Israel and the Arabs with such discerning compassion. In Humphrey Davies's sparely poetic translation, "Gate of the Sun" is an imposingly rich and realistic novel, a genuine masterwork.
'Gate of the Sun,' by Elias Khoury Lorraine Adams is the author of a novel, "Harbor."
A version of this article appears in prin
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From other countries
kumachon
5.0 out of 5 stars 難民にとって、歴史とは？祖国とは？帰還とは？
Reviewed in Japan on 21 December 2006
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
1993年のオスロ合意以後の、パレスチナ問題における難民問題の遺棄という現実。一方で、たとえばレバノンのパレスチナ難民キャンプのように、移動の自由や職業選択の自由などを与えられず、難民キャンプの中に留め置かれ、しかし、祖国と、未だ果たされない祖国への帰還とを、夢見る難民たちの存在。
エミール・ハビービーの『悲楽観屋サイードの失踪にまつわる奇妙な出来事』（山本薫訳、作品社、2006年12月）が、イスラエル領内に生きるパレスチナ人の生の実存的引裂かれを、主人公のサイードにおいて形象化しているとしたら、上のような情況を生きるパレスチナ難民の生とは、文学作品ではどのように形象化・表象されうるのか。
イリヤース・フーリーによるこの本『太陽の門』は、まず第一にこうした問いに対して取り組んだ作品と言える。さらには次のような問いにもこの本は関わっている。すなわち、パレスチナ難民にとって、「現代史」とはいったい如何なるものなのか。難民にとって、「現代史」、「歴史」とはいったい如何なるものとして記憶され分有・継承されるのか。
パレスチナ難民にとって、「歴史」を語るとは、自らを祖国と祖国の記憶へと切り結ぶ営みと不可分なものに違いない。だが、自らの存在を遺棄され、祖国への帰還も限りなく引き延ばされるかのような今日の情況にあって、その営みとは自己矛盾・アンビバレンスを含んでいるのではないだろうか。この自己矛盾・アンビバレンスの痛みを抱えつつ、それでもなお「パレスチナ難民」たる事を選び取って生きる者たち。彼ら彼女らにとっての「歴史」とは？「祖国」とは？「帰還」とは？
この本は、そうした思想的問題とも関わっている。
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MonikaN
5.0 out of 5 stars Great BooK - Fabulous Story
Reviewed in Canada on 21 October 2024
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Great Read!
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Utah Blaine
5.0 out of 5 stars The Palestinian Experience since the Nakba
Reviewed in the United States on 30 September 2008
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Occasionally you come across a great book by a great author and after reading 10-15 pages you realize that you could never write a novel like this, the prose, the detail, the character development are simply outstanding. After finishing the book you sit and reflect on it a bit and recognize that it has, in some greater or lesser manner, changed your world view forever. The novel has left you with images you will never forget. Elias Khoury's novel Gate of the Sun is this type of novel. Future generations will speak of Khoury in the same breathe with Zola, Dickens, and Dostoevsky.
Gate of the Sun is a story about the Nakba (or Catastrophe) that occurred in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed and the Palestinian people were scattered to the winds: some to life as second class citizens in Israel, many forced into ghettos in Gaza and the West Bank, and many other scattered throughout Lebanon, Jordan, and rest of the Muslim world. The story begins as a famous Palestinian freedom fighter lay in a coma dying in a hospital outside Beirut. A close friend sits with him day and night and spends the next seven months recounting stories from their lives. What follows is a recounting of the Palestinian experience from the Nakba through the '67 war, Black September, the Lebanon War, and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. We learn about life in refugee camps, the struggle of the freedom fighters, how the Israelis drove the Palestinians out of their villages and homes before and after '48. In short, we learn about the peregrinations and vicissitudes of the Palestinian people.
This story isn't told in a linear fashion. There are jumps in both time and space as various episodes in both characters lives are revisted, and stories that were told to them by others recounted. We learn about all aspects of the Palestinian condition, big and small. The tales range from domestic disputes, love affairs, and parent-children stories to tragic tales of expulsion in '48 and genocide in '82. One of the great strengths of this book is that it is not simply a paean to the Palestinians. Khoury recounts many episodes that are not particularly flattering to the Palestinians.
This is not an easy book to read. Although the style is very different, I would compare it to the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in that it will take a bit of discipline to get through (this is definitely not a beach read). The only negative comment I can make about this book is that it is, in some ways, too bad that this book is so difficult to work through. I wish that this novel was more approachable by the average reader in the United States (not that Khoury was necessarily writing for these people). Any Westerner who reads this book cannot possibly look at the Arab-Israeli conflict in the same light. We have been conditioned to view the Israelis as the victims, after reading this book, you would be hard pressed to hold this view ever again.
Finally, on one quasi-political note, this novel also explained to me why the Palestinians have been so adamant about retaining the right of return in their negociations with the Israelis. I could never understand why they held onto this so tightly, but after reading this novel, you'll completely understand.
Bottom line is that this is one of the most detailed, well written novels I have ever read and I think that it compares favorably with the best novels written in any language. There are so many unforgettable images in this novel that you'll be shell-shocked when you finish it. Not a trivial undertaking, but you'll be richly rewarded if you take this journey.
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AHNAK
5.0 out of 5 stars Story is excellent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 February 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Very nice story, well narrated and brings back some historical facts about the region and the politics in general in the Middle East
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Terri Salas
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and terrifying
Reviewed in the United States on 27 November 2010
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A book having to do with war, upheavel and the enduring drive of humans to carry on. While this book is touted as supporting the palestinian cause, its underlying theme can be seen and understood by anyone who can understand what war and instability does to people, how it can drive them mad, how it can inspire them and wear them down at the same time, how a man can miss his life and children chasing a dream. Nothing in this book is portrayed as easy as black and white, good or bad, so regardless of which side of the conflict you side with it is a good read. The storyline swirls and eddies, kinda dreamlike, moving back and forth from one time period to another as a man visits his "father figure" in the hospital and tells the dying man (as well as himself) stories of his own life and those around him. It is as much about the conflict as it is about a man who comes to terms with the mortality and faulty humanity of his father figure.
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exHawaiian
3.0 out of 5 stars Could Benefit from a Good Editor
Reviewed in the United States on 12 April 2016
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Very culture-specific, and difficult to follow. The people's names were hard for me to remember. I was looking forward to reading it, but read only about half. I may go back to it someday, and see if it is more reader-friendly at a later date.
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RB
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book
Reviewed in the United States on 29 April 2014
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One of my favorite books I've ever read! Truly a beautiful piece of literature. Elias Khoury is a fantastic author and I'm looking forward to reading more of his books.
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Manal Nakli (Mrs)
2.0 out of 5 stars Book review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2011
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I would have preferred to be given the chance to read a selection of pages from the book before I bought it. The book title/subject appeared very inviting, but although the stories told by the single character-narrator are interesting, this style does not appeal for everybody, certainly not for me. Lesson learned: never buy a book online if it is not recommended by someone you trust.
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person
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book
Reviewed in the United States on 22 December 2013
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This book was such a treat. Khoury is such a talented storyteller, and this epic tale is his masterpiece. Wonderful.
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James Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Gate of the Sun
Reviewed in the United States on 15 November 2018
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Damn good book!!
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Barry Meissner
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 23 April 2016
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Should be required reading for all Americans
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