Edward Said: Out of Place

“All families invent their parents and children, give each of them a story, character, fate, and even a language…Yet the overriding sensation I had was of always being out of place,” with these words Edward Said began his memoir Out of Place triggering readers’ curiosity to dive deep in the memories of a lost boy, who found himself roaming in the world without a clear identity.

Born in Jerusalem in 1935 to a Palestinian American father and a Lebanese mother, Edward Said had to spend his life moving between Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and America; raising the sense and the feeling of unbelonging: Arab but Christian, Palestinian but identified as American, Arabic surname but woven into a British first name.

These contrasts motivated Said to shed the light and emphasize on them through personal experiences and interactions, starting from his birth till his death, focusing on the educational journey; which reviled these contrasts, that resemble his family and Palestinians (Arab refugees) in general.

In this review paper, I will talk about the author Edward Said, summarize the book, discuss the points that are mentioned in his memoir, analyze the structure of the book, and state its impact on Western and Middle Eastern media.

From the very first pages of the book, the English and comparative literature professor at Columbia University Edward Said is being introduced as one of the world’s most influential cultural and literary critics, who wrote eighteen books including his famous work Orientalism.

Several years ago, Said got diagnosed with Leukemia and during the treatment period he decided to dedicate his time to write a book, that accounts his life. By specifying times, places and people, he allows readers to share his personal journey; living in the Arab world, where he was born, and in The United States, where he went to school, college, and university, in a friendly close way.

In his memoir, that was first published in Great Britain by Granta Books in 1999, readers would get to know Edward the friendly person not the political activist person. He mentions historical events, but as he was young, he was not aware of the consequences and what it meant to leave Palestine. Politics was not a topic to be discussed in the family. Even his mother, Hilda, who the readers will see that she is his sole companion along his memoir, would tell him to “go back to being literary man; politics in the Arab world destroy honest and good people like you (P.293)”. However, his aunt Nabiha, made him realize the loss of Palestine and the hardships linked to it.

Arab readers would find his memoir very relevant to their daily struggles trying to keep up with their cultural norms and dislocated Palestinian readers would find it even more personal. Said’s way of telling his story is very clever, as along the lines of his journey, he pinpoints many cultural behaviors and contradicts them in an indirect way, which shows westerners how each culture behaves differently.

Said’s memoir describes the memories and the events that pushed him to be where he was. The feeling of dislocation, loneliness, and separation did not come out of a sudden, it was a built up of events that let him in exile away from his Arab roots (Jerusalem and even Cairo).

Said highlights many cultural problems that are the norms within the Arabic family such as: parents comparing their child to someone else better than them, father is always in power, body-image (fatness/ skinny/ unequal proportions…), the fear that parents implement in their child, sex is a topic that cannot be discussed, repaying the father the amount of money spent on the child’s academic years…etc.

Furthermore, Said, wrote his educational journey in a comparison way, showing the differences in the academic systems as he attended his first school Gezira Preparation School (British System) where he “had sat in military rows” “formal” “clear lines of authority”, then Cairo School for American Children (American System) where “classroom chairs were scattered” “informal” “never used violence”, and pursued his degree in the United States from the age of fifteen.

Those differences, made Said feel embarrassed to have an Arab identity, he felt weak during his childhood years as his interaction with non-Arabs reflected that side in him; whether it was in the English or American system, he faced difficulties to merge with the others and adapt. Towards the end, his departure to the states made him more responsible and he states that “my years in the United States were slowly weaning me away from Cairo habits (p.273)” changing the way he thinks, interacts, speaks, and dresses.

Said had a double identity that he got lost in between and that’s due to the way he interacted with his family and outsiders. As a result, his father sent him away to look for his freedom and “to be cut off my family (p.294)”. But the sense of unbelonging to any specific place increased his fear, which is normal. From my perspective, as a Syrian girl living in the UAE and has a Russian passport. It raises lots of questions in me. Where am I from? Syrian or Russian? Will I go back to Syria one day? Do I feel the UAE is me home? Where will I raise my children?...

His memoir, touched me a lot, especially, the images that are included, would allow readers to not only imagine but also visualize their facial features and try to live his journey along the lines. The structure of the writing was well put together connecting the events in a timely manner.

His work, was very praised by many media outlets such as Sunday Telegraph, Spectator, Independent, and Times Literary Supplement. Even Salam Rushdie, an Indian British novelist said that “Out of place is an intensely moving act of reclamation and understanding, a portrait of a transcultural and often painful upbringing written with wonderful vividness and unsparing honesty”. And it was translated to other languages (Arabic).

In his memoir, Said mentions that at age of twelve he fantasized himself as a book “passed from hand to hand, place to place, time to time” as he could remain his “own true self (as a book) (76)” and that’s the reality, we lost him in person, but his life and ideas and works will long be present in our lives as Palestinians and Arabs in general.

And with the lines of “with so many dissonances in my life I have learned actually to prefer being not quit right and out of place,” he ends his memoir, letting readers to wonder about their life and the way they are living in it.