- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Interlink (Oct 1 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1566563836
- ISBN-13: 978-1566563833
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.4 x 1.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 200 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #616,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Which side of Innocence?,
By Bookmaven "Bookmaven" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: This Side Of Innocence (Paperback)
Which side of Innocence? A novel of physical and psychological torture that is both fascinating and infuriating in its ambiguities. The narrator faces three interrogators who demand to know who tore the picture of the person, presumably a politician/leader, that is posted on a public wall. With an excruciating introspection, an 'elemental honesty', the narrator tries to answer the question. He doesn't know who did it, but there is, to be sure, some reason to think he might have, given that he disliked the picture, disliked it being there where he had to pass every day. If he is not believed, it is his own fault, given the number of mistakes he has made in his answers, using words that might lead his questioners to think he was avoiding the issue. What words should he have used that would have made their job easier while preserving his own self-respect and dignity?Readers will recognize Kafka and Camus and the dilemma facing a man whose scrupulous 'honesty' may mask denial and whose willingness not only to forgive his torturers but to attempt to justify their actions, almost suffocates a reader paralyzed by the horror of it all. Is he guilty? Who is guilty? Which side of innocence? Some have related the book to the dilemma of life in a country - Lebanon - that has been under unbearable stress for more than three decades. The questions there are the same: Who is guilty. Who is innocent? Or are those the wrong questions?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not so innocent . . .,
By Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: This Side Of Innocence (Paperback)
Lebanese author Al-Daif has read his Kafka. Once again an ordinary man finds himself in the grip of a nightmarish tyranny, in which he is as much the victim of himself as that of a brutal modern state. There are elements of a novel here (character, narrator, conflict, setting) but the narrative goes in and out of focus, like a dream with a logic of its own. On one level, it's a suspenseful political thriller and on another it's an inquiry into the nature of guilt and innocence themselves.The subjective experience of innocence collides in the story with the interests of interrogators who are determined to get potentially incriminating information. In this case, a poster has been maliciously torn, and a man suspected of knowing the identity of the person who tore it is brought into custody for questioning. Left alone for several hours, he agonizes over circumstantial evidence that points toward his complicity, and he rehearses strategies to outsmart his captors and to divert suspicion from himself. Meanwhile, he is confronted with the knowledge that he has made "mistakes" in his life that give the lie to his profession of innocence. While starting out sympathetic with him, we begin to realize that the narrator has been withholding information that would affect our own judgment of his character. Eventually, in a protracted scene involving his wife, we come to understand that in the attempt to save his own life, he is no better and no worse than anyone else. In these increasingly polarized times, it's a lesson that speaks to the assumptions and fears of many. 0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Which side of Innocence?,
By Bookmaven "Bookmaven" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: This Side Of Innocence (Paperback)
Which side of Innocence? A novel of physical and psychological torture that is both fascinating and infuriating in its ambiguities. The narrator faces three interrogators who demand to know who tore the picture of the person, presumably a politician/leader, that is posted on a public wall. With an excruciating introspection, an `elemental honesty', the narrator tries to answer the question. He doesn't know who did it, but there is, to be sure, some reason to think he might have, given that he disliked the picture, disliked it being there where he had to pass every day. If he is not believed, it is his own fault, given the number of mistakes he has made in his answers, using words that might lead his questioners to think he was avoiding the issue. What words should he have used that would have made their job easier while preserving his own self-respect and dignity?Readers will recognize Kafka and Camus and the dilemma facing a man whose scrupulous `honesty' may mask denial and whose willingness not only to forgive his torturers but to attempt to justify their actions, almost suffocates a reader paralyzed by the horror of it all. Is he guilty? Who is guilty? Which side of innocence? Some have related the book to the dilemma of life in a country - Lebanon - that has been under unbearable stress for more than three decades. The questions there are the same: Who is guilty. Who is innocent? Or are those the wrong questions? |
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