What do readers think of In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa? Write your own review.

The protagonist of this story is a female member of an Islamic sect that stands in opposition to the ruling sect. There are two main themes of this story: the political division between two Islamic sects and her isolation from normal social contact with males in her age group. She is encouraged by her prayer group and members of her family to hate anyone not part of her own sect. She is also taught to hate her body and any physical feelings she may have. She struggles to nurture these twin hates, assuming that hatred gives her life meaning. She works to repress any signs of compassion for anyone in another sect and also to repress any normal sexual feelings.
   While many works of fiction are told from a broad historical context and secondarily focused on an individual, this story is told from the individual's perspective with the broader historical setting less defined. An understanding of current and recent events in the Middle East is helpful.
   I wanted to read this book in order to understand the title. Was the author going to justify hatred and all its ramifications? The book illustrates the part that hatred plays in their society, in her life, and in sustaining religious and political divisions. The message here is that ultimately hatred does not satisfactorily fulfill an individual and leads to cultural disruption. The timeliness of this book is all the more heart breaking than was perhaps intended, as life in Syria is now more unsettled than ever.
   I recommend this book for anyone who would like some understanding of the cultural context of women's place in Middle Eastern societies.

The author made a powerful decision by leaving the narrator nameless. In some ways, she is always the "other" that we cannot know, but at the same time she is everywoman. Her situation - growing up isolated, deeply repressed by religious beliefs, surrounded by liars - is not unique to her time (the eighties) and place (Syria.) Fear of secular culture and unreasonable definitions of chastity shape women's lives all over.
Hatred is the word the narrator uses to explain the walls she places between herself and those persons and objects that she must deny herself in order to survive. In order to give her will so completely to her family's beliefs, she cannot lust after the lifestyle of others. She even uses hatred to describe her feelings about her body.
It becomes apparent how terribly victimized this narrator is as she contemplates such violence as a response to her jealousy of the girls who easily live a freer life. The story is beautifully rendered, and yet hard to read. The insipid way this girl's life was destroyed is filled with both the small details of her life and the larger picture of Syria's war. This girl has placed faith in her religious practice and in her family's position to protect her, and in the end she is failed by both.

This book was written in a young girl's perspective, and as such she is a second class citizen. Because it is a translation I had a hard time following the story and characters. However, it was interesting to read about the culture of the Middle East and to get some insight into the reasons for the never-ending violence and hatred in that part of the world. It also gives some explanations for the radicalization of otherwise reasonable people.

I so wanted to love this book, but as I was reading it, I had mixed emotions. I felt frustrated at the lack of translation for all the italicized words (nothing listed in the back of the book), disgusted by the atrocities in the 80's, (which continue to be worse even now) ,uplifted by the descriptive expressions ( "Babies on both sides felt like ripened berries which took some of the sting away from reality"), and gladdened by the characters' reasons for staying alive - from impaled butterflies to a small birthday candle. This plea for tolerance and peace just didn't reach inside me as it should.

The provocative title and the setting in Syria made me want to read this book. I have read many translated books but this one was tough going. The historical aspects were enlightening and I come away from reading this book realizing how little I understand of this culture. I liked the 2nd half of the book better and felt the author resolved the title well.

I found this to be a very difficult read, primarily because I couldn't really connect with any of the characters. I thought the sequence of activity within the story to be a little chaotic, jumping randomly (or it least it seemed random to me) from past to present and past again. I found some of the references too esoteric for understanding. The religious practices were a little too bizarre, and again quite possibly cultural, for me to relate to even though I'm Muslim. I can't say that this was a bad read or even poorly written (or possibly translated) book, it is quite simply one that didn't work for me on a number of levels.

In this novel I learned a lot about the conflict in Syria in the 1980's which has unfortunately spilled over into present day revolution and war in Syria today. For this reason I enjoyed reading the novel. However, I feel the female narrator of the story was not a character that was believable. Her attitudes were not realistic for an innocent 17 year old girl.
In general I find that male authors often cannot put themselves in a woman's mind and write a believable story as if they are a woman. I certainly believe this is the case with this novel. Khalifa writes a very descriptive political novel which evokes a time and place that is distinctive, but he is not successful at convincing the reader that the narrator is a real person. In fact most of the female characters were difficult for me to believe. They were often depicted as 2 dimensional and either reprehensible such as Marwan who was chained to her room for loving an inappropriate man, or almost saintlike like Saafa. I also found the story line disjointed and often confusing. The reader learns great details about a certain minor character, but then never hears about the character again. I enjoyed learning about the Syrian political conflict, but the characters in the novel were a disappointment.

Even using the extensive list of main characters I found it difficult to follow the character lines. I would read a couple of pages and then find myself in 'another place' and would have to retrace to where I had begun reading. Perhaps I should give up on translated novels. I didn't enjoy this one.