The Darker Side of Love: A gripping novel of secrets, lies and betrayal

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At its heart lies the story of Rana and Farid, two lovers whose struggle to be united must overcome old tribal structures and their country’s turbulent history. Throughout the narrative we get glimpses of a hostage situation, but it's not until the climax that we find out who is the gunman and who is the hostage. As love is as intense an emotion as one gets, it occasionally leads us to make poor choices – choices that are hurtful to the ones we love.

Somewhere towards the end I remember the author mentioning the story as a mosaic, and I think that's the perfect way to describe this novel. I also think it's the ideal way to show readers an image of life in an Arab country: each piece is a little fragment of the whole, on its own may not make much sense, but its still beautiful, and will be laid down, and little by little the image will build up in your head, until you see the whole picture. THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE" Finding Destiny Amos Lassen Jorge Ameer is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated directors working in gay cinema and I suspect that the reason for that is that he makes us think. His movies are always entertaining but they also have something extra that causes us to evaluate what we have seen. His new film, "The Dark Side of Love" takes a look at identity and destiny as if affects four people whose lives come together as they search for who they are and where they are going. Steven (Harsha First)) is our guide here and he takes us by the hand early on and leads us into the film. With the theme of the universality of love, we are shown the four characters who must make decisions that will affect their lives.

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Romeo and Juliet meets Arturo Pérez-Reverte and John le Carré in the dusty streets of Damascus… A rewarding and beautifully written, if blood-soaked, tale.’ Have I learned interesting facts of history? No! I have been told in a few short sentences about the conniving behavior and bribery of those in power, but there is no continuity to the historical facts. There is little substance to show me how the people were affected by life under these leaders. They merely appear and disappear. For the controller, financial abuse can lead to legal and financial consequences. In some cases, financial abuse can be considered a form of domestic violence and can lead to criminal charges. Additionally, financial abuse can impact their credit rating and financial future, especially if they have accumulated debt or engaged in fraudulent behaviour. Embracing a breathtaking array of characters, but managing to retain a clarity characteristic of so much translated Arabic fiction, Schami proceeds to fill in the gap of those three-score years, revealing why Farid and Rana's nascent love is doomed. Two brothers; Julian (Carlos Sales), a waiter and gay, Michael (Jason Susag), an abusive drug addict fight to gain control of their lives which seem to be going in the wrong direction. Julian develops a crush on a bachelor (who he meets in a very clever way) while the other brother, because of his drug habit and his feelings about his gay brother, has lost touch with reality and has trouble controlling his life. The brothers have been estranged but they are forced to come together with the death of their mother so that they can plan her funeral—a taxing situation, to say the least. Since they do not get along, their "relationship" tests both of them. It is so very difficult to prepare for the death of a parent and even though everything may well be worked out ahead of time, the actual death is not just heartbreaking but trying. Regardless of how they feel about each other, they are brothers and even when tempers flare up and emotions get very high, they know that this is the time to say goodbye to the woman who gave them life. Each brother is forced to look within himself and deal with his feelings, his anger and range and his prejudices.

As the brothers prepare to say goodbye to their mother, old wounds are reopened and they are forced to deal with the fact that what was once a family is no more. The death of the mother is the pivot around which the film revolves. As we enter the world of Julian, Michael, Steven and Chanel, we find that each is searching for identity and we are part of that quest. RAFIK SCHAMI was born in Damascus in 1946, came to Germany in 1971 and studied chemistry in Heidelberg. Today he is the most successful German-speaking Arabic writer. His novels have been translated into 21 languages and received numerous international awards. He is the author of The Calligrapher’s Secret, Damascus Nights, and Damascus: Taste of a City. The novel develops through countless doomed affairs and periods of suppression, both individual and collective. In the 'Book Of Laughter', there are beautiful anecdotes about Damascene childhood; in the 'Book Of Hell', a nightmarish portrayal of life in Syria's secret prisons. It involves an extraordinary amount of sex, but this is not the kind of gratuitous or perfunctory copulation prevalent in so many philosophical modern novels - there are no 'Bad Sex Awards' here: the sex in this book is straight-forward and stallion-esque, which only the most tiresome prude would deny is not entirely in keeping with Schami's exploration of passion's extremes: the price for such ecstasy is often certain death. Ha habido partes que me gustaron mucho, especialmente al principio, el inicio de las luchas entre los Mushtak y los Sahin; algunos personajes, como el amor incondicional de Matta, la amistad perdurable de Josef; e historias concretas, puntuales, como la llegada al colegio cerca de la frontera con Jordania...

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Like some other reviewers I was expecting to read descriptions of Damascus and other parts of Syria that would give a true feeling of the area and that was one of the reasons that I got the book. There didn't appear to be much of this, there was hardly anything to describe or give character to the areas it was set in. I appreciate the author's hard work and all of what he went through to get the information he needed, and his obvious love and yearning for Damascus, but at the end of the day, I was disappointed with this novel, I came so close so many times to just quit it, but decided to get closure and finish it. Y otras que o no me han gustado o me han aburrido. Se me ha hecho larguísimo el dificultoso amor de Rana y Farid, su estancia en la prisión, sus reuniones de partido... Y algunos personajes se me han atravesado, y no me refiero a los malos oficiales (como la familia de Rana), sino a los que se suponen "positivos" como Claire, que al principio me pareció interesante y luego se fue desdibujando hasta convertirse en una madre sufridora sin más... As the book starts all the couples; Izzy and James, Harriet and Wills and Stella and Jonny are all settled in life. Caroline, James' sister is single and feels on the edge of the group due to her status. The story unfolds and we see that none of the couples are quite as secure as first impressions suggested and secrets and lies test their relationships. Told in chapters covering the key times when the group are bought together such as New Year's Eve the reader is left with gaps, this device moves the story along nicely without becoming bogged down with the minutiae of daily life. This story introduces us to four women who are firm friends. Caroline, Stella, Izzy and Harriet and their partners/husbands are the focus of this story starting in the nineties. Initially, it can seem a little overwhelming with the amount of characters that appear very early on. However, when you begin to understand each of their lives it becomes easier to distinguish between these very different characters.