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    De Niro's Game
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    De Niro's Game
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    De Niro's Game
    Audiobook7 hours

    De Niro's Game

    Written by Rawi Hage

    Narrated by Jonathan Keeble

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown up on the Christian side of war-torn Beirut. Now on the verge of adulthood, they must choose their futures: to remain in the exhausted, corrupt city of their birth, or to go into exile abroad, cut off from the only existence they have known. Bassam chooses one path - obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund his escape to the West. Meanwhile, George amasses power in the underworld of the city, embracing a life of military service, organised crime, killing, and drugs. Their two paths inevitably collide, with explosive consequences. De Niro's Game is a devastating, timely portrait of two young men and an entire city formed and deformed by war.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateJul 1, 2009
    ISBN9781407440613
    Unavailable
    De Niro's Game

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    Reviews for De Niro's Game

    3.5/5

    175 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I really, really wanted to like this book. Ever since I read the interview of the author in the Globe and Mail prior to the Gillers, it's been on my shortlist of books to read. So when Ibis3 offered it up I jumped at the chance. But (you knew there was going to be a but) I found Bassam an unlikeable character and I could not care about what was happening to him. Some would argue that he became the person he was because of the horrific experiences during the Lebanese civil war but my feeling, based upon incidents from his childhood that he narrated, was that he would have been a violent and manipulative adult anyway. Years ago I used to have to interview incarcerated criminals and what always struck me about them was that, when faced with a problem, their immediate solution was to commit a crime, either violent or property-based. And that's what I felt about Bassam. All kinds of people tried to help him but he always managed to drive them away. In fact, about the only character I liked in the book was George's aunt Nabila. She genuinely seemed to care for George and Bassam without expecting anything in return. She should have been the one getting out of Beirut. In a strange coincidence just as I was on my way to the computer to write this report, CBC led off its evening newscast with an article about the fighting in the Nahr el Bared camp. This quote from one of the militants in the camp shows that, even though the people and issues have changed, nothing is really different: Meanwhile, Fatah Islam has continued to reject government calls for a surrender. "This is not only impossible, this is unthinkable. Our blood is cheaper than handing over our weapons and surrendering," said Abu Hureira. It's a sad commentary on life in the Middle East.
    • 5/5
      A spectacular book about Bassam, a young Lebonese Christian, who lives in Lebanon in the early 80's. Told in first person/present tense, influenced by the language and rhythm of the Bible, Bassam struggles to deal with a world that is all encompassingly violent.
    • 3/5
      An entertaining read though the testosterone-fueled stream of consciousness passages seemed overly-embellished. What was most compelling for this reader was the portrayal of various characters' participation in the Lebanese civil war being motivated from personal loyalty or gain rather than ideological conviction, that many of the combatants were boys who fought with an attitude of nihilism rather than idealism.
    • 3/5
      There are some positives to take from this book. I thought some of the themes threaded through the novel well, like the books title, but the overall story was disconnected, the first part takes place in war-torn Beirut and the last part in Paris. The author manages to capture the tone of both places well, but doesn't connect the main plot well.
    • 1/5
      The writing was really beautiful, but by page 150, I was still waiting to be engaged by the story, care about what would happen, or even just plain connect with the protagonist. It never happened. I started skipping passages because I just didn't care.
    • 4/5
      Great novel. Covers the war time lives of two childhood friends and the different paths they take to survive 'hell on earth' civil war torn Beirut in the 1980s. Fast paced and well written it provides a great insight into the hearts and minds of young men living in chaos.
    • 3/5
      Despite its many accolades, I'm not bowled over. Some parts, like the descriptions of the anxiety of living under the threat of violence, the increasing influence of the militia on Bassam's life, his forced interactions with them, and particularly George's frantic description of the massacre at the Sabra and Shátila Camps are written with such intensity it's almost physically painful to read. However, interspersed with such intense parts are some very meandering, almost rambling, enumerations of locales or events or scents or "whatevers," which I can only assume are meant to be poetic attempts at social criticism, but that in actuality act as roadblocks for the story and softens a blow that I thought should be gut-wrenching. Having the narrator simply list things he sees or thinks does not make for a stream-of-consciousness narrative; it makes for a bunch of lists. The last portion of the novel, which starts with the same rambling thoughts but now in an almost psychedelic style, quickly becomes a straight spy story which completely derails the novel. Unfortunately I can't "un-read" that last portion, so I end up with a novel that started off strong and packed a heck of a punch, then meandered in the middle, only to end in a place where Agent 007 would feel at home.
    • 4/5
      Hage lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war before emigrating to Canada in 1992. This novel of a young man in Beirut sure feels like it. It's brutal.The narrator, a young man called Bassam, doesn’t seem to remember a time when there wasn’t a war. Death, even of children, has become a, well, casual fact of life. The reflexes automatically kick in when a bomb falls or someone is injured. But if that someone dies, even an old friend, the feelings don’t react normally; they’re tamped down so far, they might be dead. Bassam is, at least nominally, a Christian (Maronite? Who knows?), so it’s taken for granted that he supports the Christian militia and some of his school friends are already in the militia (you can never get out). Unless he screws up--a distinct possibility with his casino scam--he works at the port. The corrupt militia warlords are something like drug kingpins or gangsters in a ghetto. Although it seems to be Palestinians (no dates to give a clue) the Christians are fighting, the usual journalistic boilerplate is absent, so many readers will have to check out Wikipedia. In other words, this is not a novel that in any way help you understand the roots of the conflict or how the various groups have historically interacted.A communist uncle is over on the other side of the wall, in the eastern part of the city, but you get no idea of which disparate groups are allied there (yeah Muslims, but remember the Druze and Hezbollah and ..). The war has been going on so long that everyone seems to have forgotten the original passions. Joining up with the Israelis to expel Palestinians was at one time unthinkable but everyone seems to have forgotten why.The novel falls apart about two-thirds of the way through, once Bassam escapes Lebanon and lands in France. At one point, I even checked to see if pages were missing. The whole tone of the novel changed from start realism to almost dreamy, imprecise fantasy. It doesn’t feel like Hage has ever been to Paris. Of course there would be the visual shock of being in a land at peace but I was more struck that he had no feel for what it’s like to be an illegal alien, probably a swarthy one at that, in France. For a start, all the other aliens would be feeling him out. Wondering if he's Arab, Turk, Portuguese, Jew? Then there would be the not subtle racism of waiters, taxi drivers, etc. Then there’s the whole preposterous story of his dead friend’s unknown half-sister and their father being a Mossad agent (he was Jewish, after all)Another problem with the whole France episode: a Lebanese guy of this age and background seeking asylum would know perfectly well what kind of organizations and human rights lawyers to seek out once he landed in France or any other Western country. He’d even know the kind of story he’d have to tell them (torture helps, but given the state of Lebanon at that time, he might not even have to go that far.) He’d probably know that there were more welcoming countries than France at that time to (probably the Netherlands or Scandinavian countries in late 1980s or early 1990s, I think).I'd advise just stopping once Bassam gets off the freight boat from Lebanon, Again, the precision of how this is arranged jars with what follows.I would like to have seen more about Laurent, or people like him, even though his poetic waxing also doesn't mesh well with the rest of the Lebanon section (which is poetic too but in a starker, steam-of-consciousness Kerouacian way). He's an older man, with French or imagined European airs, who made a fortune as a middleman between Africans and French and Portuguese traders (including arms traders, I assume). We need more of a glimpse of what Lebanon and Lebanese used to signify. In Asia and, I supposed, among Marxists he belongs to what used to be called the compradore class.You can see the colons story here, but they (least of all the French) never really have this much self-awareness:"We sucked the locals’ wealth, and offered their daughters as gifts. You see, no one liked us, but they all needed us. And then it happened, that day when the poor walked barefoot into the city, with guns and machetes in their hands, and chased us out of our penthouses. They stumbled over our long chairs, defecated in our mosaic pools, snapped our argilahs (pipes) in half, camped in our marble saloons with large windows that looked over their primitive villages, their shanty towns that we never noticed, their running sewage that they never smelled, their chocolate-skinned sisters whose bellies we used as pillows, whose pale palms we used as towels for our Semitic semen, for out sweating foreheads behind circled walls and guardian dogs …"
    • 3/5
      Not as great as some of you reviewers are making out. It starts promisingly, with an original and engaging portrayal of a friendship in a war-zone, and enough details of the Lebanese conflict to contextualise the story. However, once the narrator goes to Paris the plot becomes increasingly ridiculous and banal. The referencing of Camus' 'L'Etranger' is just plain tiresome. The conclusion goes some way to making amends, but only if you suddenly accept that you have been reading a piece of genre fiction rather than a serious literary work, which I presume it aspires to be.
    • 5/5
      I really liked Rawi Hage's 'De Niro's Game'. First off--it's got great tone. Street level scenes of the 1982 Lebanese civil war as seen the eyes of one Bassan--who one might call a small time hood (or disaster capitalist--if one wants to look at my recent review of Naomi Klein's 'The shock doctrine--keeping in mind there's a great difference between small time and big time). He and his friend George (aka 'De Niro) are scamming the local slot machines from which the head of the local Chistian falange Abou-Nahra raises money to pay for the war against Muslims and communist/socialist factions. To be honest there is not a lot of difference to be found comparing Abou-Nahra to a Tony Soprano. Bassan and George see themselves kind of as free lancers but they have to tread very quietly when Abou-Nahra or his associaties are in the vicinity. But things eventually go wrong. George is pressured into joining Abou-Nahra's militia and Bassan is left to keep their business going only to find that the people holding up George's end are out to cheat him. Having considered themselves brothers--a wedge is slowly being driven between George and Bassan--it's complicated by George's deliberately taking Bassan's girlfriend Rana's affections away and at the same time the friendship Bassan has with George's mother Nabila who helps Bassan out of a lot of jams--for instance Bassan is picked up by some of Abou-Nahra's men--interrogated and tortured for information about a Frenchman and his wife who he had been supplying with drugs--and Nabila eventually is the one who saves him. George disappears for a while--he goes to Israel to train with Israeli special forces--he comes back and takes part in the massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. He relates these events to Bassan--it's obvious at this point that their freindship is never going to be the same.Bassan as well is suspect because he has an uncle who lives in East Beirut--among the Muslims--who is a communist. His existence threatened on more than one side--Nabila gives him a phone number for George's father living in Paris--he decides to leave Lebanon. Before that happens though one day George picks him up and they go for a ride. I'll leave the readers of this review to find out for themselves what happens that day.The last part of the book describes his stay in France. George's father as it happens has died--his wife and George's half sister Rhea (who has never met George but very keen on it) however set him up in a hotel near their own apartments. There are some shady characters as well lurking around them--a French diplomat and a Mossad agent who had recruited George while he was in Israel but has lost contact and wants Bassan's help finding him. All this is not clear until the final pages--the use of blackmail and threats--in turn thwarted by Bassan's own history of violence and gun ownership. De Niro's Game is very well paced, suspenseful, action packed and the characters are well drawn. Hage's portraits of their differentiating psycholoigies is astute. In a sense it depends on the linkage of small stories to tell a larger more complete one--and as well it also depends on the history of the Lebanese 1982 conflict. I thought it was excellent throughout and hopefully Hage will with time write more works of fiction. Anyway I'd highly recommend it.
    • 3/5
      The book deals with the times of the Civil War in Lebanon of the 70s and 80s, and is narrated from the point of view of 17-year-old Bassam- a Christian living in Beirut.It was a good rendition of the frenzied recklessness of war, the violent mindset it creates, the ‘there is nothing to lose- I am going to be dead tomorrow’ attitude and the damage war does to one’s psyche. But, at the same time, there were some incredibly weak elements in the plot and in the narration technique, which was very good from time to time and then incongruous in others. It didn’t hold any revelations about the war there for me. Apart from everything else, it’s a first novel and I think it shows. It was shortlisted for the Giller last year, nevertheless.
    • 5/5
      De Niro’s Game is a stream of consciousness account of a shell-shocked young man struggling to retain his sanity in the middle of a war. The narrator’s voice is disengaged and repetitive as he describes the events that overcome his family, childhood friendships, and city. Hage presents a stark contrast between the poetic beauty of his language and the tragedies of war. Another reader (TL) felt Hage’s use of hybrid colloquialisms and mixed cultural references in his crazy charged poetic lingo was done better, more economically, and with more thematic value than Diaz in the Wao book. The style shifted when the narrator, Bassam, moved to Paris. i thought the outer slowdown reflected Bassam’s psychological state ~ indecision as to what could be revealed combined with figuring out how to navigate within such a different culture. While his decisions over when and how to act may have been a bit plot device-y, what struck me most strongly was the isolation, confusion, and nightmares he dealt with during that stage. De Niro's Game is one of the best books i’ve read this year.
    • 4/5
      This book won the 2008 Dublin Literary Impac Award and to understand the story I found it helpful to refresh my memory about the Lebanese Civil War. Two young men (as far as I know their ages are never given but suspect they might be about 17 or 18) are caught in the cross fire of war. Each is trying to survive the violence, chaos of death and destruction in their city of Beirut. Loyalty, revenge, and power of guns are some of the major themes of this novel. There are many evocative war images – shooting off AK 47’s, children bleeding and women wailing much as reported on the nightly news programs. Most of the story is told by Bassum who sometimes is both trusting and very naive while also being tenacious in his stalking and vicious in his effort to get even in other situations. The end of the book reveals what happens to George but I am left to wonder does Bassum ever make it to Roma?