"In 1962, a young Muslim was killed before my eyes and all the neighbors because he had violated religious boundaries and was in love with a Christian man. The sad was that the man did not deserve it. He was a gigolo. Then when I was a boy of sixteen who saw the world as an infinite chain of stories, I figured I'd write a novel about all forms of forbidden love in Saudi, and what I wanted with all the naivete of a lover. But my tool as a storyteller was not yet mature enough to make such an idea into a story. Between 1965 and 1967 undertook the first attempts were a dismal failure. " This is the beginning of the last tile that makes up the huge mosaic created by Rafik Schami in his most ambitious project, a novel whose genesis began in 1965 and completed more than treinta años después, y que tuvo como catalizador el acontecimiento narrado más arriba. El lado oscuro del amor es una novela magna, con mayúsculas, donde el protagonista indiscutible es el amor, pero un amor difícil, que debe esconderse, y que debe luchar con toda su fuerza por sobrevivir, sin llegar a conseguirlo en muchas ocasiones. Es el amor prohibido, como él mismo lo llama, en una cultura donde las diferencias religiosas y de linaje constituyen obstáculos insalvables para que dos personas puedan unir sus destinos por muy enamoradas que estén. En este caso la huida o la renuncia a dicho amor son, con frecuencia, las dos únicas alternativas posibles para estas parejas de enamorados.
En the center of the mosaic we have the love story of Rana and Farid, two youths whose families, and Shahin Mushtak have traditionally been rivals, and therefore strongly oppose to this union. The backdrop of this plot is the Syria of the first half of the twentieth century, where military coups happen and where ideologies like anarchism and communism is spread with great rapidity. In this context, the woman-as is happening in most Muslim countries, is fully subject to man. Marriages are arranged between the parents and girls are forced into a destiny that is alien to them at the wish of their parents, besides being constantly monitored by siblings and relatives who serve as custodians of their virginity. While Rana must face this reality, Farid is discussed in an internal struggle when he realizes that communism, an ideology that embraces with passion in the beginning, not responding to their wishes as he expected. Rana's love will be your lifeline through a series of misfortunes that will leave a deep mark on his being.
The 833 pages that make up this authentic family saga, in which the author outlines the origins of both families and dates back to the beginning of their rivalry, are divided into nine books are subdivided into twenty-eight chapters. In them we find stories that remind us of the magical world of The Thousand and One Nights alongside others, for their crudeness, bring us closer to the reality of the Syria of the time. There are countless characters that parade through this all, whose stories, Schami inserted as secondary tiles surrounding the main scene of the mosaic, make reading a bit stressful at times, but fortunately this feeling soon fades to the strength of the basic plot which is the love of Rana and Farid, fabric that absorbs the reader's attention and prompt him to continue reading one page after another.
In Germany the book has been a tremendous critical and commercial success, having sold over 300,000 copies (keep in mind that author is well known in this country, his home since he went into exile in Syria in 1971). It is, without doubt, a deserved success. At least that is my mind after finishing this work, despite its length, is read with relative ease. It is extraordinary to think that Schami has spent half his life to this project, and so is he who says its genesis and evolution in the last chapter of the novel. This puts the final piece of one of the most amazing mosaics Arabic literature and Europe, has created in recent years. Now it only remains for the audience, readers are guided through this adventure that, in most cases, insurance will not disappoint.
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