I think it's safe to say that Kanafani's stories are a tad more on the darker side. All of which conveyed family struggles and hardships, but with an unexpected
M. Night Shyamalan-ish twist. The two shorter stories I felt related more to each other, in terms of the war and the characters' experiences confronting Jewish soldiers.
In The Land Of Sad Oranges, there's a disturbing image of the father seen through a window, ill-looking and accompanied by a revolver. A sight of such graphic violence is enough to give any kid looking through that window a pretty good freak out. I know I shouldn't, but I actually liked the comparison of the father's face to a rotten orange. I felt it really described his state of being.
At first, I didn't know what to think of If You Were A Horse. Not that I didn't like it, I just had something totally different being pieced together in my head. When I read that the boy's mother died after she gave birth to him, I thought just that; she died giving birth. Little did I know her skull was crushed by hooves.
A Hand In The Grave came off as quite the thriller. There was so much suspense and anticipation throughout the story until the "event." I would almost call it a backwards thriller, or what some call a "turn-off."
I got all excited for some wild demon thing to possess him, but he just stuck his fingers in the eyes.
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Great comments on the stories, Brian. I agree with you that the dried up orange was a great metaphor for the father, and maybe even for the Palestinian people... Many were farmers, it seems, and had to leave their orange groves and olive trees.
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