But, once freed from earthly shackles, he can unsparingly ridicule his oppressors, and his tale mocks both Arab oligarchies and Israeli officials. A coward himself, comically useless to his superiors, he is surrounded by rebels. In each part of the subsequent autobiographical account, he relates a different loss-of his first love, of his wife and son, of the daughter of his first love-each under different circumstances that are identical in their irrationality. As Salma Khadra Jayyusi notes in the introduction, Saeed is caught between "the extreme poles of Zionist colonialism and Palestinian resistance." Saeed is able to relate his tale only when he is rescued by an extraterrestrial being (perhaps the Reaper himself) who removes him physically from the absurdities in which he is trapped. A Palestinian in occupied territory, Saeed has lived through both wars (19) although he is an informer on the payroll of the Israeli government, he's too stupid to be of any real threat to his own people, but he is equally unable to protect his own family. As its subtitle implies, "The Secret Life of Saeed" blends optimism and pessimism, tragedy and comedy, horror and farce, cynicism and gullibility.
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