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. ( )

Wonderful. A different culture and time. Not sure if it's cultural or the author but really interesting metaphors and analogies. ( )

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. ( )

De Niro's Story is the story of two childhood friends, now young men, who take different paths in the Lebanese Civil War. It's told from the viewpoint of one of the two, Bassam, in a spare prose laced with western pop culture references and a wonderful kind of urban verse.

Bombs fell, warriors fought, people ate, and the garbage piled up on the corners of our streets. Cats and Dogs were feasting and getting fatter. The rich were leaving or France and letting their dogs roam loose on the streets: orphan dogs, expensive dogs, potty-trained dogs, dogs with French names and red bowties, fluffy dogs, well-bred dogs, china dogs, genetically modified dogs, and incestuous dogs that clung to one another in packs, covered the streets in tens, and gathered under the command of a charismatic three-legged mutt. The most expensive pack of wild dogs roamed Beirut and the earth, and howled to the big moon, and ate from mountains of garbage on the corners of our streets. p. 31

The result is a unique voice and a mesmerizing tale of life in a war zone. ( )

This is a first novel with a horrific story of life in modern Lebanon told in the most beautiful poetical language. Every award it has received was well-deserved. Af first I did not think that I would be interested in reading another novel by Hage because the subject matter is not one I would seek out; however, the more I read - the more the poetic beauty of the language sucked me into the story. I read most of this novel in one day. ( )