Compliments affect us, and kind words leave a beautiful impression that may last a lifetime. What does praise do to us? And how does it affect others when you praise them? Does the universe change by praising things, houses, years, and our old streets?
Raed Al-Eid doesn't begin his book with an introduction, but with a beginning, and he doesn't end with a conclusion, but with a new fascination. He guides you along the edges of things not to introduce them to you, but to teach you how to see them for the first time. In his pages, praise doesn't reside in the palaces of words, but wanders through alleyways, pauses at the margins of the painting, drinks from the cup of contemplation, and mends the gaps of oblivion.
Here, the praise is hesitant, lost, contemplative, and perhaps belated… but it is sincere and knows how to choose its destination. The praise in this book is not ready-made poems or testimonials; it is not about anyone in particular, but about everything—reflections on forgotten beauty and on the small details that are not usually praised, but which deserve recognition.
Beginnings without introductions, ceilings without walls, frames that create paintings of whiteness, play that is not for amusement, views from above, almond trees that discover the fragility of the shell and the solidity of the interior, no places more than places, and margins where meanings lie that the text did not make room for.