In The Crane the renowned SyroLebanese author and sociologist Halim Barakat creates a narrator who looks back wistfully on a childhood in a small village of Syria with the image of flying cranes and in particular one wounded bird as a continuing symbol of his emotions toward the past and its impact upon his life. The narrator then travels to the United States and with his wife goes through the experiences of American college life in the 1960s. He describes his participation in the political pro