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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wow, this book was amazing! I have to agree with everything Amy Tan says in her rave: http://www.amazon.com/Hakawati-Rabih-Alameddine/dp/0307266796
This is a densely packed book of tales and culture. It took much longer to read that its 500 pages would normally take, but some of that was due to rolling around the words and places on my tongue as I read. My father's family is of Lebanese-Syrian descent, but sadly I have no contact with them. This book allowed me a glimpse of what it "could" have been, and at the same time entertained me with folktales and history.
I love postmodern-y stories centered on storytelling. And this is definitely one of those.
But it lost me at times with its (un)parallel stories. The fabulous one comes first, before the actual family history. So that was kind of disconcerting. And I didn't really care about Baybar's story. (A fact that meant too much skimming and not enough actual digesting of the book...) And I got confused by the (overlapping) names. And I don't really know enough (okay, anything) about Beirut, so the context was a bit overwhelming.
But it was immensely enjoyable. Like a modern Arabian Nights. (Although not nearly so long...it has the potential to ramble on forever, though. I certainly wouldn't mind.) Worthy of re-visiting.
But it lost me at times with its (un)parallel stories. The fabulous one comes first, before the actual family history. So that was kind of disconcerting. And I didn't really care about Baybar's story. (A fact that meant too much skimming and not enough actual digesting of the book...) And I got confused by the (overlapping) names. And I don't really know enough (okay, anything) about Beirut, so the context was a bit overwhelming.
But it was immensely enjoyable. Like a modern Arabian Nights. (Although not nearly so long...it has the potential to ramble on forever, though. I certainly wouldn't mind.) Worthy of re-visiting.
This is a book about love, and family, and war. But most of all it is a book about stories and how we construct and share them, and how in turn they nourish us back. Stories plural - those who like their plots streamlined and neat may struggle with The Hakawati, with its multiple story strands, which sometimes bust beyond their nested confines*, and timelines which revisit each other. I say 'may' because this book has so much to delight in - wit, glorious surprise twists and of course, characters to fall in love with - that I'd like to think it makes a bit of structural complexity worthwhile.
At the heart of the book is the return of an adult now-American son to the deathbed of his father in Beirut. This is interleaved with age-old Arabic stories retold for modern audiences, and stories from the protagonist's grandfather's life in a Druze village, then his father's life in Beirut. The book grips you with stories, never asking the reader for patience, but in the 500 plus pages, it shows so much of Lebanon, Arabia and the peoples, beliefs, customs and, of course, history that comprise it. The fracturing impact of the war, the rapid change in what had been a stable middle-class life is evoked with great power, especially as I read through our own rapidly shifting context in 2020.
Most of all, you learn to love and be irritated by the clan at the bedside, to be brought into this family, with all that families are. The larger-than-life characters of the fable components to the stories both reflect and push against the more human characteristics of the modern family - reminding the reader of the power of our strengths and foibles, but also of the fragility, pettiness and failures that make up the deeds that eventually become smoothed out stories. This is occasionally emphasised by the characters discussions around the art of storytelling, and it's non-linear relationship to truth. I was surprised at the end of the book - and the book is a little too long, the rhythms starting to tire - to discover how much I felt I would miss this imperfect family. It had felt reading it, that it was the parts featuring the legendary deeds that I most hungered for, but in the end, it works as a complete tapestry in some way I find hard to define.
*But just to be clear, some reviews had made it sound like the nested structure was complex. It is actually very simple - unusually so for stories in this genre. If you can handle multiple narrators, you can handle this.
At the heart of the book is the return of an adult now-American son to the deathbed of his father in Beirut. This is interleaved with age-old Arabic stories retold for modern audiences, and stories from the protagonist's grandfather's life in a Druze village, then his father's life in Beirut. The book grips you with stories, never asking the reader for patience, but in the 500 plus pages, it shows so much of Lebanon, Arabia and the peoples, beliefs, customs and, of course, history that comprise it. The fracturing impact of the war, the rapid change in what had been a stable middle-class life is evoked with great power, especially as I read through our own rapidly shifting context in 2020.
Most of all, you learn to love and be irritated by the clan at the bedside, to be brought into this family, with all that families are. The larger-than-life characters of the fable components to the stories both reflect and push against the more human characteristics of the modern family - reminding the reader of the power of our strengths and foibles, but also of the fragility, pettiness and failures that make up the deeds that eventually become smoothed out stories. This is occasionally emphasised by the characters discussions around the art of storytelling, and it's non-linear relationship to truth. I was surprised at the end of the book - and the book is a little too long, the rhythms starting to tire - to discover how much I felt I would miss this imperfect family. It had felt reading it, that it was the parts featuring the legendary deeds that I most hungered for, but in the end, it works as a complete tapestry in some way I find hard to define.
*But just to be clear, some reviews had made it sound like the nested structure was complex. It is actually very simple - unusually so for stories in this genre. If you can handle multiple narrators, you can handle this.
I didn't finish this book. Really, I couldn't even tell you what it was about. I'm definitely interested in old stories from the Arab world, but you gotta give them to me in context! In this book, about an old storyteller, it's hard to tell when you are in the real story and when you are in the stories. And frankly, I was more interested in the real story than I was the storytelling, but it seemed like the storytelling went on and on while we only got a glimpse of what was happening modern day. I would have liked it the other way around.
It's too long, overcrowded with characters, and the plot skips around too much for my liking. But I finished it. So that tells me it held my interest despite all of those criticisms.
SPOILERS AHOY
There are some lovely moments in the novel: the mother at the son's party, the death in Los Angeles, the story of the grandparents meeting for the first time. The fact that it is a reinterpretation of Arabian Nights is not lost on me. I realize the point of both books is the importance of being a good storyteller, so of course the plot meanders and there's too much information muddling the main plot. I had to put that aside to read this book.
The ending makes me want to go back through the book and notice the parallels between the different stories. I didn't really get that the story lines were running together in a herd until Osama takes over the Hakawati title from his father. I should further add that I probably won't touch the book again.
SPOILERS AHOY
There are some lovely moments in the novel: the mother at the son's party, the death in Los Angeles, the story of the grandparents meeting for the first time. The fact that it is a reinterpretation of Arabian Nights is not lost on me. I realize the point of both books is the importance of being a good storyteller, so of course the plot meanders and there's too much information muddling the main plot. I had to put that aside to read this book.
The ending makes me want to go back through the book and notice the parallels between the different stories. I didn't really get that the story lines were running together in a herd until Osama takes over the Hakawati title from his father. I should further add that I probably won't touch the book again.
Listen. Allow me to be your god. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story.
Our life is nothing but a sum collection of all the little stories we live. Rabih's novel 'The Hakawati' is just that - a gorgeously woven collection of stories following three different threads each with different percentages of magical realism in them. Osama - a Lebanon born, US immigrant's story is set in our world. Baybar - the war hero's story is fictional set against real locations and events that transpired during the crusades. And, my favorite, Fatima's story is told in a magical realm involving djinns, demons, imps, sorcerers and all that we have come to love about the fantasy genre.
This is my first book that is set in Lebanon and by-extension, the Middle East. And what a delightful setting it turned out to be. Rabih lets the reader in on their cultures, social mores, the stories their kids grow up with and, for me, that was a refreshingly welcome change. And the breeze that is Rabih's writing. The expectations kept soaring while reading it and when the ending came, I felt cheated out of it. But, thinking about what this book set out to do, whom this book made its protagonists - that ending makes total sense and even seems to be as good an end the story could get.
At times, I did get confused trying to find the parallels between the tales, but after a point, my non-comprehending mind just gave up! I also thought some of the stories narrated were insignificant and did not contribute to the overall plot. That's why, Rabih Alameddine's 'The Hakawati' gets a 4.5 star rating rounded to 5 from me. Fully recommended!
Our life is nothing but a sum collection of all the little stories we live. Rabih's novel 'The Hakawati' is just that - a gorgeously woven collection of stories following three different threads each with different percentages of magical realism in them. Osama - a Lebanon born, US immigrant's story is set in our world. Baybar - the war hero's story is fictional set against real locations and events that transpired during the crusades. And, my favorite, Fatima's story is told in a magical realm involving djinns, demons, imps, sorcerers and all that we have come to love about the fantasy genre.
This is my first book that is set in Lebanon and by-extension, the Middle East. And what a delightful setting it turned out to be. Rabih lets the reader in on their cultures, social mores, the stories their kids grow up with and, for me, that was a refreshingly welcome change. And the breeze that is Rabih's writing. The expectations kept soaring while reading it and when the ending came, I felt cheated out of it. But, thinking about what this book set out to do, whom this book made its protagonists - that ending makes total sense and even seems to be as good an end the story could get.
At times, I did get confused trying to find the parallels between the tales, but after a point, my non-comprehending mind just gave up! I also thought some of the stories narrated were insignificant and did not contribute to the overall plot. That's why, Rabih Alameddine's 'The Hakawati' gets a 4.5 star rating rounded to 5 from me. Fully recommended!