After 40 days, I finally finished reading The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine‘s latest book.
A Hakawati is a storyteller and the book is made of “tales of contemporary Lebanon that converge, ingeniously, with timeless Arabic fables.”
I purchased the book because I was interested in reading about the contemporary Lebanon part and had no interest for the fables. As a matter of fact, the first few stories annoyed me a little because I felt like I was being yanked away from the “reality” I wanted to read about. What were these Jinns, Imps and mythical Kings doing here??
By the time I reached a third of the book, I became more interested in finding out what happened to Fatima, Afreet-Jehanam (monster of Hell), Prince Baybars and Othman than I was in the tales of young boy Osama’s childhood and adolescence in war-torn Lebanon.
This will sound cheesy (I warned you!): the book made me remember what it was like to read a book as a child. The curiosity! The wonder! The magic! It was so nice to be able to read a book without having to question whether a plot twist was logical or realistic. Everyone needs one of these every once in a while.
I also enjoyed the book because it made references to my Lebanese heritage. I highlighted my favorite:
Like the word “hekayeh” (story, fable, news), “hakawati” is derived from the Lebanese word “haki’” which means “talk” or “conversation.” This suggests that in Lebanese the mere act of talking is storytelling.
This is so true! The Lebanese are great at making the most mundane activities sound grandiose when they speak.
“What’s Lebanon? Some kind of purgatory?”
“What’s purgatory?” I asked.
“Come here and I’ll tell you’” Uncle Jihad said, patting his thigh. My legs dangled over the edge of his lap. “According to Dante, there’s paradise above, inferno below, and purgatory, which is like a hospital waiting room or train station until it is decided where one will go.”
“Who gets to decide, God?”
His grin widened. His head shuddered, a noncommittal nod. “Anyone but us.”
If you know anything about Lebanese politics, this is very telling.
Also, the Lebanese habit of saying “Inchallah” (with God’s will) after almost every phrase says a lot about our cultural ability to believe we can impact change by putting it all in God’s hands. You can, however, interpret this differently to mean that the Lebanese is wise enough to understand that he is not all powerful and that control over all aspect of life is a foolish western notion. Discuss among yourselves.
“Is it true that Osama has hundreds and hundreds of cousins? It’s always ‘my cousin did this’ or ‘my cousin said that.’ He’s always talking about some cousin or other.”
“He doesn’t have that many,” my mother said. (…) “He does have a few on his father’s side. But I can see why it can be confusing for you, because in English they’re all cousins. You can’t even differentiate by gender. In Lebanese we have different words for each kind of cousin, poinpointing each family relationship.” She chuckled. “This isn’t an urban legend. You can say that Lebanese has hundreds of lexemes for family relations. Family to the Lebanese is as snow to the Inuit.”
My husband would have a laugh at this one. He loves to tell people about how I manage to find cousins wherever I go. I need to count what portion of my facebook friends are cousins.
I have another story to tell about The Hakawati. I saw the book on a shelf at BookPeople while I was waiting for the Heather Armstrong book-signing (see the post before this one). And I downloaded it on my amazon Kindle (an e-reader), right in the middle of the store. I felt great excitement as I was doing that, probably something close to what Eve felt when she bit into the forbidden Fruit.
I am still debating whether that was ethical or not.
