Everything can be told. It's just a matter of starting, one word follows another - Javier Marias (A Heart So White)
p36 Hakawati - teller of tales, myths & fables (hekayat)
This book is a gem and the author is a genius. There were many plots and subplots. Stories within stories. Fables and myths mixed with current tales. Many, many interesting characters but never once was I lost. I understood the story perfectly well even after I have to put it away for a while ~ to attend to life's reality. That's how good the book was.
The story is about a young man Osama al-Kharrat who returned to war torn Beirut to be with his family (near and extended) and his dying father.
p7 I was a tourist in a bizarre land. I was home.
When Osama was with his family and friends, standing vigil at his father's deathbed, they turned to the things that gave them solace - gossip, laughter and above all, stories.
... stories do not belong only to those who were present or to those who invent them. Once a story has been told, it's everyone's, it becomes common currency, it gets twisted and distorted; no story is told the same way twice or in quite the same words, not even if the same person tells the story twice, not even if there is only ever one storyteller - Javier Marias
Osama was reminded of why and how his grandfather became al-Kharrat (the fibster) and along the stories that he learned to tell, Osama's own family tales were also a fascinating real time drama.
On p292, one of my favorite character who was Osama's uncle (his father's youngest brother) died. He was such a colorful and interesting character that I felt disappointed when he died in an uneventful death. Just like that and he's gone.
Like I've mentioned earlier there were many incorporation of old tales and fables of the Arabian Nights into this book which many I haven't heard before this but characters or rather their names were familiar to me. Maybe because I knew them from the local version of the 1001 tales of the Arabian Nights, once upon a time ago when I was young
The Hakawati is funny, captivating and enchanting from its very first line, “Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story."
