The Hakawati

An inventive, exuberant novel that takes us from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war torn streets of twenty first century Lebanon.In 2003, Osama al Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father s deathbed The city is a shell of the Beirut Osama remembers, but he and his friends and family take solace in the things that have always sustained them gossip, laughter, and, above all, stories Osama s grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching stories of his arrival in Lebanon, an orphan of the Turkish wars, and of how he earned the name al Kharrat, the fibster are interwoven with classic tales of the Middle East, stunningly reimagined Here are Abraham and Isaac Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes the ancient, fabled Fatima and Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders Here, too, are contemporary Lebanese whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war and of survival Like a true hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles from its very first lines Listen Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining Let me tell you a story. Read The Hakawati – kino-fada.fr Did you ever read a book so good that you had an actual physical reaction to something you read Perhaps you were startled into a gasp of surprise when the killer was revealed Maybe you shed a tear of joy when the good guys finally won, or your heart pounded when things weren t going so well Or maybe, just maybe, if the story was good enough you dropped all of your barriers and immersed yourself in the world on the page, and suddenly this was no longer a book that you were reading but a story Did you ever read a book so good that you had an actual physical reaction to something you read Perhaps you were startled into a gasp of surprise when the killer was revealed Maybe you shed a tear of joy when the good guys finally won, or your heart pounded when things weren t going so well Or ma...You can say that Lebanese has hundreds of lexemes for family relations Family to the Lebanese is as snow to the Inuit.Most of us are familiar with the fabled conversion stories, on the night Mario Vargas Llosa earned his law degree he picked up Brothers Karamazov and was bewitched, 24 hours later, having read all night and the next day he completed the tome and discovered that he was destined to be a novelist What about Marx reading Hegel for days on end Samuel Delany relates how he left his You can say that Lebanese has hundreds of lexemes for family relations Family to the Lebanese is as snow to the Inuit.Most of us are familiar with the fabled conversion stories, on the night Mario Vargas Llosa earned his law degree he picked up Brothers Karamazov and was bewitched, 24 hours later, having read all night and the next day he completed the tome and discovered that he was destined to be a novelist What about Marx reading Hegel for days on end Samuel Delany relates how he left his wife at home in the morning headed to university and work and returne...I ve said it before and I will say it again One thing I will admit however, is that this book suffers greatly from ADD It is hard to get into it if you aren t a book lover If the first sentence of Listen Allow me to be your God Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining Let me tell you a story does not capture you, then you truly are a lost cause In this book, you will feel joy, sorrow, fear, guilt, dread and regret in every page You will laugh and cry at the same time You will I ve said it before and I will say it again One thing I will admit however, is that this book suffers greatly from ADD It is hard to get into it if you aren t a book lover If the first sentence of Listen Allow me to be your God Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining Let me tell you a story does not capture you, then you truly are a lost cause In this book, you will feel joy, sorrow, fear, guilt, dread and regret in every page You will laugh and cry at the same time You will be happy yet miserable You will want the book to end, yet pray at the end of every page that it wouldn t This book will torture you, make you suffer and leave you begging forIt will show you worlds you never imagined, and some that you forgot you ever visited Action, drama, suspense, comedy and ...Listen,let me tell you a storyImagine little wizened Rumpelstiltskin choosing pieces of straw which he then nimbly spins into gold Threads within threads This is what this story is like Alameddine might not be wizened, I do not know, I have never met him I have only met him through his stories and let me assure you he is a magical word weaver Laying before me pieces of precious gold.Writing this and missing the book I ve spentthan a fortnight with it and I m going to miss it I Listen,let me tell you a storyImagine little wizened Rumpelstiltskin choosing pieces of straw which he then nimbly spins into gold Threads within threads This is what this story is like Alameddine might not be wizened, I do not know, I have never met him I have only met him through his stories and let me assure you he is a magical word weaver Laying before me pieces of precious gold.Writing this and missing the book I ve spentthan a fortnight with it and I m going to miss it It was not a book I could gulp down in one gulp So many stories intertwined with each other that I couldn t read it in big doses, not if I did not want to become confused and I didn t So instead I kicked back and relaxed with the book like listening to a Haka...Once in a very long while comes along a book so magical that one wishes it would never end How perfect that Alameddine s The Hakawaiti is such a book The title refers to the practice of a school of Middle Eastern story tellers who would entertain, often appearing nightly but drawing a story out over years, people coming back again and again to hear the next part of the tale From the first line Alamaddine demonstrates himself to an heir to this great tradition, giving the reader a comfort that Once in a very long while comes along a book so magical that one wishes it would never end How perfect that Alameddine s The Hakawaiti is such a book The title refers to the practice of a school of Middle Eastern story tellers who would entertain, often appearing nightly but drawing a story out over years, people coming back again and again to hear the next part of the tale From the first line Alamaddine demonstrates himself to an heir to this great tradition, giving the reader a comfort that they are in the hands of a master story teller Listen, he begins Allow me to be your god Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining Let me tell you a story The narrative might sound complex in its description, but is executed so masterfully that one wants to weep Alameddine tells the story of Osama, the modern Lebanese scion of a prominent family, returning home to wait by his father s death bed Through this framing narrative, the reader is guided through all sort...This is going to be a very difficult review to write, because I don t want to influence anyone unfairly through my review, or scare anyone off from reading it Because here s the thing I gave up I didn t finish But I think it s a very good and worthy book Don t judge it based on me Here s what happened A few years ago I read several really glowing reviews of this book, and when I checked out plot summaries it seemed like a strong contender for something I would like It has a magical, almost This is going to be a very difficult review to write, because I don t want to influence anyone unfairly through my review, or scare anyone off from reading it Because here s the thing I gave up I didn t finish But I think it s a very good and worthy book Don t judge it based on me Here s what happened A few years ago I read several really glowing reviews of this book, and when I checked out plot summaries it seemed like a strong contender for something I would like It has a magical, almost fairy tale like tone, parallel storylines set in the present, the past, and the story, and some damn beautiful writing And not overwrought or snooty beautiful writing, either It s accessible and vivid and often lovely When it finally came up on the top of my reading list yes, it takes years I have a problem and I started reading, I readily acknowledged that ...It s not you, Rabih, it s me Or, rather, I just tried this at the wrong season There s as always the wonderful storytelling and the interweaving storylines suggest a larger purpose I might have cancelled the golf match, turned off the baseball game, let the weeds grow in the garden, and ordered take out, if this had been limited to the modern day narrator But when Fatima goes exploring, gets her hand ripped off and, whoosh, re attaches it, I was weary that there d soon be dragons Yo...I listened to 4 hours of 20 hours and 53 minutes..and then I gave up Why I was confused much of the time I didn t always know who was speaking I didn t know if I was listening to a story or the present time thread about Osama al Kharrat who was back in Lebanon because his father was dying Or was this now a shift to Osama s youth Also, I didn t know who was who Aunts and uncles and cousins I just couldn t keep them straight The characters are not properly introduced I was upset wh I listened to 4 hours of 20 hours and 53 minutes..and then I gave up Why I was confused much of the time I didn t always know who was speaking I didn t know if I was listening to a story or the present time thread about Osama al Kharrat who was back in Lebanon because his father was dying Or was this now a shift to Osama s youth Also, I didn t know who was who Aunts and uncles and cousins I just couldn t keep them straight The characters are not properly introduced I was upset when another new person popped up out of the blue It felt like I was supposed to remember them..but I didn t know who they were Had I forgotten them, or was I supposed to calm down and wait for an explanation Sorry, but I can take only so much confusion at the same time Further, I do not understand how the different threads are interconnected Why are we being told that and that How are ...The delightful story of Osama al Kharrat colourful Lebanese family interspersed with Arabian tales The family story flicks back and forth in time and there are stories within stories, but I didn t find it difficult to follow and it gave the book a beautiful richness.One of the main themes of the book is identity and the search for a hybrid identity without a conflicted identity The Hakawati alternates between a first person account of his contemporary Lebanese family life and imaginative stories Of these stories, one ongoing narrative is that of Baybars It s one of several Arabic oral epics, and his scenes from the epic of Baybars are great They show the...

• English
• 26 August 2017
Rabih Alameddine
• Hardcover
• 528 pages
• 0385664761
• Rabih Alameddine
• The Hakawati