The Hakawati
As young Osama travels back to war-torn Beirut to his father’s hospital bed, he reflects on the stories that his parents, sister, uncles, and grandparents have always told. The al-Kharrat, his family, have a car dealership, and car salesmen, Rabih Alameddine amusingly contends, are the modern storytellers. The Hakawati is set in Lebanon, Los Angeles, and all over the Middle East, and it has a time frame that hops from 2003 to biblical times.
In the tradition of Arabian Nights, the Hakawati’s tales are wonderful. We witness the births, deaths, and missteps of successive generations of Osama’s family, starting with his grandfather, Ismail al-Kharrat, the Hakawati himself, “a teller of tales, myths, and fables…an entertainer.” But there are many other stories. There is beautiful, courageous Fatima, slave of an emir, who descends into the domain of jinns, seduces the powerful demon Afreet-Jehanam, and secures as her helpers a hilarious troupe of imps with a penchant for decorating spaces in clashing colors. There is the tale of Fatima’s sons, Shams and Layl, one a precocious prophet, the other his lascivious companion. There is the hero-king Baybars and his friends, the ex-bandit Othman, and his wife, the “luscious dove” Layla. There are poisonings, battles of heroes, pigeoneers wars, kidnappings by fiendish Crusaders, and a large array of marvelous creatures.
Stories, we learn, are useful to entice newborns to be born. They are the remedy against boredom and sorrow; they can move murderers to tears and shape a hero’s character in the womb. We also learn how to tell stories and what not to do. The stories are bite-size in length, but their wit and humor is monumental. This is a delightful book, cover to cover.
