I did not like this book; I hated it. Had this book not been selected by the boo club's members, I probably wouldn't have finished it; I probably wouldn't have crossed the 200th page; the following 300 pages add nothing new to the story. It sapped the joy of reading out of me. I could not find anything original or smart in this book; I am Lebanese, and I can understand that readers of other nationalities, who never checked a Lebanese blog before, might find what is written informative. But to me, I don't read a work of fiction because it is informative; I love fiction because I like to experience the imagination of the author, to be dragged into a different world, and to enjoy the writing itself.This books offered none of the above; at times it felt like a reporter dispatching an article to be further trimmed; at others, it felt like the simple transcribing of past Arabic works of fiction, and I frequently asked myself whether the writer was insulting our intelligence.At the end of such a boring, long book, what irritates me is the knowledge that I lost some precious time which I could have used to read anything else from my TBR list! After reading a shortened version of "One thousand and one nights" I felt like reading somthing similar but a bit more modern and adapted to nowadays readers. Here is this book, set in Lebanon at different times in the last century, which combines the narrator's story along with his grandfather's, and along with fables and fantastic folkloric stories as well.The narrator's father was a storyteller, more commonly known as 'hakawati' in Lebanon. So from his point of view we get to know how his grandfather was born, how he was brught up, and how he became interested in stories and eventually became a hakawati. At the same time, we get to know Ossama's own story as he waits in a hospital in today's Beirut, awaiting his father's death.Two main fantastic stories are told on a parallel basis: Fatima's and her sons' one, and the warrior Baibars's one. Some of the stories I liked very much, others were less interesting to me. But what I liked the most was the setting in a country that feels totally foreign for me, a recreation on the stories told, the author's love toward popular literature and fables. I totally recommend it even if the modern reader may find some boring/uninteresting passages throughout the book.The ending also left me some open questions which I am gonna post in the proper place (not here since I don't want to make any spoilers).
What do You think about El Contador De Historias (2008)?
Brilliant book, a sort of modern Arabian nights.
—kate
