Your Story is Never About You

I liked the stories inside of stories and the never-ending quality of the stories. I assumed that the stories were going to be interrelated by the end, so I just trusted that assumption and plowed along even when i could not make a direct connection. I liked that the connections were not obvious, if there at all. I am not sure there were direct connections. It took me most of the novel to realize (i am slow) that the Hakawati was the son. Duh, he was telling the story, the only first person narrator in the book. And the story was about him, since the story was about everyone else. (See title of entry, which came from the novel).

I also liked that the stories were over the top mythologized, even or especially the contemporary "true' ones. "The only true event in that whole story, in all its versions, is that the man existed." No one's story is ever true, or complete, in and of itself. We retell, revise our own stories constantly as we re-shape, re-cast our identities and justifications for our interpretations of those stories. But it is not just our personal stories that matter. It is every story we here. They all inculcate themselves into our lives, helping to give it meaning through the interpretations we take from the stories we hear. Early in the novel, the narrator's grandfather, the hakawaiti, is fussing at Osama, "Here I am trying to infuse you with culture, my flesh and blood, my own kin." But Osama doesn't want to listen, to take the story as his grandfather is giving it to him. Yet the story still takes hold. Perhaps not in the way the grandfather intended. Later in the novel speaking about the Baybars story-line, "in almost al the remaining versions of the story, none of them are about Baybars. You see, the hakawaitis' audience is the common man who couldn't really identify with a royla, almost infallibel hero, so early on the hakawaits began to introduce characters that their audience could empathize with (p.441). The story is never really about the hero of the story, but more about the listener. What we take from the story that we are listening to, as well as the one we are making. The repetition of the word "listen" as the first and last words of the novel, as well as being repeated multiple times throughout the novel, I think, emphasizes the role of the listener/reader in the making of the story and the meaning that can be derived from the the story.

I also found it interesting, at one point (which I cannot find right now) there is a direct quote from Macbeth's witches from the beginning of Macbeth. When shall we three meet again, and what not which brings the idea of fate. Are we destined to live out our lives, as in a novel? Or do we have some agency? Or does the way we interpret the storylines that are given to us determine our fate, and in that act of interpreting lies our agency?

Overall, the book has caused me to think about things. Not necessarily in a new way, but it is still resonating with my thoughts/life since I finished it this morning. I imagine it will for awhile yet. That is if I am aware enough to listen.