About
Author: Rafik Schami (Syria)
Genre: Fantastical
Setting
Place: Damascus
Time: 1940-60s
My Rating (see what this means)
My Subjective Rating: 3
My ‘Objective’ Rating: 2.15
Introduction
Salim, the protagonist in Rafik Schami’s Damascus Nights, suddenly loses his voice one day. That cannot be good news for a story-teller – but turns out this makes for a perfect opportunity for his close friends to instead stop being listeners and tell stories of their own.
Damascus nights follows these 7 old men stories – as they conjure up stories, both real and fantastical, to help their old friend find his voice back.
Review
To rate a collection of short stories – I typically, after I have finished reading them – revisit their endings to –
- See if they were memorable enough and
- To find a common theme tying them together
I couldn’t think of any such theme in this hybrid of a novel and short story collection.
Neither does this novel meet the other ‘objective’ parameters I use to rate my books – for instance – the kid narrator wasn’t necessary to the story and a third person omniscient narrator would have worked equally well – the book practically switched between them. Likewise – most of Salim’s friends – the 7 story tellers – don’t have a very impressionable personality and it was quite easy to confuse one for the other.
But, these objective metrics aside – I still quite enjoyed the book. It has a fairy tale quality to it – and it was humbling in the sense that my ‘objectivity’ has its limits. After all, as the sweet ending to the book suggests – sometimes a nice little story is enough to forget the cares of the world.
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