I, The Divine
A Novel in First Chapters
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I, The Divine
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Narrated by:
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Mozhan Marno
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By:
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Rabih Alameddine
In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.
©2001 Rabih Alameddine (P)2014 Audible Inc.The idea of this novel is simply genius. Every chapter is a first chapter, and yet the story moves forward in a way that feels natural and intentional. It never feels like a trick. Instead, it feels like a writer constantly restarting, correcting herself, and trying again to tell her life the right way. With each new beginning, you can see how the voice shifts, how the style changes, and how her voice experiments with different ways of writing. Some chapters are sharp and funny, others are painful, fragmented, or brutally honest. That constant reinvention is one of the strongest parts of the book.
But beneath the clever structure, this is a deeply sad story. It is the story of Sarah, a woman who keeps trying to understand herself and her past, but can never fully escape the way she was raised. No matter how far she goes, emotionally or geographically, the weight of family, culture, and early trauma stays with her. Her relationship with her mother is especially haunting. It is controlling, cruel at times, and deeply damaging, and you can feel how it shapes Sarah’s self-image and her relationships with others.
What I really appreciated is how messy and imperfect Sarah is. She is not written to be likable all the time, and that makes her feel real. She can be selfish, bitter, defensive, and vulnerable, sometimes all at once. Her failed marriages, her struggles with identity, and her constant sense of displacement are portrayed without romanticizing them. The novel does not offer easy healing or neat closure, which fits the story it is telling.
The writing itself can be challenging in places, especially because the structure forces you to constantly reorient yourself. Some chapters are stronger than others, and a few felt more experimental than necessary. Still, even when a chapter did not fully work for me, I respected what the author was trying to do.
This book is not for everyone, and you’ll either LOVE it or hate it.
Devine
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