Damascus Nights

While bored at The White Pine today I picked up one of Caleb's books hoping to find something to entertain me on this slow day. The book I chose to start was one called Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami, and it has so far (78 pages) been a very rewarding choice. Lately I have been constantly listening to the latest MeWithoutYou album "It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright!" which has a few very meaningful songs written in the old Eastern storytelling style. Listening to this has caused me to be more interested in reading old fables and parables, so when I saw this book in Caleb's book corner I decided to check it out. The story is about a man who is the town of Damascus' best storyteller. He has a community of good friends who meet at his house every night to hear his stories. One night a woman's voice wakes him from his sleep to tell him that she is his story telling fairy, that it has been her all along that has helped him to be such a great story teller. She then tells him that she has to leave and take his voice with her, and that the only way to regain his voice is to receive seven certain gifts within three months. His friends attempt to find these seven gifts with food, perfumes, wines and many other items. What they finally decide is that the gifts must be stories told by the seven friends to the man who has been telling them stories throughout the years. So far I have read one of their fables and am looking forward to the remaining six that make up the rest of the book.

The first story had a character that not only had lost his voice, but also every method of communication. He sold his entire voice (vocal, gestural, and even his eyes were silent) so to feed his wife, who married him because she loved his beautiful voice. The story then became a three way chase with the man chasing the wizard who bought his voice and the wife chasing the husband whom she still loved. I wouldn't want to reveal too much of the story because it is definitely worth reading for yourself.

What I want to say about this book so far is that it really does illuminate the importance of good storytelling. It is interesting to me to read a story that is written incredibly down to earth, but also completely mythical at the same time. The way the author presents the story is in a way where none of the characters are shocked by or in disbelief of the stories being told. The stories are spiritual and meaningful, yet completely false and impractical. Now, I understand that this is certainly not a new type of writing, and that it is in fact probably one of the oldest forms of fiction in history, but it interests me how little we hear these types of stories as adults. As children we hear mythical tales all the time through numerous types of media, but as adults in our culture we seldom hear these types of parables and take them seriously. Probably most of the mythical stories that Disney has turned into full length cartoons were originally written for adults and children alike, and written to be seriously considered instead of merely enjoyed as a novelty. Obviously the subtle ways we disengage ourselves from the importance of storytelling is a major divide between Eastern and Western cultures, but it is still strange to me how easily we write off the childish fiction of a man selling his voice to a wizard as something to laugh at or a method of teaching children morality. Perhaps if our culture embraced mythology as a core learning tool for all ages we would be better as a whole at virtuous things like honesty and forgiveness, and perhaps learn to value the things we have like our ability to communicate with one another.