“In his head, of course, Salim had always known that a story needs at least two people in order to live, but only now did he feel this in his heart.”

Damascus Nights took me a terribly long time to read -- two months. I'm not quite sure how that happened. I think it's because of the structure of the book, as it was more like a series of short stories, so I didn't feel much urgency or a pull to return to it outside of the occasional spare moments.

This is a book about the art of storytelling, and of the nature of stories itself. Rafik Schami and his characters exude a love for it, for words and tales.

"Writing is not the voice's shadow but the tracks of its steps. Its only thanks to writing that we can listen to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians even today, that we can hear their voices as full of life as if they had just spoken. My friend, only writing has the power to move a voice through time, and make it as immortal as the gods."

I'm not so concerned about the achievement of immortality through writing. But what a wonder it always is to sit down and read something from another time and place. A transmission of thoughts and emotions from one mind to another. Sometimes you forget how special that is.

“I didn't know what a word was really worth until I traveled abroad and lost my voice. Words are invisible jewels; the only people who can see them are the ones who've lost them.”

I've felt this way.

This book made me curious about what it's like to be in the audience for a long oral story. Sit and listen. Meet someone who's actual profession is storyteller. The closest experience I have is audiobooks. But I suspect there's something different in the experience of listening to a tale that alters slightly each time the teller tells it, that is perhaps not written down but only in memory.