Rock of Tanios

In what way or ways do you "connect" with the book The Rock of Tanios by Amin Maalouf? In what way is it accessible or familiar to you?

I find that I connect with the novel in several ways. For one, the writing style is very matter-of-fact, as if explaining a historical event based on documents and facts. This journalistic style of story-telling can get dull, but is always easy to read. Kfaryabda itself is aan actual village in Lebanon today, with an actual rock of Tanios. Also, throughout the novel, Amin Maalouf frequently uses Arabic terms such as kishk and binti. As an Arab reader, I understand what these words mean and hence have a better/fuller understanding of the plot and the different messages of the novel. Referring to the example of kishk, I immediately new that kishk was a certain food eaten by the Lebanese, and therefor had a shallow but certainly existant understanding of what Tanios-kishk might mean, even without reading further into the novel. Also, I can very much relate to the culture of the novel; the heirarchy, customs and rituals. The cooking of mighlieh for example is still practised today after the birth of a child. The way the Sheikh gets away with his sexual affairs is also a very cultural matter; it seems in the middle east, till today, the fault of the man is considreded far more acceptable than the fault of the woman. In that sense, i connect to the novel culturally and linguistically.