I, the Divine, Rabih Alameddine

In grad school we had to produce 3-5 pages of critical writing a week on a book we were assigned. This meant that we read a book a week and handed in a small critical papers about each work. I like the idea of this because it turns that fluffy novel you are reading into something important and you tend to gravitate towards books that you can actually say something about. When I look back on the vast amount of critical writing I did (which is a very structured style so different from my personal writing or fiction writing) I remember the books quite fondly and the different levels at which I had to read them. Since most of the papers are quite short and focus on one theme within the book, they don't give a good clue to the emotional connection I had to that book.

There are a few stand out books that I read in order to produce these papers and "I, the Divine" was one of them. This book of beginnings came at a time where I was, possibly for only the second time ever, doing something completely my own and for me. I did not realize what emotional upheaval this would cause and I was literally in the middle of it when I read this book. I remember thinking when I read it that my life too was a series of first chapters - beginnings - I just didn't realize at the time how very close together those beginnings would be.

Here is the paper I wrote - a little dry, wholly unemotional (as, I am told, good critical papers should be) and a bit mediocre as they go (can't hit a home run with ever grad school diatribe)

Please go out and read this book - actually read all of his books


I, the Divine by Rabih Alameddine

A juxtaposition of form against content is how Alameddine experiments in I, the Divine. By giving the reader successive first chapters in a supposed failed attempt by the subject and fictitious author, Sarah Nour el-Din to write her memoir, Alameddine gives the reader a cunning story within a story while propelling the novel with partially revealed substance. I, the Divine subtly states information by mentioning items in one chapter, but leaving them out in the next. However, even though this information is missing, the reader is still aware of the prior chapters, which leads to a deeper understanding of the novel.
The novel opens, as all novels do, with Chapter One. However, each succeeding chapter is similarly named. For the first few chapters the content really does feel like a Chapter One might feel. The old content is either discarded or expounded upon for subsequent chapters. The reader gets newly pulled into each Chapter as though they were opening a fresh new title. What the reader learns, however, becomes subtlety more important as the book proceeds. The form of the successive first chapters gives way to the emotional and physical content of the narrative and to what is retained by the reader allowing the “First Chapters” to become much more then an introduction.
A good example of what the reader learns and retains, which makes for greater understanding later, is the story of how the author Sarah, born in Lebanon, gets such an unusual name. This story also gives insight into her family and her own character. Chapter One on page one starts “My grandfather named me for the great Sarah Bernhardt. He considered having met her in person the most important event of his life.” This seems like a relatively benign start though it is the very first First Chapter and the reader does learn that one of the most important things in her grandfather’s life becomes somewhat of a definition of her life as well. Then in Chapter One on page fifty-nine the reader, though this is also a first chapter, finds out a bit more. “I grew up infatuated with Sarah Bernhardt, having been named after her by my grandfather. My stepmother considered this obsession, for what is was, to be dangerous. She objected to my grandfather filling my head with stories of the great actress, thinking they would lead me astray.” This tells the reader that the stepmother is somewhat at odds with the grandfather. That information is more resonant with the reader because they have also found out that the grandfather finds that meeting to be a defining moment in his life. This sets tension that would, if these really were first chapters, would not be present in the same way. The reader is then treated with further knowledge of the author Sarah’s standing with her grandfather in Chapter One on page seventy-seven “My grandfather, Hammoud, named me for the great Sarah Bernhardt. He was infatuated with her. Since he chose my name, stamped me, I immediately became his favorite granddaughter.” This information sets the stage for even further tension and conflict within the family unit. Other first chapters go on to teach the reader that the stepmother is a true outsider to the family and that the grandfather, who is her father’s father, is somewhat tyrannical and mean to everyone except the granddaughter he named which gives her a special place in the family but one that is not appreciated by her stepmother or her sisters.
The primary interest in the form of first chapters is that the content is not only constantly changing but also building upon itself. Even though the story of how the author Sarah got her name begins the novel and is interspersed throughout the text as First Chapters on their own and parts of other chapters, there are several other important stories that the reader is reintroduced to in succeeding chapters but still learns something different with every “first”. Not just the content but also the form itself gives further insight into the character. A sense she has had many false starts. Perhaps a sense she is not sure where her life is going or that she is unable to tie her disparate feelings together.
The penultimate First Chapter starting on page 277, like the first First Chapter is a story about her name and ties both the form and content together in a neat package allowing the reader to feel like they’ve come full circle within the narrative. It brings in each of the major aspects brought up in each successive naming chapter plus new details that let the reader look at the incident in a new way but a way informed by the previous content. “When my grandfather saw me for the first time … he greeted me with. ‘Welcome to my world, my little Sarah.’”
These successive first chapters successfully weave content through the form allowing the reader to gather meaning while still being confronted with new substance. Propelled by substance yet immersed on form I, the Divine is a perfect balance of a story within a story.